Adoption: A Family Choice
Our Home

We just had to include a picture of our new puppy first. Prince is 3/4 Golden Retriever and 1/4 Yellow Lab. We bought her when she was about 6 weeks old, from a pet store...big mistake. She was a sick little puppy, and we had to put her in the hospital for 3 days. The store had to pay the bills, but it was emotionally hard on all of us. This picture was when she was still pretty tiny. Now, at 5 months of age, she is 3 times bigger, but still quite a bit smaller then most pups her age. We have started puppy training classes with me/mom, Janice, and Roger.

Left: Our front yard, way in the back is our hot tub and huge wading pool. Our house is (unseen)to the left of the picture. Right: There are actually 3 stories to our home, but the 3rd floor is just an attic at this time. We hope to add another dormer window, when the money starts growing on one of our trees, ha, ha.

Spring time is so beautiful in our city. We decided to try a small pond, to see if it would be too much work to later put in a larger one. We found we love it. There are some mosquito eating fish (there's a lot of those here), and even 3 or 4 pollywogs that we got for free at a nursery. The kids love watching them...and sharing their toys with them, ha, ha. We have many rhododendroms (I had to check the spelling on that), and azaela's here, and they are absolutely beautiful!!


People are always asking about our home, so here's a little about it (actually a lot, it's awfully hard for me to use only a few words, ha, ha). Yes, there are 10 bedrooms!! We bought our home several years ago. It was the original home in our part of town, and one owner used the 2nd story to repair parachutes during the war. He also had an office at the far end of one wing and used it to repair airplane engines. We spent a couple of years studying books, and talking with people, and then decided to complete the upstairs. There were already a couple of bedrooms, but we wanted to add a couple more in the unfinished area, and add a bathroom. We did most of the work ourselves, and had a professional electrician do the main/most important part of the wiring.

This is, obviously, a closeup of our fountain sculpture that is in our little "trial" pond. One day, the little ones came running in the kitchen, and yelled, "Mom, mom, come quick...a huge frog is in the recreation room." When I went in, sure enough, there in a corner was a pretty big frog. The poor thing was in the far corner from the door. He must have been just about scared to death. We found a box, captured him, and put him in our pond. We see him once in awhile, but haven't heard him yet. There is a very loud sounding frog/toad near our hot tub, but we haven't seen him yet. Roger was actually afraid to go in the hot tub because of the croaking, ha, ha. We finally convinced him it was safe, the frog would not jump out and land on him.

Easter Sunday, 2000. Some of us just before church...in our front yard (our tent trailer is in the background, we absolutely love tent trailer camping. We used to use 3 tents, and still had a couple sleep in the van for the past 15 years of camping. Since we now have a tent trailer, we will never go back to tent camping again. It is so nice having warm running water, a small refrigerator, and even a heater.) Anyway, these darling kids are: back row, left to right, Martha (17), Dorothy (26 & who is 3rd year teacher living in another city), Doug (19), and Jay (19). Front row, left to right: Rita (5), Marc (7), Roger (4) and Sandy (almost 3).

Our back porch is quite large, and we usually have three picnic tables with unbrella's all ready for a great meal. In the summer, we eat out there a lot. It's easy to just use the hose to clean up, ha, ha.

Now, for the downstairs. There was one room with two small windows, and an outside wall of cupboards that was quite dark. So, we took out the cupboards, and added a wall of windows. This room is now light and airy, and is used as a library/study/computer room. It also has a TV and stereo, copy machine, scanner, printer & piano. This room also is kept locked because of the art materials (crayons, paint, etc) and tech things like 2 computers. This room is now called our family room or office.

We have 2 full bathrooms downstairs also. Our laundry room is huge. It has room for 2 washers, 2 dryers, space to hang up clean clothes, and shelves for each person's bucket for clean clothes. Each older child is responsible to daily take their clean clothes to their rooms (but, these are real kids, and that doesn't always happen, so the buckets get pretty full at times). There are also locked cupboards for bleach, detergent, etc. When we put in the 2nd washer, the plumber told us that the original pipes lay on the ground, and literally fell apart when he started to disconnect one. So, we had to have the whole bunch of pipes replaced!!

The original 2 wall ovens were pretty small, and as time went by one stopped working all together, and the second one worked when it felt like it. We did not have enough money to have them replaced, so just lived with it for several years. It's amazing how many things can be made in a crock pot, electric frying pan, etc. A couple of years ago, we heard that there was funding for families with children who are handicapped, to get things they needed. We applied for 2 large wall ovens, and was granted about 80% of the needed funds!! So, now we can bake cookies, which is an absolute necessity for family memories.

We try to have family potlucks every two months, and of course every major holiday. They are always held at our home, since we have the biggest house. This is one of the potlucks, where we invited some friends also. I think there were over 50 people at this one. We kind of spread out all over...the front yard, the back yard, the kitchen/dining area, and the recreation room. Oh yes, and some just have to watch every basketball, football and soccer game, so there are always some in the living room.

