She's never been more beautiful

Lily has always been a beautiful child both inside and out, but this week, I saw her inner beauty in a way I never had before.  As I mentioned earlier in the week our family pastor had been battling terminal Alzheimers and had been declining rapidly.  She had wanted to say goodbye to him, but when she saw the videos and images of him she didn't think she could handle it.  Fast forward to a few days later, when we received notice that Pastor Mark was no longer able to get out of bed or sit in a chair and was being moved to Hospice at the Kline hospice house in Mt. Airy.  I told Lily if she wanted to say goodbye this was the time.  She said, "Mommy he came to me in the hospital when I needed him (sledding accident), I want to be there for him".  And so we went.  She was amazing, a true picture of beauty!  I felt like he knew we were there, as he grabbed our hands and held them.  A treasured memory.  Rest in Peace Pastor Mark Vandeermeer, our family is grateful for your ministry!

Hard Stuff

Age 12 has been chock full of real-life hard stuff!  School has gotten more challenging and more demanding, Lily is having to learn a lot of grown-up things such as time management, electing to engage even when she doesn't want to, and advocating for herself!  These have been tough lessons to learn and sometimes I feel like we cattle prod her too much sometimes, but if she can master these we know she will be very successful in her life! On a more difficult note, last night we shared with Lily that her beloved Pastor Mark, is even more sick than we had expected.  They have called in Hospice and they are not sure if he will even make it to Christmas.  When we told her she cried and cried and cried.  It was heartbreaking, not being able to fix it for her.  Originally she had wanted to visit him as he has been living in an assisted living place specializing in full-time care for Alzheimer's patients.  However, when we showed her pictures of his gaunt appearance and videos of his weakness and repetitive behaviors, she decided that perhaps she wasn't quite ready for that.  Sometimes life is really tough.

Bragging

Not to brag or anything but we have hit the stage where I can make Lily angry or annoyed simply by breathing!  I was so hoping we wouldn't have this stage, but no such luck!

Halloween Fun

Lily missed the pumpkin patch this year, so we brought her back a small pumpkin to carve.

Carving Pumpkins

Carving

Kitty, the finished product

 This year was the first year, Lily didn't really "plan" a costume.  She mentioned she wanted to be a wolf, so I bought her some ears and a tail, which declared were for a "toddler" and she threw something together 10 minutes before we walked out the door.

Grey Wolf and Steve from Minecraft

Trick or Treating with the boys

I had asked Lily if she wanted to go trick or treating this year with her friends or maybe her "boyfriend" Kobi, but she wanted to go to Pop-Pop's neighborhood.  So as usual she had a little boy Posse with Garrett, Keagan, Micheal, and Ashton

This young lady is truly exceptional!

I've got to give kudos to Lily!  She really is growing into an exceptional young lady!  This week her middle school class (45 students)  took an overnight tenting/camping trip to Little Bennett Park.  At night 30 students snuck out to the bathrooms and played spin the bottle and 7 minutes in heaven.  Lily was the only one in her tent group that remained in her tent.  Doing the right thing when everyone else is doing the wrong thing is tough even for an adult, but Lily blew us away with her maturity in what I suspect was a difficult situation.  I pray that she continues to have a good head on her shoulders and continues to make good decisions.  Like her Daddy said, "We trusted you before, but now we trust you even more".  I'll tell you, she is truly a good egg!!!!  We are super blessed!

A first time for everything

Well "we" bit the bullet and bought Lily an electric razor.  I had tried to convince her to wait as long as possible, but she wanted to do it.  So last night we had a crash course in shaving her legs.  Armpits will be next.  My baby girl is growing up so fast!!!!

This girl is on fire!

Watch out world!  7th grade!!!!!

This girl is amazing!  Today was her first day of 7th grade!  She reported she had a good day although she felt a little overwhelmed!  She reported that many of her friends had moved on to other schools, but was happy to be reunited with her other friends.  Kobi (her "boyfriend" and her are still sitting at the same table!

Her Daddy and I could not be more proud of her!  She is really coming into her own!  She is super kind to others, making them feel loved and special (except her annoying little brother...although sometimes she will try!).  She shows a maturity beyond her years!  This past weekend we went camping and we had another little girl from Lily's school Emery, also adopted from Guatemala join us.  She and her friends welcomed Emery in with open arms and did everything in their power to make her feel comfortable in the group.

