Super Rachel Zana's Spot

These images are actually from a couple of weeks ago, and just getting posted now because the image card they were on was accidentally left in North Dakota at my mother-in-laws, along with my camera for two weeks.  She tried mailing the card, but it was temporarily lost in the…

I literally took hundreds of pictures of our host daughters experiencing Lake Superior in its chilly summer glory for the first time, but I am not able to share most of those pictures publicly.  However, here are a few pictures from last Sunday night that I am allowed to share.…

Mr. Trouble on Feet has been helping our blue house neighbors with their vegetable garden.  He loves these neighbors with all his heart, and they are super patient with his long winded conversations and always willing to take a little time to help him play with their dogs and ride…

They’ve arrived, and we’ve had a truly fantastic first week!  We’ve never been able to rehost before, so it was so delightful to see these girls run right back into our home and look for all their favorite things. Things have gone so much more smoothly so far as well,…

Food can be a crazy thing, but we have been blessed with host children who are not picky eaters, and actually are excited to try new things.  It probably helps that a lot of our food around here is quite plain, and not too different from the food that they…

When we were preparing for our very first host child a year and a half ago, everyone in our family was very apprehensive about how we would communicate with a little girl who only spoke Russian.  My neighbor who had more hosting and international adoption experience was there to encourage…

It’s no secret that around here we love Mo Willems’ Elephant and Piggie books.  In fact, at this point, I think we own every single Elephant and Piggie book that is in existence, along with the new books by other authors that are “friends” of Elephant and Piggie.  Even my…

The girls we hosted from Latvia during December last winter are coming back to spend five weeks with us this summer!  They are set to arrive next week, and we are very much anticipating their arrival. Their situation is very complicated, and there are many complex parts that I just…

  While Cousin Alex was visiting for Camp Aunt Rachel, we visited the sandy beach and brought along YaYa’s friend, an exchange student from Austria.  (A very patient and polite exchange student who clearly can put up with a lot of crazy!). The girls were off for a stroll along…

A week ago, when I picked up Cousin Alex from the cabin, we got back to Duluth a bit after the sun had set.   But I was determined to go to the beach anyway, so we stopped on our way back to the house.  We arrived at the beach…