Harvest party 2009

Well the kids had a fun time on Wednesday evening. Juliana commented, "why do all the adults have to stay upstairs and pray?" Cuz that's what happens when you grow up! Juls chose to be Queen Esther AGAIN - merely because it means you can dress up pretty and have makeup on! Sarabeth got an idea from a friend at church who said, "you would be so cool as an egyptian with your long, dark hair" - little did I know the original idea came from Grace who was going to be Moses mother/Pharoah's daughter. So instead of being her, Grace got to make up Sarabeth and we all added something to her costume ... she looked very Egyptianey! Nathan and Jeremy just waited till they got to church and pulled out a cloak from the costume boxes - Nate was Luke and Jeremy was John.

Juls also just got some glasses!! She has always been nose-glued to the computer and complained recently that she couldn't see a picture in the book I was holding up across the table from her. Turns out she has the worse eyes of anyone in the house! The whole world has changed for her - but she doesn't like them on her nose - they "tickle me" she says.

Mary

First snow Oct 12!

We have lived here in Iowa for almost 14 years - NEVER has snow showed up so soon. It was a very cool summer, then a nice month or so of fall - and the cold weather hit way too early. It was a Monday morning, but I let the 4 littles go "play" awhile thinking it would all be gone very soon. HA! It snowed nearly all day!

Mary

UNO

The kids love playing UNO. Nathan has finally found out that the game itself is actually fun and he doesn't HAVE to win to enjoy himself. This has increased our pleasure in the game, too - no crying, whining children at the table anymore. Even Caitlin, when she got stuck between the younger sweet sisters, Sarabeth and Juliana .... who morfed into the deadly Draw 2/Draw 4 duo and pounded poor Cait - she just kept on smiling! And Juls just giggled and sighed when she forgot to say, "Uno" and got stuck with 4 extra cards .... actually after what she did to Caitlin, we were glad to quickly yell uno and stick her with her extra cards!

Game night is always fun - and always too short for the littles.

Mary

Jeremy's new arm/hand

We went to Shriners Oct 7/8 and Jeremy rec'd his first prosthetic. We did not expect an actual hand, but rather a type of utility tool to aid him in some life skills. So in some ways we were excited to see this neat little hand, but questioned if it was going to actually help him the ways we had hoped.



Jeremy was very thrilled to actually pick things up and pinch them for the first time with only one extremity. If he was sitting still waiting for the next thing to do, or while we were playing cards, you would catch him using the right hand to squeeze his left "blobby/appendage". This is something he could never do before - kind of like twiddling your thumbs, he will squeeze, release, squeeze, release. He astounded the Occupational Therapist with how quickly he learned to use the hand. The OT said it usually takes the entire first session (at least) for the child to learn what Jeremy learned coming up the stairs from the prosthetic room to the therapy room. He could pick up nearly anything she placed before him. She quickly shifted to teaching him how much pressure to squeeze with by placing various spongy blocks, balls on the table - then asked him to pick this one up without squishing it or pick this other one up and squish it completely. She would hold her hand, palm side up about 1-2 feet above the table and tell him to place it in her hand while maintaining the requested pressure. He accomplished each feat correctly the first time with every request. You will see in the video how he uses his left arm to pull on the cord to close the fingers - and the arm points out like a child with her tongue out to the side while carefully coloring! The OT and I caught this at the same time and just laughed.



I did ask him to give my nose a squeeze - BIG mistake!!! OUCH!! The hand is "at rest" in the open position so he must think and keep the tension to keep it closed. The "hands" that are at rest in the closed position and must be consciously opened are typically hooks - the therapist said children don't take as well to them due to how they look. It would be much easier for him to open on demand, close onto a toy (light saber, bat) and then be free to do what he wants with it - not having to maintain muscle control from the left to keep his right "hand" closed.



The OT said he needs an elbow joint to straighten or bend to do more things, but this is the first step in getting started with prosthetics. As well as he did with each task, the hand does not, unfortunately, help him with much of anything day to day. It does NOT help him eat, write, color or toilet. He can not pull down or pull up his pants while he has the hand on. So, he does not use it day to day. He will put it on and do some tasks as we ask him, but then it comes off. This is fine - the folks at Shriners know that he will likely do most things with his natural arms and only use a prosthetic for certain tasks. We have not found too many everyday tasks that the hand actually helps him do better yet. He had adapted so well previously. I do believe a longer prosthetic with a jointed elbow would help him more, but we don't return to Shriners until February. The waiting game. So we will continue to have him practice with what he has and master what he can. Then we will go to the next step next year.

Below you will see what Jeremy did right off the bat with the therapist. What a quick learner!!

Whatcha think, Charis???

Blessings,

Mary

Vera Bradley purses

A chance to win a Vera Bradley bag AND help us bring Christina home!!

A dear friend of mine from the adoption world is doing a fundraiser to help us bring Christina home. She is raffling off 15 Vera Bradley purses. For a chance to win AND help us bring Christina home go to http://www.hopeandhealingfororphans.blogspot.com/ .

PLUS I received several new pictures of Christina today!! That's always great to see!

If you are not interested in purses and still would like to help us bring Christina home, go to our blog for her www.afamilyforchristina.blogspot.com and give alittle to help alot with our Chip-in!

Mary : )

Adoption of Christina

It is with great JOY

we announce that we have

Pre-Approval (PA) from the
China officials to

pursue the adoption of

DuJie .... Christina

who lives atShepherd's Field Langfang Village!

It is a long God story in how we went from deferring to another family for the adoption of Gregg to pursuing the adoption of Christina who we have been sponsoring .... and John has been smitten with .... since last year. We met Christina in February 2008 while visiting The Village prior to adopting Jeremy - same time we met Gregg. Go to Christina's adoption blog link (on sidebar) to read the story behind this announcement. We are so happy to know that it is a pleasing thing to God to have this child placed into our family.Christina will be 10 on November 11th - our oldest child from China, but will always be our smallest .... her special need is that she has a form of dwarfism and presently stands at 38 inches tall and wears 3-4T clothes. I simply can't wait to send her a new outfit and the family photo album I have already put together for her - to let her know that SHE finally, after so very many years, now has a family of her own!

Spring 2009 Photo Gallery

An Easter morning photo of the kids: Grace (15) Caitlin (16)
Nathan (5), Jeremy (8), Sarabeth (9) and Juliana (5)



Mary and Juls coloring eggs


Grace, before she cut her hair


Nathan is a budding artist


Caitlin getting all the dye ready



Our spring project... all the living room carpet is out, awaiting the new carpet's installation


A thorough cleaning and getting the walls ready for paint

The walls aren't white anymore!


Tan paint goes onto the hallway walls


The offending light fixture, which overheated and caused an attic fire!


The Clear Lake fire department was out in force


Firefighters begin the cleanup


And what a mess it was!


We spent HOURS cleaning up the mess



Mary reads the birthday card Juliana made for her


Another homemade birthday card.... Happy 50th Momma!


Jeremy the swordsman in action!


Happy 9th birthday Jeremy


Wow. Jeremy cleaned up on his birthday!


Trying out his birthday basketball


Jeremy gets ready to help dad grill his birthday dinner


Caitlin, on her 17th BD!


Not as many presents as Jeremy got. Welcome to adulthood Cait!


But.... the adult type presents can be pretty sweet :-)


This is a Washburn guitar. It has a very rich sound. Needless to say, Caitlin was pleased!


Playing a song for her Dad.

Global Warming??

What a bizarre summer thus far. It has only hit 90 degrees on 3 days so far! According to Weather Underground, the temp at Mason City hit 90 on May 19, 93 on June 22 and 92 on June 23. So far in July, the high temperature for the month is 84 degrees on July 6. Today you ask? A brisk 71 degrees under a bright cloudless sky. Mary had to break out a sweatshirt this morning when it was a breezy 55 degrees.

This summer, we set up a 4 foot by 18 foot pool for the kids. We filled it over a month ago and they have only been in it 2 or 3 times. The water temp has not risen above 73 degrees because we just haven't had any HOT days!

More posts and pics to come soon!

John

Juliana is Toothless!

Juliana lost her first tooth today. It has been loose for several weeks and she's been wiggling and wiggling it. Today she came out of her room with a few tears in her eyes. She had wiggled it a bit much and the tooth was barely hanging on and was bleeding. Daddy got a tissue for Mom to "wipe away the blood" and voila! She did bleed for a while. As most of you know, Juls has had two open heart surgeries and is now on a baby aspirin daily, which means she bleeds a bit longer. She bit on a tissue for a while and after a few more tears, Juliana was all smiles!

Grace Turns 15

February 28, 2009: Grace is growing up so fast. She turned 15 today and we celebrated with a lasagna feast and birthday pie. Jeriah and Shawna were able to join us, as did the Cox family. It was an excellent dinner! Grace is in the 9th grade now and has been homeschooled the entire time. This year she is in a new curriculum called "Sonlight", which requires a LOT of reading. Grace is a reader who can devour whole books in a single sitting it seems. She says she is "tolerating" the Sonlight, as the reading consists of a lot of literature and she would rather be reading Star Wars or Narnia. Grace is currently planning on doing a missions trip to Idaho this summer with the youth from another church here in Iowa. She's looking forward to the opportunity to witness for Christ and see a different part of the country. She also will likely be trying to get her learner's permit this year. Keep us all in your prayers!

Happy Birthday Grace. We Love You!

Happy 9th Birthday Sarabeth!

January 31, 2009: We celebrated Sarabeth's 9th birthday today. She has been with us for just over two years now and we've been blessed by her addition to our family. This past year we were privileged to see Sarabeth come to know the Lord as her Savior and were excited to see her follow the Lord in believer's baptism. She is a quiet child and very well behaved. She enjoys helping out around the house and usually keeps her room very tidy. In school she does good in spelling, but not so much so in math. She has been taking piano lessons for a year and a half and is doing great in that. We enjoy listening to her practice! Sarabeth is an animal lover and really enjoys having our puppy Lizzie around the house.

Happy Birthday Sarabeth. We Love You!

Happy New Year- The Year of the Ox!

Welcome to the Year of the Ox. We celebrated the Chinese New Year today at our house. The kids spent much of their school day doing things like writing chinese characters, making chinese flags, decorating the kitchen in construction paper "Chinese Lanterns" and creating some new year's dragons for a parade around the kitchen and living room after dinner. Speaking of dinner---WOW! We made homemade pork egg rolls, beef "pot stickers", garlicly stir-fried green beans and some amazing chicken satay's. The chicken was marinated in a garlic-ginger-teriyake sauce before we skewered the meat and grilled it. The Cox family joined us for our "excellent new year adventure" and everything turned out great!