Lily is also beginning to take ownership of her health and fitness.  She seems to be taking an interest in being more healthy.  I am so proud of her.  She has even taken a little interest in weightlifting!  Today she had her swim evaluation and the coaches said she did a great job!  She gets to move up to the next level.  They even think once she gets back into shape she can move up to the level after that as well!  Go Lily!  She seems motivated, so we will see!  It's nice to see her setting goals and going after them! 

Beautiful Guate girl gang!

One tall Rudy with 3 lovely Guate girls!

All the kiddos!

An awesome human being!

Lily really is an amazing human being!  I am in awe of her much of the time!  She has such a big heart!

So first, she still has the "boyfriend".  They haven't seen each other over the summer, although we did try to find him in Bethany Beach, but they continue to text and "duo" each day.  It continues to be pretty innocent, but there sure is a lot of I love you going around!  He was using a lot of bad language initially with her, but after we told her it needed to stop, he stopped thankfully!

She just finished a week of babysitting camp called Safe Sitter.  I was super impressed!  Once she is 13 years old she will be an amazing babysitter!!!!

We went to Bethany Beach with the Best family and Ms. Jessica's family.  I think Lily had a good time, but I think the girls got on her nerves. Both Chloe and Isabelle would go at it!  I don't think Lily cares for the drama too much.  But I must admit I was really proud of her, she did extremely well!  I asked her what her favorite part of the beach was and she said it was seeing her cousin Aly at the beach!  My sister and her family were there at the same time and came to visit us at the beach 3 times!

We recently got free backpacks and school supplies and Lily with her big heart wanted to give them to one of the little girls we sponsored in Guatemala!

Yesterday we were driving and she decided she wanted to de-winterize our homeless bags and hand them out.  Again, such a big and thoughtful heart!

She is fun to be with most of the time, except if she is moody:)  She's got a good sense of humor too!  I heard on the radio the other day Pastor Tony Evans talking about relationships and rules, and how as children age they may want to rebel against the rules, but if you have a good relationship with them, they will want to preserve that relationship and the rules deal more with respect, that children are more likely to respect the rules because of the relationship instead of rebel against the rules.  I am praying that is the case with her!

She loves her YouTube videos and constantly wants us to watch some of the funny things she finds!

I head to Thailand for two weeks in August.  I haven't been away from her for that long since we lived in Guatemala.  Hopefully, the nannies and Daddy will be okay and I won't miss her too much!

We have entered a new parenting milestone

Today was Lily's last day of 6th grade!  Hard to believe how much she has changed in the last few months.

Lily's last day of school in front of Daddy's new Hummer

We can really tell she is seeking her identity.  She has asked to have her DNA tested so she can find out her ethnic background.  The running joke in the house is she wants to know if she is 3% Irish!  As much as we want to give her this, we are just not comfortable with it right now.  Having her DNA out there is unsettling, in fact, there was just a DNA breach last week. 

We've also discussed finding her birth mom.  Again this is another huge Pandora's box.  We are praying on it now.  Like the DNA I do want to do this for her as well, I want to give her that gift of identity,  but it opens up so many things I want her to be "ready" or at least in a position to emotionally deal with anything that might come up. 

Also, spring fever hit the upper school this Quarter.  Lily has this boy crazy friend Taylor and I think Lily caught the bug!  She has "paired up" with a good friend of hers Kobi.  They text and talk often!  In fact, we found out about their "relationship"  because I noticed Lily used 500 texts within 1 day!  When I asked to see her phone she refused.    A big no-no...apparently she was embarrassed.  Anyway I've been tracking the texts and it's pretty innocent, but man I am so not ready for this!

Lily had another great season playing soccer.  Things are really beginning to click for her!  I think another season or so and she'll be on fire!  Her coaches this season were amazing too and developed great relationships with the girls.

A great group of girls!

Lily is maturing so much both physically and socially.  She did very well in school this quarter.  She is reading 2 grade levels above and all that math tutoring really paid off!  She scored Average-High for the end of the year!  Yeah, Lily!  The teachers joke that Lily is like a lightning bolt.  Everyone storms around her and yet she is focused in the center.  Then if she moves, they all move with her!  It's so funny how she is so focused at school because at home, she's all over the place!!!

Lately, she has expressed an interest in trying vocal lessons and guitar lessons.  So proud of her for trying new things!

