Oops, missed a gem

Found another one that at first I thought was a "California" picture but then saw the writing on the back.

This one says "With the Old Fortress in the background in the old part of town.  Town of Kamyanets- Podilskiy. 2008" 

I'm curious about the date.  The girls were in the orphanage for 2 years before we adopted them and we adopted them in 2009.  I even looked closer on the back and sure enough it isn't a typo, it really does say 2008.  I think odds are someone wouldn't have put the wrong date on it unless they were dating it long after the fact and the date was old.  It doesn't look like winter so it would be about mid-2008.  Maybe this photo was sent to them in the orphanage?

All treasure doesn't glitter

Imagine our delight when in the hotel we see these pictures, scattered among the millions of pictures of the girls in California.  This is a picture of the girls' biological mom.

We had our facilitator translate what is written on the back.  This one says "Half way up to the top of the Goverla (Hoverla) Mountain... little "Goverlian" Girl."

"07.24.2000. Kristina at her Angel's Day with her God-mother"

What a treasure to have these pictures!! 

'Arry Po'er

You know the book about Jay Berry, who discovers a troop of monkeys roaming the woods near his home and decides to try to capture them to earn money to buy a pony and a gun.  What follows are many adventures leading to the "Summer of the Monkeys." 

Well, around these parts, having a serious lack of Monkey, this has been

The Summer of Harry Potter. 

Kristina came home, near the end of school reading HP #4 (after reading the first 3 during the school year). 

We watched HP #3-- around here you have to read the HP book BEFORE you get to watch the movie.  All the older kids had read up to #3(I had read #1, #2 and some of #3 to the kids pre-adoption then they lost interest).   That got Miriam interested in reading them again.   Over the summer Miriam read #4, #5, and most of #6 (that is really saying something for Miriam, given her reading challenges).  She would get her chore done quickly so that I could read a chapter or two to her after supper.  

Then that got too slow for her and she read most of #6 and all of #7 all by herself.  She begged and pleaded to have a set of HP books for her birthday.  "Really Mom, it's all I want!"

Then Anastasia jumped on the band wagon.  The chugged and huffed through some of #1 and begged and pleaded for anyone to read to her.  Her most prized birthday present was 4 coupons for Mom to read an hour of HP to her.

Of course, Caleb and Jonas read each of the books over again...... several times.

Then started a spate of wand making. 

No stick in the neighborhood was safe. 

 The kids would spend hour after loving hour, cutting, peeling the bark off, sanding and painting each wand. 

Great imagination and discussion was used in deciding which magical object would be the core of the wand and what special power it was good for.

The house was filled with cries of "EXPELLIARMUS,"  "PETRIFICUS TOTALUS," "ALOHOMORA,"

  and, my personal favorite from Elijah "MAXIMUS."

 (Don't ask, I don't know what it means, either)

 Of course, many a mealtime discussion centered around the scarred wizard and the whys and where-to- fors of his foibles.  Well, that, of course led quite naturally to a Harry Potter Party to celebrate the end of the summer.

 We decided to do it early so that Kelly could be a part of the celebration.

We made Cauldron Cakes (admittedly, they don't LOOK much like cauldrons, but they were YUMMY!)

 

Licorice Wands

And butter beer (which I don't have a picture of). 

It was quickly decided to make it an annual End-of-Summer-Beginning-of-School tradition.  We even have a list of new Harry Potter Recipes to try.

Shhhh.  Don't tell the kids that I had much more fun with it all than they did.