Lunch was "long" noodles (Raman noodles) which the Chinese believe signify longevity


The kitchen, decorated in Chinese lanterns

The dragon parade. This is Nathan's design, with Juliana's pink dragon just behind.

Sarabeth's dragon.

Nathan and Sarabeth parade through the living room.
The amazing chicken satay's

Welcome to Siberia!

This was the outside temperature at 8am this morning. Wind chills were even worse, at 45-50 degrees below zero. Thankfully, our house is warm and we are comfortable. It is NOT fun leaving work at 7:30am and having to get into a very cold car for the drive home!


The low tonight is again projected to be -23F. The NWS has issued the following warning:

A WIND CHILL WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 AM CST FRIDAY.

BITTERLY COLD TEMPERATURES AND A WIND OF 5 TO 10 MPH WILL CONTINUE TO PRODUCE DANGEROUS WIND CHILLS TONIGHT. EXPECT VALUES OF 30 TO 40 BELOW ZERO TONIGHT. BITTERLY COLD CONDITIONS WILL PERSIST THROUGH LATE FRIDAY MORNING.

Keep us in North Iowa in your prayers as we continue to deal with these very rough conditions.

Happy New Year!

Mary and I wish all of you a very Happy New Year. Whatever you're doing this evening, BE SAFE and may 2009 be a year of great blessings to each of you.

John

Christmas 2008

Merry Christmas! May your heart personally know the best gift ever given some two thousand years ago - the babe in the manger, our Lord Jesus Christ - given by God the Father at just the right time in history. It's not about our presents, the food, the gatherings, the tree and decorations and definitely NOT about Santa Claus ..... as little Juliana says, "We don't believe in Santa Claus, Mommy. We celebrate Jesus' birthday!" At the age of 5, she is surely not missing anything by not having Santa as the center of the holiday .... Holy Day ..... that is meant to celebrate the coming of our Messiah, in lowly human flesh, to eventually buy us back to Himself ... if we would only believe the unbelievable miracle of His salvation. His gift to us is signed, sealed, wrapped and delivered - not in His birth, but in His resurrection. We merely have to admit our need, realize there truly is no other way to enter Heaven and accept his gift - open it - experience it - believe it. I believe! Do you?

Grace, taken by Jeremy.

Mom, taken by Jeremy!

All Sarabeth truly wanted was the dollhouse.

Nathan, the Hulk!

Oh, wow, Bionicles!!

Ryrie study Bible - oh, yeah!

Ice fishing pole for Dad.

Jeremy, the Batman!

Sweet Juliana.

The first gift of Christmas 2008!

Christmas Eve dinner - yum!

Mom with the littles.

Christmas Eve we used to eat seafood - coming from Maryland, that is not an unusual thing. Crab cakes, steamed shrimp, sauteed scallops .... but getting good/fresh seafood is not as easy here in Iowa, so we have slowly, year to year switched menus. This year we went simple - with a spiral ham, roasted vegies (potatoes, sweet potatoes and carrots), breaded green beans and warm rolls. Jeriah and Shawna came in just prior to dinner. Strawberry slushies were a hit with everyone, especially the littles! For those of you who have seen our home before, note the new look of our kitchen - redesigned, painted, new lights .... I love it!

Mary with her "older" girls, Caitlin and Grace.

Sipping strawberry slushies while waiting for Jeriah/Shawna.

The littles with their new aprons that Lynn made for them.

The littles decorated rice krispie Christmas trees - Jeremy had to get the trick of picking up the tiny m&m's and figured out how to place them where he wanted them - then he was off. There is nearly nothing this kid won't try to do and usual accomplish! All the kids had a great time of it - showing us how each does things differently. Nate's rows of m/m's were all the same color; Juls set her m/m's really close together and took forever to get them done; Sarabeth did them exactly like Mom had shown them ..... not an individualist heart at all! : )

Yet another day of SNOW

The reason I am finally blogging is that today is a snow day - usually homeschoolers don't take snow days, but this is the last day before the Christmas break, so the youngin's begged me. Caitlin and Grace had things they just had to finish up, lest their brains forget before taking the next science test - and with the Sonlight curriculum, taking a break from reading will eventually make you wish you didn't, so, they did what they had to do. The 4 littles went outside this morning and can actually sled down our smallish hill by themselves - yeah!! Me, I decided to blog.

John is on nights this week - got off at 7am, home at 8am due to the snow that hit after 10pm last night. We got 7 inches or so. He snowblowed after getting home and then I went out this afternoon to "clean up the edges". John is not as concerned about keeping the sides of the driveway as far back as possible, but if this winter (which doesn't officially start until Sunday) keeps dumping on us, our driveway will creep its way further and further in. I had Jeremy come out and stand to show perspective. We are starting to pile up already - this is going to be one loooonnnng winter, I think.

Then I've added a couple new ones of dear Lizzie. She is a sweet dog. I have never seen a dog actually "smile" like Lizzie does - we will have to get it on video sometime. Whenever you see her and she is excited about seeing you, she draws her face/lips up in an all out grin! It's hysterical! She is getting quite big - we got a girl so she would be smaller, but I think she's got big in her genes. Her coat is getting kinky and longer. She is 6mths old now.

Hotel pool while in Ohio

The first part of this post follows this one - we were in Ohio for Thanksgiving and stayed at a local hotel .... with a pool of course! The kids loved it, especially when Tim, Dad and Caitlin were in with them.



Sarabeth and Uncle Tim - note who's wearing the water wings!

Great height, Juliana - one of my many water rats!

Juliana getting thrown yet another time by Caitlin.

Jeremy was so afraid of the water in June - just can't get enough now.


Sarabeth doing the backstroke, Juls and Nate getting out.

Hold your breath, Caitlin, cuz you're going down!
Juliana getting ready to go for a dolphin ride on Caitlin's back.

Grace always seems to conveniently forget her swimsuit - the rest of us love the water! The hotel, Country Inn and Suites, was fab! Super terrific breakfast each morning and the bestest beds!

Thanksgiving trip to Ohio

Juliana 5, Grace 14, Sarabeth 8, Mary (old), Caitlin 16, Jeremy 8, John (old,too) and Nathan 5.

John's sister, Sheridan, her husband, Brad and their daughter, Eileen (2) live in Ohio. We decided a good while back to visit them at Thanksgiving. John's brother, Tim would also be coming from VA. Tim and we would stay in a nearby hotel since asking Sher to host 8 of us plus Tim was way over the top - just having us all for the holiday was wild enough! Tim is 8/9 yrs younger than John and Sher is the baby, 11 yrs younger than John. Tim is a bachelor, 37 going on 17 and the kids adore him! They found out on this trip that Uncle Brad is great to play with, too!

Nate and Jeremy hit on Uncle Tim - what a great sport he is!!

The three sibs - Tim, Sheridan (with belly baby on board) and John.

John got the honor of carving!

The turkey was superb - brined overnight and stuffed with citrus fruit. Brad's Mom and Dad also were there, so we had 14 for dinner - not a bad crowd. Brad's Mom baked all the pies - oh, my, were they ALL good! We were all stuffed better than the turkey! We truly have so much to be thankful for and give God the glory for how He has richly blessed us!

Eileen and Sarabeth.

Princess Juliana loving all the "new" toys to play with.

Nathan and his pop beads.

Tim playing with Jeremy!


Uncle Brad and Jeremy who just LOVES to take pix with anyone's camera.

Homemade apple pies

A good friend from church, Carol, came over to help me with a bit of home ec - showing me how she does her pie crust with flour and oil and then baking up some yummy apple pies.

Grace pinching in her first homemade pie crust!

Caitlin filling her first homemade apple pie!!!

Wish I could add a scratch and sniff widget!! : ) Trust me - they were goodilicious!

John, hanging with Lizzie - the man that would really rather not have a dog!

Thanks, Carol, for you efforts in helping us with the pies. We did learn an important lesson - the crust recipe calls for flour, salt, oil and water - NEVER leave out the water! :/

First Snow of the season

First snow arrived 11/7 - not atypical to have snow on the pumpkins here in Iowa!

Lizzie's growing - she was almost 5 mths old here and a bundle of energy!

Harvest party

The next thing in the pix is the bringing in of the corn, but you already heard about all that from John. So on to the Harvest Party.





Sweet Sarabeth - Naaman's servant girl.



Juliana as Queen Esther - of course!



Jeremy as Jacob per his request.


Nathan was a Roman guard - but he was out of costume pretty quick.

Yeah, it's been quite awhile!

Yes, I know it's been quite awhile - just not good about "journaling" every day ... every week.... or even every month for that matter! I'll take my cue from the pix I just uploaded as to what we have done in the last 6-8wks. John blogged about the bringing in of the corn. Before we did that we went and tagged our Christmas tree - back in October! That way, when it's below zero with lung freezing windchills (which it was the day we went to cut it down) we don't have to be trapesying all over to find the "perfect" tree .... which someone would have already tagged since we were so late in going to the farm. So here are a few shots of the warm day we went to tag our beautiful tree.

Caitlin teaching Juliana about crickets.

This looks like a good one! Jeremy's first Christmas tree hunt!

Cait with hot cider in hand: Nate and Juls hup, two, three, four ....!

Another biology lesson on mushrooms. Caitlin says that science is the only thing that keeps the school day tolerable!!

We made our choice, tagged the tree and were off. Not sure what we did for the rest of the day, though - 10/11 was a long time ago! : )

Juliana's giggle fit

It's Time for Corn!

The photo above (note the date) shows what prompted us to head to the grain elevator this weekend. This will be our fourth winter of heating our home with corn, which here in the midwest is a very plentiful & renewable resource. For those of you not familiar with our home, we live in a ranch-style on a slight hill, with a walk-out lower level (one-story in the front, two stories in the back). In the lower level is our family room with a large glass window facing north. The house is very well insulated and the forced-air natural gas heater keeps most of the house very comfortable. Unfortunately, the family room where we spend a lot of our time was ALWAYS cold. We would sit down there watching a movie in multiple layers of clothing and with blankets covering us! We explored several options to heat this room, including adding a gas fireplace but then settled on a corn stove. Corn is very efficient and burns hot. We purchased a stove from the Amaizablaze company and my brother Tim and I installed it in one afternoon. No chimney is required, just a "dryer vent" through the wall to the outside. The family room is now the warmest room in the house and by running our central fan 24/7 and keeping a ceiling fan running at the top of the stairway the cornstove is able to heat most of the house. Our furnace rarely kicks in anymore.

Pros of heating with corn: Efficient- even with corn prices relatively high this year at almost $4 per bushel, I will heat the house for approx. $600 this winter; Environmental- not using oil based energy to heat; Easy- light the stove and keep the corn hopper full and it will run for almost 2 weeks with little effort. Twice daily I'll pull a "clinker" of compressed ash out of the burn box and refill the hopper. Every 10-14 days I'll shut the stove down and clean it with a wire brush and shop-vac; Aroma- the smell of roasted corn is great!

