Maestro

After a loooooooooooooooong 2 day drive, we are back home! The first day of driving started out an hour and a half late - as they often do. We didn't look at a map first, and the GPS has limited helpfulness when travelling off interstate. So, we ended up taking a less than direct route - ugh. Then, we had some not so stellar service at a horrible Subway (story for another day) that added a lot of time. A McDonald's in the middle of nowhere took 25 minutes to get ice cream!  Anyway, you know how it goes...  12 hours later, we arrived at the home of a fellow New Horizons family! They are hosting a married couple - chaperones. So, we stayed the night there and had a great time visiting with them and hanging out in the morning before we headed on home. I think V*ktor had fun showing pictures to the chaperones and hanging out with their son from Latvia who speaks Russian.  Great visit!  We pulled into town back home just in time to pop over for cousin H's bday party - yaaa!
     All of us were REALLY glad to be out of the car. Monday, Brian worked from home, and I attempted to unpack and do some laundry. Doesn't look much different, though! Later, I took the kids to the thrift store, library, and a really fast grocery store stop.
     V*ktor is a typical teen in that it's IMPOSSIBLE to get him out of bed! I finally found a secret weapon today, though :) Baby C is just too cute to ignore even when you want to sleep!  We will have to see if it works again tomorrow.  First stop was the dentist which was seriously not fun. I think he was much more anxious about that than he even was the surgery last week! Poor guy :( Once that was over, we went home and just kind of relaxed for awhile. He is NOT a typical teen when it comes to eating. He never wants to eat, but will eat if you insist that he has to.  Is my cooking that BAD???!?!!! After lunch, we took A to library time, and V*ktor got a really special treat :)

 My awesome friend and church pianist spent about an hour with him getting him started on the violin. She's an amazing teacher, and he is a very smart kid. I was seriously impressed with how much he knows already! Thanks to a generous family, he also now has his very own violin to take home with him!  He is overjoyed, and he spent every spare minute at home practicing. He showed great-grandma and great-grandpa, played via skype for N and family, and I'm sure there will be many more concerts :) 


My doctor checked him out today and said he's good to go for swimming and bike-riding. Yaaaa!  I was really hoping he wouldn't have to wait 2 weeks.
It just doesn't seem possible that we are over halfway through our time with him. He's so wonderful, typical kid in some ways, loving, sweet. Please continue to pray for him and his future. I know God has great plans for him!