Final pictures of time with Tepes and David

When the boys first arrived, we showed them Jeff's bike and asked if they wanted to go for a ride. They both quickly said "no, too dangerous!" Wanting them to experience as much as possible while in our home, we encouraged them to go with Jeff around the neighborhood. Claire went first to show them it wasn't scary. We could not wipe the smiles off these boys faces when they returned after a ride with Jeff! It was so fun to see!

 The boys wanted to cook for us on their final night here. David brought his favorite meal over from China called Hot Pot. It is a very spicy sauce you cook in water and add chicken, potatoes, and stirfry veggies to. It was fun to see them in their element and they chowed down on every last bit. Jeff and I had to get many glasses of water to get it down due to it being so spicy! The boys insisted that it was only " a little bit" spicy....I don't think I would want to try their normal spicy!

 Claire made the boys some going away gifts. She made them each a penguin out of beads,

 a rainbow loom bracelet, and she wrote them each a card telling them how much fun she had with them and how she will miss them. I think the boys each took the cards to heart and will treasure them.

 Our sweet "family" for 10 days. We had to say goodbye this morning and when Tepes was giving us hugs, he started crying. It broke my heart. I really feel God placed the perfect two boys with our family and I believe God will work wonderful things into these precious kids lives. The church provided each child with a Bible that is in English and Chinese. We spent many evenings talking about God and Jesus and the Bible. Tepes was often found reading the Bible while waiting to eat or waiting to go somewhere. He sent us a text today saying that he finds the Bible very interesting and he will continue to read it! Be still my heart...to get a 13 year old boy who has never heard of Jesus to be interested in learning more just goes to show me that this was the perfect placement for our family! God is moving and working and I am so blessed to be a stepping stone in Tepes life to introduce him to the Savior! We plan to keep in touch via text and I look forward to growing these boys in Christ!

Tepes and David- just like brothers to Claire

After spending the weekend together, the three kids got pretty comfortable with each other. It wasn't long before they were all wrestling in the pool! Claire really grew fond of having "brothers" very quickly. She didn't hesitate to joke with them and join in on chasing them around the house!

 I think this was the first time the boys had ever been on a trampoline and they loved it!

 As you can see, the boys quickly became a part of our family!

Glow Zone with David and Tepes

We took the boys to Glow Zone, an indoor black light place that has go karts, ropes course with zip line, mini golf, arcade, laser maze and tag, some rock walls, and a ninja warrior course. We had a blast! The boys were pretty hesitant to try go karts but went out and did it and got comfortable fairly quickly! We could tell they were a bit afraid to try the new things like the ropes course and zipline, but they conquered their fear and tackled it all!

Tepes and David from China

We were blessed to host two 13 year old boys from China for the past 10 days. They were on a Chinese exchange program and got to see New York, Washington DC, and Philadelphia before arriving in Houston. Tepes spoke fairly good English, David not very much English at all. Thank goodness for Google Translator app on our phones!

We all had so much fun while they were here. The first evening they gave us some gifts, one of the gifts being chopsticks. We got some lessons on how to use them properly!

 After lots of laughs and some corrections in our holding of the chopsticks, we were able to pick up things from the ground!

 We were able to play many games with the boys and they picked up quickly. One game they liked was Tsuro.

 Friday evening the church hosted a BBQ and dance. We put our chopstick skills to work and ate with only chopsticks! It was a bit of a struggle but we managed! No chance of eating too fast this way!

 Here the boys are showing Claire how to fix her hold so she can grab the food easier.

 After eating, the DJ lead all the families in some line dancing fun. Everyone was a great sport and tried their best. We had lots of laughs!

Happy 4th of July!

Our church had this cool balloon display so of course we had to get a picture for the holiday!

 Last night we went to a Houston Dynamo soccer game. We were one of the families chosen to carry the United States flag out onto the field! It was huge and took over 50 people to carry! We got out onto the field, got it opened up all the way and were just about to start the National Anthem when we were told to quickly roll it up and get it off the field because there were storms coming in. After we got the flag put away, the storms appeared and we were not able to watch any soccer. It was a pretty cool experience and we are thankful we got to be a part of it! Hopefully someday we can actually watch a soccer game there!

Visiting MeMaw and PawPaw

We had so much fun visiting these wonderful people who have become a part of our family! Claire got a 3D puzzle and gift card for her birthday. Good thing PawPaw looked on the box of the puzzle for website directions or we would have never figured it out!

 On Saturday we went to the Children's museum and had a great time exploring!

 Claire got to run a restaurant,

 play cashier,

and work on her robotics technique!

 Then she was able to convince MeMaw and PawPaw to experience a tornado!

 It turned out to be quite the hair-raising experience!

 Claire built a rainbow on the giant Lite Brite board,

tried on some crazy hats in the gift shop,

 and went panning for gold. Unfortunately she only found some rocks but had a fun time looking at them and finding out which ones they were.

That evening we went to Kilgore to watch some dirt track stock car races! Jeff and I use to go lots in Minnesota and wanted Claire to try them out. 

We each picked a car we thought might win the race and cheered for them. It was fun to see Claire get super involved in the races and she really enjoyed it when someone had a blow out! 

Schlitterbahn June 2018

For her birthday this year, Claire chose to go to Schlitterbahn with a friend. She brought one of her very best friends, Karsen, with and we all had a wonderful time! Two amazing days with great weather and not too long of lines for the rides. As you can see from the pictures, everyone had a blast! She may just choose to do this every year for her birthday!