Cons of heating with corn: Bulk & storage- we've gradually added storage over the 4 years using mainly large trash cans. We now have 15 of the 45 gallon cans and 11 of the 32 gallon cans as well as about ten 20 gallon containers. These will hold 150 bushels of corn, which is what we burned over the course of last winter. Approx 2/3 of the corn is now stored in our utility room just off the family room. The remainder is in an outside shed. Corn is heavy, at 56 lbs per bushel. Yesterday and today we manually unloaded over 4 tons of corn into the various containers; Dust- every time you manipulate the corn from one place to another, you have dust. You learn to deal with it!


We borrowed Dan Stephenson's truck and got 5 loads of approx 30 bushels each

Three of the kiddos played while we unloaded. Jeremy helped with getting empty cans and lids ready.

Caitlin preparing to unload. Note Jeremy's head just behind the truck.

We scoop with 2.5 gallon buckets, each weighing about 17 lbs when full.

Caitlin passes to Grace, who passes to John...

...who dumps into the trash can

note the accumulation of dust on Caitlin's jeans and sweatshirt

as the truck begins to empty, the shovel is used to move the corn into scoopable piles

and eventually a dust pan gets the last kernels

Caitlin empties her boots!

The utility room, holding the 15 x 45 gallon cans and a single 32 gallon can. Dusting soon followed!

OK, OK, We're Posting!

Wow, I can't believe all the digs we've been getting about not posting. It's busy around here! Jodi even dissed us in her blog-- but then she's always been a little more organized than us :-)

Our summer was as crazy as ever. We had 2 birthdays in June, 1 in July and 4 more in August; there was a wedding in June; 4th of July in Clear Lake was awesome (AGAIN); Caitlin and Grace spent much of the summer at camp, either camping or working; we went camping a couple of times; we spent a great weekend at the Omaha zoo; we renovated our kitchen; we went to Family Camp at IRBC and weathered a scare when Jeremy fractured his skull!

Autumn hasn't been any slower so far. Mary is home-schooling six children; John is working a (temporary) new schedule which has him doing 7 over-nights in a row once every 4 weeks--the benefit is that he has 7 days off every 4 weeks too. In early October, we used those 7 days off to haul the camper out to eastern Iowa and spent time hiking along the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River and enjoying the scenery; we went out last weekend and picked out/tagged a Christmas tree. We'll go back to the tree farm in early December to cut it down; we've been raking a ton of leaves, and the yard is full again!

May: John bowled in the Iowa State tournament in Council Bluffs in May, which is right across the Missouri River from Omaha. The whole family went out and we spent 2 days exploring the Omaha Zoo.

The zoo was actually very hilly, and there was a LOT of walking!


June: We celebrated Jeremy's 8th and Caitlin's 16th BD's. Caitlin got her license and has been doing a great job driving. She'll only drive the Suburban however since John's Honda has a manual transmission and Caitlin is not too fond of a clutch. Jeriah and Shawna got married on June 21. Caitlin and Grace were the guestbook attendants and Juliana was the beautiful flower girl. The newlyweds honeymooned in Ocean City, MD and had a second reception in Havre de Grace, MD hosted by Jeriah's grandparents for those family members who couldn't travel all the way to Iowa for the wedding. Mary spent a week nursing at Special Camp at IRBC. She's been doing this for many years now and loves it. We took the camper out to Clear Lake State Park for several days at the end of the month and the kids had a blast. We began our kitchen project by ripping out the island and moving the dishwasher over next to the sink. New cabinets and countertop gradually made their appearance!


Jeremy's first BD with his forever family




Caitlin loves her new IPod!




Caitlin was giving all the kids rides on the scooter

We were camped on a circle and the little ones just loved riding around and around




John's favorite position when camping


July: we went home from our little camping trip on July 3 and then headed downtown to the annual July 4 carnival by the lake. On July 4, we watched the parade in the morning and a spectacular fireworks display over the lake at night. Nathan celebrated his 5th birthday later in the month and we spent a weekend in Colfax at Jeriah and Shawna's.




Sarabeth blazing down the giant slide


What a MESS!

But it sure is gooood-e-licious!

Emma Nichols and Grace carried our church's banner in the July 4 parade


Caitlin was walking alongside handing out Vacation Bible School invitations

Sarabeth enjoyed the ride and all the waving
Nathan got a remote controlled Cars car!

It says January 3. Trust me......it was July.


August: is a VERY busy month at our house. Birthdays for Juliana, Jeriah, Shawna and John. Family Camp is usually in August. School starts at the end of the month. We were kept hopping. We went to Mary's sister's house in Ames on the 5th and celebrated all 4 August BD's that evening. Family Camp started on the 9th and we had a great time again. On the last night of the camp, they opened the pool for an evening swim. Jeremy was up the ladder, down the slide, up the ladder, down the slide....over and over. Until....he went up the ladder and lost his balance, falling back head first onto the concrete. We took him over to Mercy in Mason City where they diagnosed a fractured skull and admitted him to the pediatric unit. The next morning, they decided to transfer him to Iowa City, as there was a very small bleed in his head and they wanted surgical backup just in case it got worse. Jeremy and Mary spent 2 days in Iowa City as Jeremy dealt with a major headache. A few days after getting home, he was his old rambunctious self again. Praise the Lord!


Mama and her littlest girl cutting the BD cake


Another BD cake, this time for 4!


Jeremy and Dad heading off to the zip line. Jeremy jumped off that building 8 times this week!


We all enjoyed splashing each other on the bumper boats




Jet Ski rides are always a highlight of Family Camp
"Faster daddy, faster"!
Jeremy enjoyed his first JetSki ride


Caitlin climbing the wall

Sarabeth beginning her climb...

...and reaching the top. Congratulations Sarabeth!

Water rats

Caitlin taking aim
She wouldn't shoot Bambi, would she?

No she wouldn't, but HE would!


Jeremy did EVERYTHING this week, except climb the wall




Caitlin and her good friend Julie



Grace, Nathan and Jeremy spent a lot of time on the Slip 'n Slide


September/October: School's in full swing. Jeriah has started into the Master of Divinity program at Faith's Seminary. Caitlin is a junior and Grace a freshman. Sarabeth and Jeremy are doing mostly a 3rd grade program, although Jeremy is still behind in reading. That will catch up as his vocabulary continues to grow and as he has more time to practice. He has only been in the US since March and he's doing great. Nathan and Juliana are doing pre-K work and both are reading! Juliana is especially proud of this feat.

As I mentioned earlier, we were able to spend a few days camping out near the Mississippi River. We spent one day at Iowa's Pike's Peak State Park and another day hiking/exploring through the Effigy Mounds National Monument area. There are several Native American burial mounds and animal shaped mounds located throughout this park. We took about a 1.5 mile hike that had some pretty good climbs. When we got to the top, the views of the river were spectacular. We saw some wildlife (deer; turkey; hawks; giant millipedes etc.) on this trip and also heard the coyotes howling at night. It was a very nice getaway for the family.

Hiking up a hill at the Effigy Mounds National Monument

It's hard to see at ground level, but this mound is called "Little Bear" and is in the shape of a bear.

At the "Fire Point" overlook, which was the 1/2 way point of our hike

All the kids at the Pike's Peak overlook. The Wisconsin River empties into the Mississippi here.

What a beautiful view of the Big River. Prairie du Chien, WI is on the other side of the river.

The teens enjoyed the climbing/exploring

A majestic sight

PRAY FOR IOWA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We in Iowa need your prayers!!!


It is a most dangerous situation....


worse than any flood.....


scarier than any tornado.....


a more frightening occurance could not occur.....


alarm bells and whistles are clanging and screeching in our heads.......


people are running in every direction......


ALL BECAUSE........




CAITLIN HAS HER DRIVER'S LICENSE!
Happy 16th Birthday Cait!
We Love You.

Wedding Bells

A few pictures from the wedding to "hold" you until a full post!

Flooding in Iowa

What a week we've had in Iowa. Here in Clear Lake, things haven't been nearly as bad as other towns. Last Saturday evening, we sat in our basement eating pizza while the tornado sirens blared outside. Thankfully, there were no funnels sighted near us but we had a TON of rain overnight. Almost 6 inches fell in the 24 hr period from Saturday into Sunday. After church on Sunday, we noticed some water on the floor in one of the downstairs bedrooms. Mary soon realized that our sump pump had failed. I quickly ran into Mason City to the Fleet Farm store where I was lucky enough to get the second to last sump pump on their shelves. During the drive over to Mason, I was amazed at the amount of water in the fields, but that was nothing compared to what was happening in downtown Mason City. The Winnebago River had risen to record levels. The flood stage there is 7 feet and the record crest had been just over 13 feet. On Sunday, the river crested at almost 19 feet! Many homes were flooded and the city's water treatment plant was shut down.

For the rest of the week, Mary and the girls were away at camp and I was at home with the 4 little ones. Several times each day I was ShopVac-ing the girls' room trying to get the water out of the carpet, but this was to no avail. I eventually had to pull all the carpet and padding out and we'll be replacing it, hopefully this week. Nothin' else happening this week..... only Jeriah's wedding! My brother Tim and sister Sheridan will be coming in on Thursday. On Friday we'll go to Des Moines. My dad and his wife Julie will be flying in to DSM that day, as well as Sher's husband Brad. We'll have the wedding rehearsal Friday evening, the wedding on Saturday and a cookout back at our house in Clear Lake on Sunday. We're looking forward to some great family time! Pics soon to come.

Happy Father's Day to all you dads!
John

Spring Photo Gallery, Part 5: "The Kalahari"

We spent 3 days last week at the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. This whole area is saturated with water parks, and the Kalahari has an amazing indoor waterpark that we've visited several times now. While there we were able to meet up with the Chapman family from suburban Chicago. They adopted Charis from the Yueyang orphanage just a few months before we went to Yueyang for Jeremy. Jeremy and Charis had a great time together and we look forward to maintaining that relationship. It's great for the little ones to have a link to their heritage.



Jeremy and Charis

L to R: Juliana, Faith Chapman, Charis Chapman, Jeremy, Nathan, Sarabeth

Mary at the wave pool

Nathan loved the slides

So did Sarabeth

Juliana too!

What a smile :-)

Jeremy wasn't too sure about the water, but he did this slide for Mama

The kids enjoyed playing with these water rings

Jeremy, Mary and Juliana at the end of one of the big raft slides

Nate, Lynn Cox and Sarabeth are coming down the slide

Nate, Lynn and Sarabeth at the bottom

Our 6 plus Susan and Amy Cox. What a great time everyone had!