Yesterday at school she had to give a speech to the entire upper and lower elementary school about perseverance!  So proud!

May download

May has been a wild ride in the Gjerde household.  We have taken three family camping trips with different groups and Lily has even gone camping with her 6th grade schoolmates!  First, we went camping with Cagle girls, then we went camping with our small group bible study, and lastly, we went camping with part of the Henry clan.  On Lily's school camping trip, she went on a ropes course and she said she did a zip line!  Lily definitely has become more teenager-like in that she seems to need time just to be alone and veg out, while camping she has fun, but then she would disappear into the camper to text on her phone or watch a video.

Cagle family

Lily and Abigail

Small Group Camping trip

Lily X 2

Ready to kayak

Lily had her first chorus concert at school. She said she didn't enjoy the experience very much so I don't know if she will do it again in the future.  She also played goalie in soccer for the first time ever.  She said she was near tears because she was so nervous, but she did great she prevented several goals!  It also seems like a switch has come on with soccer, like all those skills she has been practicing are finally coming together.  The last few games she really has turned on the skill!

Lily also has been wanting a bikini, I've gone back and forth on it...not quite emotionally ready for it, but I think we found one yesterday that we both can live with.  She does look super cute and I am glad she has the confidence to wear it!  I'm just not prepared for all the attention it may draw to her!

Also, our dear friend lice has visited us yet again. This time Lily found it herself!  I didn't even cry this time!  I've lost track of how many times our dear Lily has gotten this pesky disgusting bug! Hopefully we can get rid of it for good!!!!

A 12th birthday celebration with sweet friends

Today we hosted Lily's 12th birthday celebration with a few of her girlfriends at Top Golf in Ashburn, VA.  I think they had a really good time, trying to hit golf balls and food under the heated and covered golfing bays.

Your ruining my life and other pre-teen joys

Lily is a full-fledged pre-teen.  This Tuesday I officially got the "you are ruining my life" comment! I had to take her to math tutoring at the tutoring center 30 minutes early because I had a doctor's appointment.  They had accommodated me and told me she could work with Mr. Tony one of the owners and a male tutor.  As I dropped her off and explained the situation she said to me, "You are ruining my life!"  Really????

Also, I forgot to mention that upon re-entering the United States after being in Guatemala we had to go through the Automated Passport Control.  At the kiosk, as a final step, they take your photograph.  Lily being a preening pre-teen had to flip her hair and get it just right for her re-entry photo.  LOL!

We had a mini Easter celebration last week with Lisa and her family.  The kids had a great time looking for Easter eggs in Pop Pop's backyard.

Turning 12 in Guatemala!

We had the blessing of being able to travel to Guatemala again to visit our friends Pat and Bill Mossman and of course celebrating our beautiful daughter Lily's 12th birthday!

We had a fabulous family vacation in Guatemala, visiting with our friends and experiencing some of the local culture!


Upon arriving in Guatemala we made a pit stop at our favorite Pollo Campero!

On our first day, we spent the afternoon at  Florencia Ecological Park, an open and wooded space park/playground with wooden rustic play structures, hiking trails, and covered pavilions with outdoor wood cooking called churraqueras.  They also had 2 small pools, horseback riding, a man-made concrete pond with no water, and pretty views of the hills.  We spent a lovely afternoon exploring the park!

The next day we celebrated Easter at Union Church in the city.  For a short time after church, we visited with the children of the Los Gozosos home, an orphanage specifically for disabled orphaned children.  Lily and I enjoyed Carlos who was super friendly and just wanted us to sit and be with him and Juanita, a tiny 5-year-old who was constrained in an infant car seat.  She smiled so sweetly when we talked with her.  When we touched her legs and hands her expression was so joyful.  I patted her her hair and head and she closed her eyes in sweet pleasure.  She was darling.  I think Ashton felt very overwhelmed with it all!  Upon arriving back home we had a small Easter bunny/candy hunt.  Luis Miguel had never done one before.  I don't think he enjoyed it too much!  But all the kids did enjoy their chocolate and candy!

We then spent a lovely afternoon evening in the pueblo of El Hato at the Earth Lodge. We had to hike down about 300 meters down to the earth lodge.  There we were greeted with amazing views over the valley and with a little bit of cloud covering some of the volcanoes.  We enjoyed playing on the playground overlooking the valley while eating and listening to some acoustic music.