Our kitchen is kind of ordinary, there are 5 stools at a counter (the type that are hooked to the floor) which is great because there are few tables large enough to fit all of us. The dining area is part of the kitchen also. There is also room for a small/short table for 2-4 kids. I/mom built it and we use it for meals and for art projects. It sits next to a window overlooking the front yard. Dad recently bought a bunch of bird feeders, and one is at the top of this window. The kids love watching the birds!! Our kitchen seems to be the hub of activity all the time. Along the top edge of the walls, are pictures of the kids, mostly old pictures, the kinds that teens don't always like though. I collect inter-racial angels, and have them hung up all over the place (mostly the type that are on Christmas trees, but I love them too much to not look at them all year). At first we had a hard time convincing the little ones that they weren't toys to bump around. Now, they don't even pay attention to them.

Janice is learning to walk home from school with her mobility specialist. In Oregon, the weather isn't the best for walking in the winter, but now that spring is here, there are lots of opportunities to learn. Janice's brother and sister love to pretend they need to use a cane, so use sticks as their cane. Janice had just come up our long driveway. It is about 500 feet long and has flowering bushes and trees on each side. It is so pretty!!

Another funding problem. When Marc was 6 (he is now 8)he loved the movie "George of the Jungle." His balance was great, and he often would climb on his low dresser (3 feet tall), and jump off it. One day, though, he yelled out "Watch out for that tree," as he jumped...and swung out his arm. It hit the window, which was thin, plate glass, and sliced his arm from elbow to wrist, all the down to tendons and an artery. His muffled cry, even though quiet, screamed out to Dad and me. We ran and I looked, horrified at his arm. It was barely bleeding, though, but the slice had split open about 1/2 inch. I grabbed a blanket, and wrapped it tightly, ran with him to the phone and called 911. Marc was still barely crying, just a whimper.

When the ambulance came, they noticed that he wasn't crying, wasn't in shock, and said they could put a bandaid on it and we could take him to our doctor. That was before they saw it. I said, "I think maybe you better look at it. I don't think a bandaid will work." We unwrapped the blanket, and their eyes just about buldged out. They said, "We will take him in the ambulance to the emergency room." Marc was beginning to get a bit white, but there was still very little bleeding. At the emergency room, they quickly put him to sleep, and stitched him up...over 35 stitches. The glass clipped on artery, but it was a clean cut going slightly across the artery, rather than down the artery. And...the cut was very straight, not jagged. Marc still has the stuffed duck the ambulance drivers gave him, and he takes it with him every time he has brain surgery. Once again, we checked with the developmental disabilities people, and they came up with most of the money (we could pay for part). Boy, are we thankful for the help. Now all our lower windows downstairs and upstairs, are safety glass!!

Over the past few years, I have been collecting African American dolls for Rita. For awhile, we kept them on her shelf in her room, but like all kids feel "dolls are for playing." So, we had to put some of the more delicate ones away until she is older. This is her dresser in her room.

Jay is standing by our hot tub. I designed the structure around it. The middle third of the roof, is canvas that can be rolled back. We like the shade when the sun is hot, but in the evening it is fun to sit in the hot water, watching the stars. One winter, I woke the kids up at about 2 AM. They all had their swimming suits under their warm clothes. For the past two days snow fell, and that evening the snow made the air quiet and the moon made the night seem bright. We went on a walk through the neighborhood (trying so hard not to make a sound), then we went in the hot tub. At about that time the snow started to fall again, in huge flakes. It was so fun to feel the cold snow on your face, and be sitting in the hot tub!!

Our back yard is huge, with lots of tall trees that keep losing leaves that we have to rake up for hours each fall. We have two sandpiles (which sticks to hair that has been freshly oiled), a three-level balance beam, one tire swing, two other swings, a two level chin up bar, a slide, a trampoline, a thether ball pole, flowers all around, and a special swing. It is kind of hard to describe this swing. I saw a picture of one in a magazine, but it was quite expensive. I knew I could make one for a lot cheaper. The "seat" is just a round piece of wood. A thick rope is tied to the middle of the "seat" and I tied the other end of the rope to a strong spring (high up, out of reach of fingers and hair). The kids can then stand on the seat or sit on it, and bounce up and down and twirl around, while swinging back and forth. It is even fun for mom's like me. There are also several picnic tables, and a homemade barbeque which we made from discarded bricks.

Our treehouse. Under it is a sandpile, and beside it is a swing on one side and swinging bars on the other side. We haven't added a roof yet, because the kids like it better this way. When they sleep up there, they like to see the stars. Even our two medium sized dogs love to go up there, when we let them out of their huge (25 feet long) dog run.

Our church's youth group used to come in the summer and worked on a project for us. One year they painted the interior of our home. Another time they built these 3-level balance beams. The kids love playing chase games on our 3 level balance beams. They also use it for extra seating. We sure are thankful for their help.

Another year the youth group built our wading pool. When we bought our home there was a large concrete slab for an above ground pool. We decided to build a 3 foot deep wading pool. It is now 17 foot square, and warmed by the sun. A friend gave us a plastic slide, and we bought a used filter. The youth group used cement and concrete blocks to build the pool. We then used acid to "etch" the sides and bottom, used many gallons of primer, and then several layers of swimming pool paint. We use it almost all summer. Actually, the kids have already used it 3 times this year.

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