Spring Photo Gallery, Part 4: "Wedding Shower"

Jeriah and Shawna

Jeriah's such a sport!

Dish towels for "Shawna's Kitchen"

Shawna's parents, Earl and Sue DuRocher

Boys get toys, girls get kitchen stuff, and everyone's happy!

Spring Photo Gallery, Part 3: "Bowling"

Nathan coming back for his spare ball

Jeremy lets it fly....

....and celebrates a strike with his mommy!

Nathan got a spare!

Sarabeth had a fun time at the "Rose Bowl"

Juliana needed a little help

Caitlin and Dad played on a lane without bumpers in the gutter

Nate takes aim... love those bowling shoes!

Sarabeth showing off her form

Juliana and her daddy line up a spare shot.

Spring Photo Gallery, Part 2: "Easter"

Easter presents: bubble wands and balls

A frequent scene at our house: kids wrestling on the floor

Pig Pile on Caitlin!

Jeremy coloring his first Easter egg

An artist at work

Jeremy has the hang of it

Juliana is SO darn cute!

The dye is supposed to be on the EGGS Caitlin!

Such concentration!

Sarabeth made a pretty one!

Caitlin's Marimba Solo

Caitlin's marimba solo at the North Iowa solo and small ensemble competition. She scored a rating of "1" this year! This is one of the two pieces she played in the competition.

Spring Photo Gallery, Part 1: "Snow Days"

A snow bunny

Juliana ready for a head-first slide

Jeremy likes the slide

Nathan is ALWAYS playing with sticks!

Basketball in the snow

Is it spring yet mommy? I like playing outside!

Jeremy helping to shovel the snow away

Nathan and Jeremy make a good team

Our snowy backyard

Spring!

Spring has sprung, sort of, in North Iowa. We've had a couple of 50 degree days which melted much of the ice/snow cover, then had a 3-4 inch snowfall again a few nights ago. The lake is still mostly frozen. The open water areas around the aerators are expanding, but I went ice-fishing Thursday evening and we had to auger thru 18 inches of ice before we hit water. I didn't have much luck fishing.... a large walleye on the hook slipped off as I was pulling it thru the hole. My friends Dan and Aaron each landed two keepers (there's a 14 inch minimum for walleye on Clear Lake).

My NCAA bracket was busted pretty early, although I still have North Carolina winning it all. The end of the college basketball season means one thing.....BASEBALL SEASON! I've always been a baseball fan above all other sports. I have DirecTV for one reason.... I can get the MLB Extra Innings package and watch the Orioles from here in Iowa. I'm not too optimistic about this season, but I just can't help being a fan and watching.

Things are progressing on the wedding planning front. Mary and I are responsible for setting up the rehearsal dinner and we are exploring options. I think we have settled on the Latin King, an italian restaurant in Des Moines, but nothing is final yet.

We have a spring trip to the Kalahari resort in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin planned for April 21-23. We've been there 3 times in the past. They have a HUGE indoor waterpark that the kids really love. We try to go in January or February as a winter break kind of thing, but this year my work schedule wouldn't allow it until April. We'll be meeting up with the Chapman family from Chicago, who adopted a girl recently from the same orphanage as Jeremy. Jeremy and Charis will have an opportunity to renew a lifelong friendship, as they spent most of the past 7 years together in Yueyang.

Haven't been taking many pictures...... I'm gonna have to work on that and get some posted for your viewing pleasure!

John

Home from China

We are back in the U.S.A, and so glad to be so! China is a wonderful place to visit, but 15 days of spending many hours sitting in hotel rooms waiting for paperwork to be completed is very hard. We did have some excellent times, especially getting our wonderful son Jeremy. We spent a day at an orphanage in Langfang and very much enjoyed spending time with the many children there.

There are SO MANY children in China, and all over the world in fact that need loving families. Adoption is an expensive process but it is so worth it. To have an impact on a child for a lifetime, and to have that child impact YOU for a lifetime is such a blessing. I would encourage each of you to prayerfully consider how you might make an impact on the life of an orphan.

If you have any questions about international adoption, give us a ring or drop a note. We will gladly try to help you think through the process.

jkamberger@netins.net
mkamberger@netins.net

Huckabee withdraws

Mike Huckabee has conceded the Republican nomination to John McCain. Unfortunately, as things stand there will be no conservative candidate to support in the 2008 general election.

In China

Mary and I are currently in China, adopting Jeremy into his forever family. It has been an amazing trip thus far. You may want to follow our journey at Journey to Jeremy, where we are posting daily notes and pictures.

Caitlin's Piano Competition

Caitlin participated today in the North Iowa Music Teacher's piano auditions at the NIACC Auditorium in Mason City. She played three pieces that she has been memorizing and practicing for many months.

In the Level D category, she placed in an Honorable Mention category! Congratulations Cait.

Video of Caitlin's first piece:



Here's the second selection:



And the third, nicknamed the "Storm""

Happy Birthday Sarabeth

Today we celebrated Sarabeth's 8th birthday. She ANXIOUSLY waited all day to open her presents. In our family, the birthday person selects the menu for supper. Sarabeth made excellent choices as we enjoyed baked chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy and lima beans (can you believe an 8 yr old chose lima beans?). For dessert we had a chocolate birthday cake with chocolate icing- she's truly her mama's girl!

Sarabeth also received an e-mail from China, with a Happy Birthday wish from her foster sister in Nanchang.

Here's a few pics of Sarabeth's big day.


Opening her first present


Reading a birthday card with her mama


Sarabeth LOVES to read!


Our lovely children!


Nathan sure enjoyed the birthday cake!

Travel Plans!

We have finalized our travel plans to China. We had to wait for our appointment date at the US Consulate in Guangzhou before we could book our flights, and today we received that info. Our appointment is set for Feb. 27, which means our Oath Taking at the Consulate will be Feb 28 and our flight home is Feb 29.

We will be leaving Minneapolis on Feb 14 at 1:10pm, arriving in Tokyo on Feb 15 at 4:40pm- a 12.5 hr flight. After a short layover, we depart Tokyo at 6:05pm and arrive in Beijing at 9:15pm. We will be staying at the Jinglun Hotel in Beijing and on Feb 16 we intend to travel out to Langfang, which is about 40 miles outside Beijing. There, we will visit the Langfang Children's Village/Shepherd's Field where Nathan was cared for before we adopted him. The Shepherd's Field is all new since our last visit in August 2005 and we want to see the changes and visit with the folks who provided such loving care to Nate in his first two years.

On Feb 17, we will travel on to Changsha, the capital of Hunan province. In Changsha, we will meet our new son Jeremy on Feb 18. Over the next several days, we will complete the Chinese portion of the adoption in Changsha and will also travel to Jeremy's home town of Yueyang to visit the orphanage there. On or about Feb 22, we will have completed the adoption and will procede onto Guangzhou. There, we will complete the US immigration portion of the adoption.

On Feb 29 we will depart Guangzhou at 8:3oam and arrive in Tokyo at 1:35pm. We will then leave Tokyo at 3:05pm and arrive in Portland, OR at 7am THE SAME DAY, 8 hours BEFORE we left Tokyo. That always blows my mind! At 8:50am we leave Portland enroute to Minneapolis, where we will arrive at 2:05pm (exactly 1 hour before we left Tokyo!).

As I mentioned before, you can follow our journey and see lots of pics at Journeytojeremy.blogspot.com

John

January Update

TA HAS FINALLY ARRIVED! We have received word from our adoption agency that the Chinese have issued our travel authorization. We expect to depart for China on February 14 and meet our new son on Monday, Feb. 18. If all goes as expected, we should return to the USA on Feb 27 or 28. During our travel, we will be posting daily on the Journey to Jeremy site.

WINTER IS IN FULL NORTH IOWA BLOOM: It's been a great week for the winter lovers here. Temps in the single digits as the daily highs, in the negative numbers for lows (as low as -17F on Friday night!) Today, we got about 5 inches of loose, fluffy snow. Caitlin and Grace are going to the North Iowa Winter Retreat at the Baptist Camp this coming weekend and are very thankful for the snow, as many outside activities depend on the white stuff being there (i.e. sledding, snowmobiling etc).

ICE FISHING: John and several friends from church have been working on building an icehouse to use for ice fishing. Clear Lake is frozen solid with up to 15 inches of ice on it. There are numerous portable and semi-portable ice houses out on the lake. If you've ever seen the movie "Grumpy Old Men", you'll know what I'm talking about. The house is 8' x 12', built on a frame of 2x6's and plywood. It will be fully insulated and we'll put a portable heater in it when it's done. It will be equipped with ski's for pulling it out on the lake with either a truck or a 4-wheeler. Hopefully the fish will be biting!

HOW 'BOUT THEM TERPS! Knocking off the #1 team in the country on Saturday. It's always fun for a Terp fan to see the Tar Heels go down. Next up for Maryland is a game vs. Duke. Two big wins in a row? We'll see.

WEDDING PLANS: Jeriah and Shawna have set the date for June 21. The wedding will be held in Colfax, IA which is about 25 miles east of Des Moines. We can't wait for the big day.

HuckaBOOM!

The HuckaBOOM in Iowa has reached it's pinnacle, as tonight Mike Huckabee scored a landslide victory in the Iowa Caucus. I'm not one to typically say "I told you so", but click here to see my prediction dated Oct 31, 2007.

In the overall scheme of things, this is a SMALL beginning to a very long process. There are 49 more states to go before the Republican convention. Gov. Huckabee's victory however, gives him some momentum going forward to the Feb. 5 "Super Tuesday" primaries. Now the BOOM must go beyond Iowa into the other states.

Again, I urge you to visit www.mikehuckabee.com/issues to see where the Governor stands on the issues facing our country and his ideas for moving our country forward.

Blessings for 2008!

We celebrated New's Year Eve at the Stephenson's home last night. Six families from our church gathered for games, food, fun and a bit of political bantor .... the caucus here in Iowa is just 2 days away. There were 18 children from 4yrs to 20yrs present and they all had a wild and woolly time. Dressing up, playing pretend, board games, cards, pool - thank goodness the Stephenson's have a large home where the kids can play downstairs or in other rooms and the adults can have space to themselves. Many of us youngers and olders learned a new game called Ticket to Ride and enjoyed building railroads across the US and Europe. Close to midnight the teen girls gathered to mix up the Mocha Punch - a tradition of a sweet coffee flavored ice cream milkshake - yum!

As we look forward to 2008, there are so many new things in store for the Kambergers. We will be bringing Jeremy into our family before the end of February; Caitlin will turn 16 and be driving on her own by the summer; Jeriah will graduate from Faith Baptist Bible College in May and has actually already started to take module classes to continue into his Masters of Divinity program; Jeriah and Shawna will be married sometime in the summer - no date set as yet.
ADDENDUM: THE DATE HAS BEEN SET FOR JUNE 21, 2008!

