Janel & Ryan

We’re working our way through the pictures from our trip to California for Janel and Ryan’s wedding.  We’ll post pictures as we get them ready to show.  This first set is from the rehearsal dinner, which was fantastic!  We were blessed with good company and great food.  Janel and Ryan have a great group of friends.  We also enjoyed spending some time (although not enough) with Ryan’s parents.

Click the picture to see more.

After only three weeks, Daniel’s cast came off and his arm was declared healed.  He’ll still need to be careful for a few more weeks to ensure he does not  re-injure it, but we’re grateful that he no longer needs the cast.  Here are some pictures from the doctor’s office.  Click the picture shown to see more.

Sylvia Lake

Mike and Mary hosted the Averill Family Reunion at Sylvia Lake this weekend.  The setting was beautiful and we all had a great time, although the weather could have been a bit better (I don’t know how many times I heard, “this’ll burn off in a few minutes and the sun will come out”).  Family members enjoyed canoeing on the lake, swimming and fishing.  And, as with most family reunions, there was no shortage of great food.

We didn’t take as many pictures as we typically do, but we got a few good ones.  Click on the one shown to see more.

Below is a short video of David’s fish.

We’ll be posting more about Janel and Ryan’s wedding after we’ve had some time to sort through the pictures and video, but we thought we should say a couple things here.
To start… it was FABULOUS!!! Janel and Ryan did a terrific job of planning it out. Their friends and supporters were amazing in all their help. Virtually everyone involved, including photographer, pastor, hairstylist, cake maker, etc., etc., was a friend of the bride and groom. Janel was a beautiful bride and the entire wedding party looked great. The reception was one of the best parties around and the food was delicious.
Our trip was great and the boys were fantastic. They enjoyed the reunion with Tyler and Tanner, as well as meeting Jake & Brady, Sary-Jo’s mom, and many others. We had been concerned about how they would react to the chaos that is inevitable, but they handled it with tremendous grace. They were poised for photos and well-behaved the entire time.
As stated above, we’ll post more later.

We knew that life with boys would be different than life with girls.  In fact, last year we discussed the likelihood that we would become familiar with the ER and, more specifically, broken bones.  We realize that girls do this also (Sarah had broken her nose and a thumb on separate occasions), but it never seems to be a surprise when an active boy breaks a limb.

CHI, which was our international agency (not the one that did the homestudy) held its annual picnic in Bellingham, Washington. We had an opportunity to see our in-country representative, Abdissa, for the first time since we returned from Ethiopia last September.  Abdissa runs the CHI organization in Ethiopia and he is a wonderful man of God.  He was quite amazed at how much the boys have grown and we all (especially the boys) were thrilled to see him again.

Click on the picture to see a few more.

Daniel and David enjoyed their first Independence Day celebration.  As in many previous years, we went to Don & Kathleen Olson’s home to enjoy the huge fireworks show at Lake Tapps.  However, because we had arrived home late on the 3rd from Hawaii, we spent only a couple hours there.  After the show, we came home to light off a few fireworks of our own.  The boys behaved perfectly and we had a great time.  Click the photo to see more.

Mom and boys

We were pleased to be able to return to Hawaii – this time joined by Jankel, Venita, Tyler and Tanner.  The cousins were excited to meet each other and quickly bonded.  All eight, but especially the four boys, basically lived in the water and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  Randy and Jankel were able to get in a couple rounds of golf while the moms pulled kid duty. 

Daniel and David demonstrated tremendous growth as they were able to see good family behavior modeled day in and day out.  By the end, we think our boys showed more progress than they had in the previous several months.  Their understanding of cultural and family norms leaped forward in ways we could not have expected.  What a blessing!

Also, the parents enjoyed themselves.  We don’t get together often enough, but when we do it seems as if we had never been separated.

In the evenings, we held a Mexican Train tournament with the kids edging out the parents for bragging rights.  We will get them next time!!!

Click the picture to see more (lots more).  We’ll work on getting some video posted, but for now all we have ready are the photos.

June 9 was one of the rainiest days in Puyallup.  It was also the date selected as Field Day for the Karshner Tigers.  Despite the downpour, the kids had a great time playing.  Here are a few pictures of the boys enjoying themselves.  Click on the picture shown to see the others.