There at Earth Lodge, we ran in our dear friend Karla Aroche, whom we had looked for last time we visited Guatemala with no luck!  While we never got to hook up with her again during our time in Guatemala, my heart was full that we at least got to see her and hug her this time!

The drive through El Hato was very powerful for us.  Seeing all the women out walking with water on their heads, watching some of the men and women carry wood on their heads and backs.  I think for Lily seeing all the malnourished animals.  Children running around unattended.  I believe this was one of Olav's most memorable moments of the trip.

Monday morning we headed into Antigua to meet a professional photographer.  I am eager to see the photographs soon!  The photographer and her husband were absolutely lovely and we enjoyed talking with them over breakfast  We visited our friends Sonia and Antonio along with their daughters Cessy and Michelle.  Poor little Michelle was sick:(

That afternoon we checked into our hotel and enjoyed the hotel pool and grounds.

The next day Lil and Ashton were eager to check out the local Artisan markets.  Each of them wanted a little Guatemalan backpack!  

Later that afternoon we visited Ninos con Bendicion in San Antonio Agua Calientes.  Children with Blessing" was created in 2006, by Lesbi Chavez and her husband Juventino, so that children from their village of  San Antonio Aguas Calientes could receive a quality education while strengthening their own cultural and familial ties.  The kids were absolutely precious as they performed dances in traditional clothing from all areas of Guatemala. The dances demonstrated different cultural experiences, including the planting and harvesting of corn, and the rituals that accompany this harvest. They also invited us to dance with them.  All of us except Ashton got in on the action!  It was super sweet!  Furthermore, since it was just us and they knew it was Lily's birthday they sang Happy Birthday to her in English and Spanish!  Afterward, we decided we would sponsor one of the little girls named Ivanna.  She is 7 years old, but looks like she could be 5!   But man was she cute with an infectious smile!  We decided to sponsor her because, unlike Compassion, this experience appears more accessible in the future.  We can write and visit her without the bureaucracy that we have to go through with Kimberly at Compassion International.  Through this program, she will be able to go to school and continue in the program at Ninos con Bendicion.  While there we also go to try some authentic Guatemalan food I believe called Estufa.  It was like stewed meat that we ate on a tortilla.  Both Olav and I opted to try the green salsa on top and man was that spicy.  Lily opted out of that spicy experience.  Ashton just ate a tortilla!

That evening we enjoyed a very expensive paradilla de shrimp dinner in Antigua.

The next day we had our friends Antonio and Sonia for breakfast at our hotel for one last visit before we left.  It was humbling to watch ALL four of them drive away on Antonio's motorscooter!

That afternoon we visited Finca Filadelfia Coffee Plantation just outside Antigua, Guatemala.  They had many options for activities.  Lily really wanted to do the horseback riding, however, we had gotten there too late in the afternoon.  So we took a coffee tour by Jeep.  It was a little disappointing, I thought it was going to be more like a Jeep safari tour, when in reality it was more like a drive down the street, get off the jeep, learn about coffee, get back in the jeep, drive a few more feet down the road, learn about coffee, etc...If we had known we would have definitely done something else like zip lining or something!  Oh well...next time.  But we did learn a lot about coffee and both Lily and I had some coffee.  Still not fans!

 

Unfortunately that evening we all one by one had come down with whatever virus Sonia and Antonio's daughter Michelle had had earlier.  By Wednesday night we were all super sick with vomiting and/or diarrhea!  At first, we thought it was the food, but then when our host Pat got sick Friday morning, we knew it was a virus!  Oh, bother as Bubby Patricia would say!

We took our last full day there a little easier.  We went to Grizzly Pizza for lunch to celebrate the kids' birthdays.  Grizzly Pizza was like a rainforest cafe playground.  Ashton and Miguel seemed to have a good time. Even Lily explored for a brief moment!

Afterward, we went to the toy store called Jugueton so Bubby could purchase Lily and Ashton a birthday gift.  Lily feeling like she had "outgrown" toys opted for a calligraphy set from a little stationery store.  Ashton chose some very expensive Ninjago imported legos!  On the way home we stopped and got some hot tortillas for the evening.

Despite the illness, we celebrated Lily, Daddy, and Ashton's birthday with a homemade chocolate cake.  Unfortunately, Ashton was done by then, so only Lily and Daddy got to enjoy it!

 

It was a great trip, but I think we were all ready to come home!  But we made some wonderful memories.