And those are things we already know, Lord willing, will occur. There will be so many more things that will take us by surprise, too! The good, the bad and the very blessed await us in 2008. What happens will take up about 20% of our life and how we respond to those things will take up the remaining 80%. May we take the mind of Christ with us into every situation, drawing closer to Him at every turn.

Our ultimate goals for 2008 remain the same:

to become more like Christ,
to please Christ in all we do
and to give God the glory for everything that happens.

Blessings to you and yours this new year!!

Mary

Wedding Plans!

We are so happy to announce the engagement of our son Jeriah to Shawna DuRocher. As many of you know, Jeriah is a senior at Faith Baptist Bible College in Ankeny, IA. He will be graduating this spring with a degree in Pastoral Ministries and Counseling. He intends to continue on for his M.Div in the Seminary program at Faith.

Jeriah and Shawna met at the First Baptist Church in Colfax, IA where Jeriah works as the youth pastor. Shawna is active as a leader in the church's youth program. She has a Master's degree in counseling and works for the state of Iowa's Department of Human Services.

A wedding date will soon be announced!

Christmas at the Kamberger's

Caitlin ready to begin opening presents.

The girls are anxiously waiting!

Juliana has the hang of this wrapper ripping thing!

Sarabeth only wanted 1 thing this year, and this is it.....an American Girl doll.

Grace's turn!

Sir Nathan the warrior is ready for all comers

Jeriah and Shawna



Mary's sister Cindy enjoying all the activity.

A Sad Day

It has been a tough day today. You can go to Jeremy's blog to read the latest downer on the adoption front.

Today we had to say goodbye to Maggie - our 17 mth old Golden Retriever. She was born with a congenital heart defect with a rapidly progressing heart murmur. She would have good days when she would run and fetch, running hard and happily. Then she would have bad days when she would pace, vomit and sleep for endless hours. This past week she had nearly 5 good days in a row! That was very uncommon as of late. Last evening however she was starting to have some difficulty breathing. She went into pulmonary edema and progressively worsened through the wee hours of the night/morning. I slept on the floor with her for several hours, sure in my heart that she wouldn't last till the morning light. This morning her respirations and heart rate were very fast and she was totally immobile. The vet was out on farm calls and couldn't come until nearly 11am. He eased her into the great doggie beyond as I stroked her soft, shiny fur. She was finally at full rest.

We will miss you, Maggie! We will miss how you loved to run to fetch the tennis ball over and over; how you jumped in the lake and barked at the geese; how you unmercifully chased the kitties and chewed on their fur! No more noses on my leg while I eat at the table. No more squeaky toy squeakily saying ,"come and play with me".

Goodbye, dear Maggie!

Mary

P.S. a favorite video of Maggie as a very young pup, playing with Tessa

Nothing to complain about

I have whined several times in this blog, both last winter and again this year about how much I dislike the snow, ice and cold......can't wait for spring etc. etc.

Today, I am thankful that I have electricity and a warm house (my corn stove needs electricity to run-- more on that another time). God has provided everything we need to survive, a home, heat, a great job that provides for my family and, as the title of this post says: I have NOTHING to complain about.

Many, many folks here in the midwest are tonight without the electricity that I'm so thankful for. The ice storms that have created so much havoc in this part of the country the past week have all been to the south of us, and I am also quite thankful for that. Please keep those who HAVE been affected by these events in your prayers.

1 Thes 5:18 "In everything give thanks...."
James 1:2 "Consider it all joy my brethren when you encounter various trials..."

John

A busy week

It's been a very busy week at the Kamberger's. We continue to prepare for Christmas, decorating the house, shopping, Mary baking cookies (yummm). My last post mentioned the nice coating of ice that we received......well that nice coating of ice meant many, many injuries that we had to deal with at the hospital. The wards were full all week, especially the orthopedic floor, making for a long week of work. Our pastor and good friend Steve Cox was one of the wounded, as he took a tumble on Tuesday morning while walking out to his deer stand. He went down with his left ankle fractured in two places. Thankfully, as he fell he was able to safely slide his loaded firearm away from him as he was going down. Pins and screws took care of the bones and now he is going stir-crazy in a cast, mobilizing as best he can with a walker. Steve, Lynn, Phil and Susan Cox came over for dinner tonight and we had a nice visit. Mary made a dynamite pot of chili and Steve had many stories to tell of his time in the hospital.

The snow is falling again-- 2 to 5 inches is the forecast for tonight. Winter in North Iowa is very long! I was out with the snowblower earlier this evening and the temp outside was 7 degrees. I can't wait for spring!!

John

Huckabee Surging!

Mike Huckabee has now taken over 2nd place in the national Republican polls. Click here to see the daily trend for each presidential candidate as polled by the Rasmussen organization. As of today, Huckabee is within 5 points of overtaking Guiliani for the national lead!

It's Baaaack!

Winter has made its return to North Iowa. Ughhhh.

A sheet of ice is covering everything as the first real winter storm of the season came through yesterday. After an inch or two of snow, we had several hours of sleet followed by freezing rain. Talk about a little bit of everything!

The end result is a hard coating of ice covering everything. The temps are expected to stay well below freezing all week, so what we have is here to stay. It's fun watching our dog Maggie slip and slide around the back yard but unfortunately for the kids, it's just not the kind of conditions to go out and have fun in (even tho they're trying-- hopefully no broken arms!)

Clear Lake has an annual "Christmas by the Lake" celebration which ends on Saturday night with a parade of decorated/lighted floats and then fireworks out over the frozen lake. This year's event was postponed by the storm. It has been rescheduled for next weekend. Hopefully the weather will cooperate more.

Prior to the storm's arrival, Mary went out to Kragel's Tree Farm and picked up our tree. We had gone out as a family back in October and picked out/tagged a tree, an annual rite at our house. Last evening as the storm blew outside, we put the tree up and decorated it. The wonderful smell of a fresh cut evergreen in the house is a sure sign of Christmas.

Huckabee at the Surf Ballroom

Mike Huckabee and Barry Goudreau jamming at the Surf.

We went to the famous Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake for the first time Friday night. Hard to believe we've lived here for almost 5 yrs now and this is our first visit to the Surf. For those of you who don't know the story, the Surf is where Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper played their last concert in February 1959. Shortly after the concert they were killed in a plane crash on the way to their next venue.

At the Surf, we enjoyed a concert by Capitol Offense, the band for which presidential candidate Mike Huckabee plays bass guitar. We were pleasantly surprised by the fact that the music was very good. We were expecting to hear the Governor speak some on the issues, but instead the night was about the music. Joining the band on stage for several songs was Barry Goudreau, the lead guitarist of the group Boston. The selections for the night were mostly rock songs from the 70's and 80's, including some southern rock hits like Lynard Skynard's "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Free Bird". With Barry on stage, of course the great Boston hit "More than a Feeling" went over well.

Governor Huckabee's campaign is heating up. He is now second in the Iowa polls with the caucuses coming up in just 2 months. He is also garnering more national attention and is now running neck and neck with Romney and McCain for third in the national Republican polls, just behind Fred Thompson and about 10 points behind Rudy G.

I still feel Huckabee is the best candidate. He is a true pro-life conservative who is not afraid to speak his mind. He has never waivered in his pro-life, pro-Christian stance. He has over 10 years of executive experience as the republican governor of a very democratic state, Arkansas. He was re-elected in this democratic state twice by very large margins. Rudy is for abortion rights. Romney has done the flip-flop on many issues. Fred T's not willing to discuss any of the issues and McCain is McCain. Huckabee knows where he stands on the issues and doesn't waiver from where he stands. Visit http://www.mikehuckabee.com/ and click on some of the videos to hear what the governor has to say about the issues. Join Huck's army as he continues to mock the media "talking heads" by gaining ground on the first tier candidates. My prediction is here: Mike Huckabee will win the Iowa Caucus on January 3, 2008.

Introducing Jeremy Yue Yuan Kamberger

Many of you already know this, but Mary and I are returning to China soon to adopt our 7th child, Jeremy Yue Yuan Kamberger. Jeremy is 7 years old and has lived his entire life at the Yueyang orphanage in Hunan province. His chinese name is Yue Yuan Rong.

As you can see from the pictures I've attached, Jeremy was born with no hands. He has learned to adapt to this situation and can do anything the other children in the orphanage can do.

We will post further info regarding our travel dates when that info is received. We anticipate traveling in December.

A lightening strike!

Just as we were leaving church last Sunday the rain began. About 2 minutes after we got home there was a huge boom of thunder and simultaneous flash of lightening right outside the kitchen window. Shortly thereafter I began to tally the damages:

Main computer in the family room- nuked;
Printer- fried;
telephones- no dial tone
DSL- out
DirecTV receiver- nuked (or so I thought).

The local phone company came right out and got the land line and DSL back up. They needed to replace a box on the outside of the house. Initially the DSL didn't come back up. After some testing we found out the surge protector was also fried (the phone line was going thru the surge protector).

About 2 hours after the strike, the DirecTV receiver fired back up and seems to be working OK, although whenever I change channels there is a 2-3 second pause with a green screen before the picture comes in. This is new since the lightening.

As for the computer, the repair place said it would make a nice paperweight! Fortunately, they HAVE been able to salvage the data from my hard drive to DVDs, which I will be able to copy to the new computer I've ordered.

The power of nature is amazing.

An Update

It's been a very busy month or so since we got home from our vacation.

John has been putting in a lot of hours at work, and trying to get a little fishing in during the evenings. The walleye have been hitting again as the lake water temps get lower. During the heat of summer, fishing on Clear Lake eases off a little then picks up again as fall approaches. There are currently 4 nice sized walleye filleted out and in the freezer awaiting the fryer or grill.

Mary recently spent a huge amount of time organizing and doing a garage/yard sale. We were able to get rid of a lot of stuff, much of which was donated by friends and neighbors. The proceeds are going to be used for our upcoming adoption of Jeremy.

Jeriah is back in school, beginning his senior year at Faith Baptist Bible College. He is also still working as the youth pastor at First Baptist in Colfax, IA.

Caitlin is now in her sophomore year in high school. She is still being home-schooled but heads off to Ventura HS for band every other day, goes to piano lessons weekly and does DRIVER'S ED every Wed and Sat. This is a very stressful time for mom and dad!!! There's been 1 "STOP THE CAR NOW!" episode as a stop sign was missed, but overall Caitlin is doing much better as she gains experience behind the wheel.

Grace is in 8th grade and taking the usual subjects in school. She and Mary recently painted her bedroom in cool shades of blue and orange.

