Houston to Clovis, New Mexico and Back: The Trail of Tears

Think she notices me? 

Ohhhh, this girl is cute!!!!!

This past weekend we made a quick trip: over the river and through the woods and across the desert and past the cactus and around the cotton fields to Grandmothers house we went.  It is the longest quick trip you can possibly take.  It takes TOOOOO long.  Twelve hours too long to be exact.  But I suppose it was good practice for our trip to Florida.

It was a trip filled with more than a few tears.  Long car rides are not fun for any of us.  Except for Grace, who has learned to sleep through it all.

But in between car rides there and back, the kids had a great time.  On Saturday, my very old friend Jennifer, who I have known since our days together in the theatre department at Eastern New Mexico University, came to visit with her two adorable kiddos who just came home from DRC in February. 
I feel like a played a teeny tiny part in Jennifer's adoption so I kind of think of these kiddos as family.  I guess I feel that way about a lot of the OFA kids.  Even the highly un-photogenic ones below!

The instructions DID NOT include look away from the camera!

Cool glasses, dude.

Grace has had enough!

I think if I stretch just a little farther I can touch my tongue to my nose.  Mom won't notice.

And now we've lost them all!

On Sunday, Brian's parents sponsored a fundraiser at the church, Kingwood United Methodist.  They hosted a luncheon and all the donations from the lunch went to support the OFA Baby House in Kinshasa.  Brian's mom, Ione, said that she had done a Bible study of the book Radical by David Platt, and this was her stab at doing something radical.  This kind of makes me chuckle because Ione is not exactly a "living on the edge" sort of person.  But I love her heart for DRC.  She has been one of our biggest supporters through each of our adoptions.  She's one of the few people that probably thought we were crazy to adopt 6 kids, but she's mostly kept it to herself!  Brian's sister Cathy came into town to help corral the kids.  They all LOVE Aunt Cathy.  And our friend Jan came to church with us, too.  What a lovely thing it is to have lots of hands to help with baby wrangling!

The actual church service was a total disaster from the point of view of decorum.  Brian was supposed to deliver the "children's message", but the children were 90% ours and they were literally running laps around alter.  I'm sure God was laughing his butt off.  Probably one of the funniest moments was watching Louise do her holy-roller-praise-Jesus hand waving during a very traditional Methodist hymn.  That girl is either filled with the spirit or full of the nick! 

Overall, the event raised over $700 and raised some big awareness to plight of orphans in DRC.  So, raise your hands Louise!  Grandma did good!

That said, it will be a long long long long time before I drive to Clovis for another visit.  I don't when I'll be ready to travel that trail of tears again.

No children were injured in the taking of these pictures.  Some parents might have been.