Sarabeth is starting 2nd grade and is reading very well. She has recently begun piano lessons and has memorized several Bible verses in the past two weeks. Mary is taking the 3 youngest kids to AWANA in Forest City every Wed afternoon where they spend time learning verses and doing games and activities. She is now riding her 2-wheeler with no training wheels and she and Grace each got their ears pierced (Grace's second set!) on the last night of our vacation.

Juliana and Nathan are doing pre-school several days a week with Mary... and are growing like weeds. They love to ride their bikes (a 2 wheeler with trainers for Nate and a 3-wheeler for Juls) up and down the sidewalk and all the kids enjoy going fishing. Sarabeth and Juliana have recently caught their first fish. Sarabeth hooked a yellow bass and Juliana got a small walleye. Nathan doesn't have the necessary patience yet, but hopefully that will come as he gets a little bigger.

On Cape Hatteras

The Kamberger family is having a reunion this week on Cape Hatteras, NC. We have joined John's grandmother Dane, his Dad and stepmother Julie, and his brothers and sister and their families at a beachfront house on the Cape. We all arrived on Saturday afternoon and have been enjoying the food, fun and fellowship. The beach is right outside our back door and the water has been great. The kids have really enjoyed the pool and also getting all sandy on the beach. Nate is becoming an excellent sand castle builder, and an even better sand castle destroyer! We had some rain on Sunday evening into Monday, but otherwise the sun has been hot and several of us have gotten a little bit of burn.

Today, several of us headed south to the town of Hatteras and saw the famous Cape Hatteras lighthouse. We also went over the free ferry (a 40 minute ride) to the island of Ocracoke, where we had lunch and cruised around the little town there. We then ferried back to Hatteras island and arrived home to a great meal of homemade shrimp gumbo courtesy of John's sister Sheridan.

Tomorrow, all of the men and Caitlin will be going out to sea for a fishing expedition on the headboat "Miss Oregon Inlet". I'll be needing to get to bed soon, as we leave the house at 6am. Hope to have pictures of this outing posted later. As for now, here are some pics of the vacation thus far:

Caitlin getting ready to boogey-board

Juliana playing in the sand

Nate building a sandcastle
Caitlin and Juliana enjoying the pool
Gathering around the table, clockwise from bottom left: Juliana, Sarabeth, Kyle, Mary, Matt, Dawn, Caitlin, Grace, Nate, Lauren and Ed.
Me and my grandma Dane on the Ferry to Ocracoke
Mary and the kids on the ferry
The famous Cape Hatteras lighthouse
The kids and a pirate on Ocracoke

The Iowa GOP Straw Poll & A Wedding

On Saturday August 11, we attended the wedding of Daniel Cox and Maggie Gilliland. Dan is the son of our Pastor and good friend Steve Cox. We've had the privilege of watching Dan grow into a fine young man, and Maggie is a sweet match for him. The wedding was held at the Nevada Baptist Church, which we attended for several years. We lived in Nevada when we first moved to Iowa in 1996 until 1999. Nevada is located about 8 miles east of Ames, where the straw poll was taking place on the same day. BTW, I thought it would take Dan at least a half hour to get into that car, but he was determined (other things to do??) and had all the Saran Wrap cut off in about 5 minutes!

For the past several months, I've been investigating the merits and claims of many of the presidential candidates. I've never gotten involved in a presidential election this early in the process before, but with the condition of our country right now I thought it was important to be as prospective as possible, instead of jumping on a bandwagon later in the game. The person elected in 2008 will have a HUGE task of repairing a severely fractured country. In my opinion, the divisions within our country now are as large as any we've faced since the Civil War.

The older I get, the more conservative I become. The liberals just continually raise taxes and throw (our) money at the problems. They also want to use (our) money to fund other detestable programs such as tax-funded abortions. When I see how much of my paycheck goes to the government and think about how much more it could be if say, Hillary were elected- I cringe!

After much investigation, I decided several months ago to support Mike Huckabee for President in 2008. I read an intro piece on him in World Magazine and became intrigued. I then searched the web for more info and read his position statements at wwwmikehuckabee.com and decided he stands for many of the things that I do. I went to a "Meet Mike" function in Mason City and heard him speak, shook his hand and asked him questions. He was very cordial and seemed interested in hearing what everyone had to say. He went through the room, looked every person in the eye and shook their hand- introducing himself and making small talk. I was very impressed with his demeanor.

I'm not going to say that I feel Mike Huckabee is perfect on every issue facing us. He supports the "Fair Tax" which is a national sales tax that would do away with the federal income tax and the IRS. He will have a difficult time implementing this. Mike also states that: "While there is value in the "No Child Left Behind" law's effort to set high national standards, states must be allowed to develop their own benchmarks." I feel that NCLB is unconstitutional. The constitution nowhere discusses education. This is a state function.

However, none of the candidates is perfect. They all have areas where their views don't align with mine. In my humble opinion, Mike Huckabee is the best candidate in a crowded field. I was proud to cast my straw poll vote for Mike on August 11. I hope his strong showing at the poll will vault him into the national consciousness as the race goes on.

Family Camp 5 at IRBC

We attended Family Camp at the Iowa Regular Baptist Camp again this year and had a great time. This was Sarabeth's first time at family camp and she really enjoyed herself. Up until about 6 weeks ago she had never even been in a pool, and now she is going off the diving board with no flotation devices. She also went for her initial Jet Ski ride, Zip Line ride, and drove the bumper boats by herself this past week.

It was a busy week with all the activities as well as chapel services, great food and fellowship with friends we've gotten to know over the 8 years we've been Family Camping at IRBC. We also met several new families that we hope to see again in the future.

Zip Line Ride at IRBC

July 4th in Clear Lake

Clear Lake is known to have the biggest July 4th celebration in north Iowa, and this year was no different. The big parade kicked off at 10am and went down Main Ave. all the way to the lakefront. As usual, the police were in the lead blaring their sirens to signify the parade was underway. They were followed by the Clear Lake VFW honor guard carrying the flags, and then the Boy Scouts carrying many more flags. After the scouts went thru, we had a nice LONGGGGGGGGGGG wait for the next entry-- Bill and Hill! Yep, the Clintons were going so slow (visiting and campaigning) that the parade was held up for at least 15 minutes so they could catch up. After their entourage passed, we were finally able to enjoy the parade. Also walking in this year's parade was Mitt Romney, and volunteers from most of the other presidential candidates. I personally would rather see a parade with floats, bands and fire trucks, and leave all the politics out of it. The best parade "entry" was the Iowa Air National Guard, which did a fly-over with 3 F-16's. I was a little slow with the camera, but I did catch a blurry shot of them in the distance after they passed us.

It was interesting to note that one of the early entries, the Mason City VFW, was NOT in attendance this year. Their tradition is to march in uniform carrying their "blank shooting" rifles, which they will fire off periodically during the parade. This year, they were told by the Secret Service that firearms would not be allowed, so the group elected to back out of the parade. One of their officers was quoted in the local paper as saying: “There’s too much political stuff. They’re making us change 50 years of tradition because of two people, and one of them is a draft dodger who turned the White House into a whorehouse.” Needless to say, there are MANY in North Iowa fired up about this quote.

I would be remiss in not mentioning our parade hosts. Again this year we watched from the front yard of Ivan and Brenda Good, who own a home right on Main Ave. Many from our church family gathered on their lawn and enjoyed the good food and fellowship before the parade.

After the parade, we went back home and got ready to host a picnic. The Cox's and Nichols' along with Nick Oliver came over and we grilled up some yummy grub. The backyard was full of kids on the swings and playing volleyball.

The weather was perfect, sunny and about 90 degrees. Doreen Nichols fried up a batch of her onion rings, which are about the best I've ever tasted. We enjoyed a great time of fellowship and then at about 7:30, we headed to the church. We parked in the church's lot and walked about 4 blocks south to the lakefront where we spread our chairs and blankets out right on Lakefront Ave, which was closed. We then walked the kids down to the carnival to occupy some time before the 10pm fireworks. Everyone had a great time.

When the fireworks finally began, we were amazed. The city, with the help of corporate and individual donations, put on a $50,000 fireworks display out over the lake. The launchers were set up on 4 barges in the lake, and once they started shooting, they didn't stop for 30 minutes. It was non-stop, 3 or 4 starbursts at a time for the whole 30 min. Without a doubt, the best fireworks show I've ever seen.

Hope you all had as great a 4th of July as we did! John

Some more camping pics

Our first summer vacation

We got to enjoy our first vacation of the summer last week, and I only had to use 1 day of vacation time to do it! I happen to work in a hospital pharmacy that is open 24/7, and one of the overnight pharmacists took time off the weekend of June 22-24. I volunteered to work those 3 nights, which gave me 4 days off the following week. Add in a day of vacation on Friday and voila, a whole week off to go camping with the family. I got home from work at 7:30 am on Monday, took a nap until about noon, then hooked up the camper and off we went to MacNider campground in Mason City. This is a nice campground run by the city's Parks & Rec dept, right next door to the city's pool facility. The Winnebago river runs just adjacent to the campground, and on the other side of the river is Mason City's largest park, East Park.

Monday and Tuesday were HOT, and the whole family enjoyed the pool both days. It was great to watch Sarabeth, Nathan and Juliana romping in the water. They all loved going underwater, time after time---no fear (which is dangerous). We had to keep a close eye on them. I think swimming lessons are in the near future! Sarabeth had never been swimming in China, so this was her first time. I think she's hooked.

On Wednesday the weather cooled off a little and we went crawdad hunting in the river. We caught quite a few along with some minnows. There was a huge flock of geese on the riverbank which Mary and the kids were feeding bread to. The geese would eat right out of their hands. On Thursday, we celebrated Caitlin's 15th birthday! We took her out to breakfast at McD's and then took all the kids to the HUGE playground at East Park. That evening we went out for Chinese and played a round of Putt-putt at a local golf facility. All the kids had a great time. The weather was fantastic and we sat around the campfire until well past dark. The little ones enjoyed catching fireflies and watching the bats flutter overhead as they began their nightly search for bugs. We also sang Happy Birthday to Caitlin as she blew out the candles on some birthday cookies.

On Friday morning, it was time to pack up and go home. Caitlin needed to do laundry and pack up to go to camp at IRBC on Saturday. She is working in the dishroom all week this week during Family Camp 2. It was a short week, but an enjoyable time away from home. We were only about 10 miles from the house, but with no computers, TVs, phone etc., we were able to relax and enjoy family time together.

The weekend was spent doing things around the house, mowing the grass etc. We are hosting our church's July 4 picnic on Wednesday afternoon, so the yard needed some work.

John

A long overdue post

This post is long overdue, as we have been both busy and neglectful. Everyone is doing well as summer begins. Camp has begun at IRBC (Iowa Regular Baptist Camp) and we had the opportunity to spend the week out there last week. The first week of camping season is the combination of Special Camp and "Water/Work Week (WWW)". WWW is the week where teens from all over Iowa come to camp and bust their butts working on the campground, getting it ready for summer and also trying out for part-time positions at the camp. They learn how to do the jobs they would be assigned to if they are offered positions, such as dining hall, dishroom, lifeguard etc. Caitlin and Grace both attended and received work weeks this year. Caitlin will be working in the dining hall during the weeks of Junior Girls Camp and Deaf Camp. She will also work in the dishroom the week of Family Camp 2 over the week of July 4. Grace will be working in the dishroom for Senior High Camp. The girls will also be attending camp this year, with Caitlin attending Senior High Camp and Grace attending Junior High Camp. The whole family will be attending Family Camp 5 again this year from Aug 4 through 10. All in all, Caitlin will be spending 5 weeks of her summer at IRBC. Fun!!!

The other camp going on last week was Special Camp. Mary has worked as RN for special camp for 7 years now. Special camp is a week for special needs/mentally challenged individuals from all over Iowa to attend camp and hear about God's Word. They enjoy the many things to do on the campground, have craft time and Bible lesson time, and go to Chapel every evening for songs and a message. The speaker this year was Pastor Garry Moore who does a good job of speaking in a way the campers can understand. On Tuesday and Wednesday evenings after Chapel, the campers participated in their annual "Talent Night". There are many versions of "Jesus Loves Me" sung (some you can even understand the words!), and each one is a blessing.

Jeriah worked as a counselor for Special camp again this year, and John spent the week in our camper on the campground taking care of the little ones. This freed Mary up to devote her time to her nursing duties. Thankfully, the Stephenson kids were able and willing to play with Sarabeth, Nathan and Juliana during the daytime all week, thus freeing John up to do a little fishing. The results can be seen in the pic below (a nice 21" walleye- one of 3 keepers on this day)! Some special camp pics are also attached.

Some new pics

Sarabeth and her friends
Caitlin has her learner's permit!!
Grace's new 'do and glasses

April 19, 2007

Nathan had his "crown" removed today at the Univ. of Iowa hospital in Iowa City. After six weeks of distraction and the implantation of a bone graft in his right lower jaw, he looks like a different child. I hope to have new pics posted soon. We were hoping to be able to feed Nate some steak this weekend, as he's been on a mostly pureed diet the past 6 weeks. Unfortunately, his doctor wants his diet to remain "soft" for a while.

Other recent events around the Kamberger household include:

-Grace got her hair cut shoulder length and got glasses. These changes make her look about 16!

-Caitlin participated in a solo ensemble last weekend. She played the bells in a group percussion ensemble and did both a tympani solo and voice solo. I taped the tympani solo and have uploaded it onto youtube.com. If you want to see it, go to youtube and search "Caitlin's tympani solo". I also taped the percussion group. I will try to upload this to youtube soon. I'll also try to put a link here in the blog so you can watch the videos from this site.

-Spring may finally have sprung. This week the temps are in the 60's and 70's, but just a week ago we had another 6 inches of snow! I'm hoping that was old man winter's last gasp. We were able to get out and do some yard work this week, and I think it will be time for weed killer and fertilizer soon. Mary's tulips and crocuses are coming up and one of the crocus has a bloom on it.

-Baseball season has begun, and I (John) got to go see the Orioles play in Minnesota on April 9. Three buddies and I drove up to the dome and had great seats in the 6th row along the left field line, right behind the Twins' bullpen. Although the O's lost 3-2, it was an excellent game and a good time. Thank goodness for the dome. It was snowing outside while we were quite comfortable inside. The two hour drive back to Clear Lake took a bit longer though, because the roads were very icy when we left the dome. And to think... in a few years the Twins' new stadium will be ready for play- an open air stadium with no retractable roof. In this day and age, that is ridiculous! I much prefer baseball outdoors, but in April in Minnesota.....it's gonna be COLD! As late as the playoffs and world series are now, if the Twins make it that far they could be playing in snow like what happened in Cleveland last week. Many of the newer stadiums (Toronto, Milwaukee, Arizona, Houston, Seattle) have retractable roofs. I think the powers to be in Minnesota are going to regret their decision not to go this route with their new ballpark.

-The walleye spawn has begun in Clear Lake. That means the fish will be very hungry soon as they complete the spawn and the water temps go up some. I'm looking forward to getting out on the water and beginning the hunt! I'm not much of a fish eater, but fresh walleye makes a fantastic meal. Mary will dip the fillets in batter and fry them and we all enjoy the results. The walleye in the pic below was caught last summer.

-We had an excellent Easter. Sarabeth enjoyed coloring eggs for the first time, as did each of the other kids. I've attached a few egg coloring pics below. Enjoy!

John

Pix of Nate in the hospital

I still gotta wear this "crown" for three more weeks! YUCK!
I want to go home - his most frequent comment, but this time it
was with big tears rolling down his cheeks. Nate did like riding the trike bike all over the halls in the hospital. One time he was "chasing" Mommy and took a corner a bit too fast ... wipe out!!! With 2 fresh incisions and a halo on, we thought the "chasing" should stop.

Mary

Nathan's second surgery

Last week, Nathan had his second facial surgery. The doctors removed a portion of his rib/cartilage, shaped it and grafted it onto his right lower jawbone. John and I were at the hospital with him from Monday night through Thursday night. Poor Nate spiked 104 degree fever on Wed night/thurs early morning. The docs obviously didn't want to send us home, but all the tests were clear for any new bacterial infection. Nate must have succumb to a viral bronchitis of sorts - John and I convinced the docs that we could go home. We didn't want John to have to drive 3hrs home on Thurs, work all day Fri and drive 3hrs back down on Fri to pick us up .... when we and the docs knew Nate had a virus that they could do nothing for at the hospital. Sooooo, we arrived home at 10pm Thursday - exhausted!

Sarabeth and Juliana stayed with the Cox's and Sarabeth was the one to have a hard time with it. She missed her Mommy! A wonderful thing for an adoptive Mom to hear - a great sign of bonding! We called early on Thursday to say we would NOT be coming home, but called again at 6pm to say we would be home by 10pm. Sarabeth and Juls came home with Caitlin and Grace around 7:30 and Sarabeth thought Mom would be there ..... I was not! She lost it! Sad for her, but a great boost that our bonding is strong! They called me on my cell and I assured Sarabeth we would be home by 10 and to wait up for us. All four of my girls were eagerly waiting for us to get home!

Nate has continued with a coarse bronchial cough, and reducing fevers. He has 3-4inch incisions on his right neck and left chest - glued closed! I also have gotten a cough and now a cold and feel pretty worn out. Last night was the first night we all slept well since arriving home!

I'll post some pix and then I'm off to bed - just wanted to get this belated posting finally up for you all to read.

Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers!!
Mary

Sarabeth's "four" wheeler

An old bike of Grace's came out of hibernation and I pumped the tires and added training wheels. Sarabeth had been bugging me all week to ride her bike. She was ecstatic until she tried to get on!! I then lowered the seat all the way down for her. I said, "I thought you rode a bike in China?" Her reply, "I did, but it was a small bike!" She pedaled around the driveway and up the sidewalk, all the while leaning on one of the training wheels - us parents all know what that looks like! Juls and Nate whizzed by Sarabeth on their trikes and she kept yelling for them to get out of the way. To which, in true brotherly style, Nate only got in her way all the more! The day was overcast and dreary, but at least it was warm. With muddy shoes and dodging raindrops, the kids all came in tired and satisfied!

Oh, BTW, Nate broke another wire! The second unbroken wire has GOT to last until we leave for the hospital on Monday night. He goes for surgery #2 Tuesday morning, bright and early. The docs will harvest a piece of Nate's own rib with some cartilage attached (growth plate lies in between the bone and cartilage). Then they will graft this bone, after reshaping it, to create a new upper portion of his right mandible. The following 3 weeks his jaw will HAVE to remain immobile so they better triple layer those wires and use extra heavy duty this time around!!

Would appreciate prayer for his surgery - that the Lord's hand will guide the surgeon's and all will heal well.

Peace,
Mary

Tea for two!

What's better than a mini tea set with cups, spoons, real tea, sugar, creamer and cheerios? A sister to share it with!! Sarabeth and Juliana enjoyed their tea for 45 minutes or so. The only bad part was when Mom said it was time to clean up. Juls threw a whopper of a tantrum and I spent the next 45 minutes helping her wind down, relearn "children obey your parents" and snuggling in the recliner after the meltdown!! Ain't it great to have a 3 year old .... wait, we have two of them! Nate was resting, tho - he missed out on the party - after all we only had "tea for two".

Blessings,

Mary

Car sleepers

Okay all you viewers, just TRY to get your head to touch your shoulder like this. How can kids sleep like this? All three of them knocked off during a 10 minute drive after playing at the park Thursday afternoon. Grace had the last 2 of her necessary 4 teeth extractions that day - we dropped her off and then went to the park. The kids had a blast on the big twistee slides and swings. Grace was a trooper throughout her ordeal and now will wait the year out for her teeth to move around and then start into her invisalign in January 08. She can't wait!

Mary

A chip off the old block!

The "Big Meltdown" occurred over this last week. Caitlin loves to chip away at the huge slabs of ice and landed this 'big one' after a long effort! Nearly 4 inches thick and over 4 feet tall. We are sooooo glad to see nearly ALL the snow and ice gone now.

Mary

Quick update

It's been a week since we've posted - sorry!! The evening of the 17th (last Saturday), Nate broke his second wire at 7p. The docs at U of I didn't want to rewire him at 11pm, so John, Caitlin and Nate took off for U of I on Sunday morning. 3 hours down .... 10minutes to rewire him .... 3 hours back. I was glad to stay back home and go to church this time!!

We all went to the Wild Game Buffet at church that night - venison, salmon, wild turkey, goose and some normal fare as well. We always enjoy a nice fellowship at church!

Mary

Nathan snaps a wire!

We have seen numerous robins lately, scavenging for food. Yeah!! Signs of spring are all around - daffodil sprouts (in others' yards), kids out trike riding on the driveway and sidewalks, chalk drawings all over!! We still have piles of snow and ice melting, but Spring WILL come!

Yesterday evening while eating dinner, John commented that Nathan was moving his jaw more today. I looked at him closely to see one of his two pin wires was broken! 5:45pm on Friday night - happy weekend! We called the hospital, which is 3 hrs away, and after a few calls and consults to "fellows" and the chief surgeon, we were told it was no emergency - we could come on Monday or over the weekend. So, we chose to wait and Mary and Lynn Cox will again travel to Iowa City on Tuesday to get the wire reattached. I told John we could just go to ACE hardware and get some wire ourselves, but considering the level of calibration the docs do to have his chin/face shifting "just right", we chose to let the professionals do it!! So as long as the other wire doesn't snap, we will wait until Tuesday - otherwise it will be a quick trip to U of I hospital. NEXT time I hope they increase the wire gauge or triple layer it!!

Blessings,
Mary

Grace's 13th birthday party with friends

Grace had 8 friends over for her traditional slumber party. Teen games, a movie, doing hair and just joking around - all had a great time. Can't believe my "baby" is getting all grown up!

Mary

Nathan's Crown!

Nathan's first surgery

Today, Nathan had his first (of three) surgeries at the University of Iowa Hospital in Iowa City. Mary and Lynn Cox drove down with Nate yesterday afternoon and spent the night in a hotel. They were able to take Nate swimming in the hotel's pool, which Mary said he enjoyed. This morning, he was taken into the O.R. to have his "crown" put on. I hope to soon have pics placed so you can see what I'm about to try to describe, but here goes:

Nathan has "hemifacial microsomia" with microtia. In layman's terms, in the womb half his face was not fully developed and his ear was not fully formed. The mandible (lower jawbone) on the right is not completely formed and does not have its growth plate. He also lacks the chewing muscles on the right side of his face. The left side is completely normal, and as he grows the left side of his face is growing normally and the right side pretty much not growing at all, so his face is gradually getting more asymmetrical. Eventually this can lead to considerable problems, such as twisting of the airway- which would not be a good thing!

Today, he had hardware placed that will "distract" his jawbone, or pull it back into a more correct alignment. The device is similar to a "halo" and is attached to his skull with pressure point screws, four on each side. Coming down from the front of the halo is a bar which is attached to Nate's chin by two pins. A plate was surgically inserted onto his chin for these 2 pins to attach to. Tomorrow, Mary will be taught how to perform the daily adjustments to this contraption that will gradually pull Nate's jaw back into alignment. In 3 weeks, we will return to Iowa City and they will take some of Nate's rib and rib cartilage out and graft it into his jaw. This graft will act as a growth plate in the future. In another 3 weeks, we will again go down and all the hardware will be removed.

During the 6 weeks that Nate is wearing the halo device, he will not be able to open his mouth more than a 1/4 inch or so. Mary has been able to spoon some orange sherbet into his mouth tonight, but it looks like feeding will be difficult for the next 6 weeks. According to the surgeon, he will not be able to chew anything harder than mac & cheese, so soft/pureed diet is what he'll be getting. Nathan is a carnivore. He loves meat- beef/chicken/pork- if you give it to him Nate will eat it!

Todays surgery went well. Nate is dealing with some discomfort, oozing of blood around the chin plate and groginess. We will keep you all informed of his progress. I'll try and post some before/after pictures too. Keep Nate in your prayers as he deals with this situation in his life.

Blizzard pics

Our front yard
Dad working the snowblower
A snowball fight!
Nathan and Juls
Sarabeth on a snow mound

The blizzard(s) of 2007

Tonight we are dealing with the second blizzard in the past 6 days. Blizzard #1 began last Friday evening with thundersleet and freezing rain, which gave us a nice coating of ice. The snow began in earnest on Saturday evening and with the high winds the conditions were pretty dicey outside. Many people here in North Iowa lost their power. Now, almost a week later as some folks are still waiting for their electricity to be restored- a second round of freezing rain and HEAVY snow is falling. The forecast is for another 12-15 inches by tomorrow afternoon, with considerable blowing and drifting of snow.

We are praying for those who are still in the dark. Our good friends Shannon and Jodi Clark are among those waiting. You can read their story on their blog at clarkproverbs.blogspot.com

The kids are enjoying the opportunity to get out and play in the white stuff. Thankfully the temps haven't been too bad, hovering just below freezing. The pics above show what we've been dealing with. As dad works the snowblower, the kiddos are having a blast playing.

Grace is a TEEN!

The youngest of our first family is a teenager. Grace turned 13 yesterday. It's hard to imagine that our little girl is already a teenager, but it's true! She looks and acts more like one every day. We had a small family party with presents and cake last night. Grace will have her traditional sleep-over party with 8 of her friends on Friday night (weather permitting!). She plans on decorating the family room, eating lots of junk, watching a movie or two, giggling a lot!, and not sleeping very much. Hopefully the weather will cooperate. Above are some pics of our family party.

Brace Face! Tinsel Teeth! NOT!

A new adventure for the Kamberger family began this week as Caitlin got her braces! As you can see from the pics above, there is no metal involved. Our dentist hooked her up with a new product called "Invisalign" which she will wear 24 hours a day, except when eating/brushing/flossing. Every three weeks or so a new set of Invisalign molds will be utilized. After about a year, her correction will be complete!

Caitlin was very excited to get these started. She was not expecting the "uncomfortable" feeling in her mouth and on her tongue from rubbing against the mold, but we've told her it's much better than having braces!

Grace will also be getting the Invisalign, but not until next year at the earliest. She will need to have four teeth extracted this year to give her mouth a little more room, then will have the molds done after things stabilize.

Here Comes the Storm!

Well, a beautiful week of temps in the 40's has taken a turn for the worse as a low pressure system is moving across the midwest today. It began here last night as THUNDERSLEET. More freezing rain today, then turning to all snow this afternoon into tomorrow. The prediction is for up to 15 inches of snow on top of 1/4 to 1/2 inch of ice when all is said and done. Typical north Iowa weather! We'll try to post some more pics once the snow hits.

Color the Wind- 2

A few more pics from the kite festival.

Color the Wind Kite Festival

Today was the annual "Color the Wind" kite festival over frozen Clear Lake. It was an almost perfect day for flying a kite. The temps were in the high teens, the sun was bright and the breeze was 'kickin. The only problem was the wind chill- which was in the single digits. There were many people out on the lake and along the "seawall". Kite flyers from all over the midwest were said to be in attendance.

There were a variety of colors and types of kites flying over the ice. Spinning kites; kites in the shape of fish and other animals and acrobatic kites were in abundance. Caitlin took her kite and added it to the mix. She was able to get the kite flying, but the breeze was too strong. It was hard to control and soon crashed to the ice, breaking her string. We noticed that most of the "professional" kite flyers had higher grades of string than what we had. Oh well, a good time was had by all, even though our time out on the ice was limited by the cold.

One of the advantages of living in a place like Clear Lake is that the town has quite a few of these types of activities planned throughout the year. There is a bandshell on the waterfront which hosts different types of concerts all summer long and the annual Christmas by the Lake weekend in early December has a lighted parade on Saturday night that is followed by fireworks over the ice. We enjoy the small town atmosphere and the many activities.

Phantom of the Opera

Caitlin has had the Phantom of the Opera DVD for quite a while and watches it often. She just loves the movie!

For her Christmas present, I (John) gave her two tickets to see the touring Broadway production of Phantom while it was in Des Moines. The show was here for 3 weeks in January/February and has been a huge hit.

So, last Friday night the 9th, Caitlin and I drove to Des Moines. We had dinner at the Olive Garden in West Des Moines (her choice!), then went downtown to the Civic Center. It was fun getting all dolled up and going on a "date" with my little girl! We had good seats, about halfway back and in the middle.

10 years ago Mary and I went to see Phantom, also at the DM Civic Center. Our tickets that night were in the 3rd or 4th row from the back of the auditorium and it was very hard to see. The seats this time were much better.

The production was great. We had a very good time. Afterward though, Caitlin seemed a bit disappointed. I think she was so used to the movie that the stage production was a bit of a letdown for her. A stage production will never be as crisp as the movie, so I think it just wasn't exactly what she was expecting.

All in all, we had a great night. The drive each way was about 2 hours, so we had a chance to visit with each other for 4 hours in the car and another hour or so at dinner. Quality time that is very important!

Sarabeth's 7th Birthday

Our family's first birthday of 2007 is Sarabeth's seventh, but her first with us. Her special day was on January 31. We had a small family party at suppertime and then, since it was Wednesday, we went to church. Our church's Wed. service consists of prayer time and Bible study for the adults, while downstairs, the Kids Klub meets. On this day, the Kids Klub enjoyed a birthday party! Mary brought cupcakes and other goodies and the kids sang and played games, including Duck, Duck, Goose (photos attached!). A great time was had by all. (click on photos to enlarge them)

A family photo!

Back row: John, Sarabeth (6), Juliana (3), Jeriah (20), Nathan (3) and Mary
Front: Caitlin (14) and Grace (12)

Christmas 2006

Here are a few Christmas pics from December 2006. As according to tradition, we cut our own tree again this year. In October, we went to Kragel's Tree Farm in Ventura, IA and tagged a tree. Usually we cut down our tree and decorate it on Thanksgiving weekend. This year, because of our trip to China during the first 2 weeks of December, we decided to wait until we were home before we did the cutting. No sense putting up a live tree and then not being home to water it for 2 weeks!

Our family enjoys traditions. Our Christmas tradition is to have a Christmas Eve dinner (usually with at least 1 seafood entree), then go to Candlelight service at church in the early evening. After church, we open presents. Typically, Caitlin and Grace will seperate out the packages and then we open them one at a time, from youngest to oldest, then back to youngest etc until all are opened.

This year, we had a great dinner of ham and steamed shrimp. The Candlelight service was lightly attended, but was a good time of hymm singing and fellowship. When it came to opening presents, we elected to do things a bit different this year. During Christmas, we celebrate the gift of Jesus Christ coming to earth so that He could eventually GIVE himself up on the cross of Calvary to pay the penalty for our sins. This Christmas, we wanted to focus on the aspect of GIVING presents, rather than receiving them.

Each family member had purchased one present for each other member of the family. The girls seperated all the presents by the FROM name on the gift tag instead of who they were for. We then started by having the eldest family member GIVE a present from their stack to someone, and worked down from there until the youngest, Juliana, gave out a package from her stack. Then we started over again and continued until everyone had given a gift to each other member of the family. I think we may have a new tradition!

Our new blog

Mary and I have been home from China for 9 weeks now with Sarabeth, and have been way too busy to post to our "Journey to Sarabeth" blog site. Today, I decided to begin posting some new photos and we decided that a new site was in order. We are no longer journeying to Sarabeth! She is here and a part of our family, growing in her confidence every day; learning the English language by leaps and bounds; eating every bite of anything we put in front of her! For those of you who don't know Sarabeth's story, go to http://journeytosarabeth.blogspot.com and read about our trip to China.

Since we have so many friends and loved ones in different time zones, we intend to use this site to post pics for all to see and keep up on our family's adventures. Feel free to check back often and we'd love to hear your comments.