Hard to believe that one year ago we decided to bring this little sweetie home!! She was 4 at the time this picture taken and when we heard about her she had just turned 5!!!

Here she is today and what a doll!! She has been home now 3 months and just continues to amaze us!!

She is turning quite american now and getting quite comfortable with us where she is starting to get a little naughty. I already had a call home from school!! She is truly now a Yonker!! :) 

Yesterday was a big day in our house!! Hannah was baptized!! We had such a fun day and an awesome time with famliy and friends. I have the most awesome friends! I tell you all that I love you dearly and that we could not have done this day without you all!! My family was an awesome help too. We had over 100 people stay after baptism and have a potluck with us!!! We had 3 ministers help with the baptism. Pastor Steve baptized in the name of the Father, Pastor Rick (an old friend from our old church) baptized in the name of the Son and Pastor Paul baptized Hannah in the name of the Holy Spirit!! It was so cool. I do not have pictures on my camera of the fellowship time aftwards but I will post them as soon as I get them.

 

My girls and the neighbor girls were being very goofy the other day. Here they are on the street on their knees in their shoes. 

This is a little late but here is the kid's first day of school. When I looked back at this picture I realized that each day after school I would have 5 back paks to go through. Wow!!
Nikolas is in 4th grade
Heather and Ekaterina are both in 2nd grade (same class) and Caleb and Hannah are both in Pre-K this year. (same class)
I can't believe how fast my kids are growing up!! 

Our wonderful neighbors next door cut down two huge oak trees and asked if we wanted the wood. We were
so happy as we have two fireplaces and we use them a ton in the winter. We have enough wood now for at least two years!! The kids had a blast helping us with this. It took a lot of time but when winter comes we will be so thankful!! 

My dad, Nathan, Nikolas and Caleb all spend 5 hours golfing on saturday! they had a blast and the boys even got to try their hand at golf. Unfortunately Nate didn't take the camera with him so these are the only shots I got.

Caleb's 2nd favorite thing to do!!! 

Our home away from home!! We love our trailer!
It sleep 10. Thanks goodness since we now have 7 people in our family!!!

This is my parents 5th wheel.






My wonderful mom!! As you can see Ekaterina is painting my mom's toes!

Grandma's are great and have so much patience!! 

This is our home away from home!! I love this trailer! It sleeps 10. Lucky for us since we have 7 people in our family!!!


This is my parents 5th wheel.



My wonderful mom! As you can see she is letting Ekaterina paint her toes!!

Ah Grandma's are the best 

The weather was beautiful this weekend and we had a ton of fun!!!

 

My dad relaxing by the creek!! I have great parents that love to spend time with us and their grandkids!! They are so much fun and we are so blessed that they like to have a lot of fun!!

My 3 wonderful girls!  

Nikolas age 9
Nikolas as a baby in Russia and when he was 8!!

Was he cute or what!!
I thought these would be fun to show of my Russians!!

Katie in Russia at age 4 1/2 and when she was 6 years old!!!


We are leaving for camping this evening for the weekend. I am bringing my camera so that I can get lots of pictures. We do this every year with my parents and the campground is on a golf course and Nate, my dad, Nik and Caleb all go golfing together on Saturday. Caleb is such a nut about golfing and he received a real golf club set in February from my dad for his birthday!!

Hope you all have a great weekend!!! 

Heather age 7.


Katie age 8






our house in the spring time! 

My 5 beautiful children!!!







My youngest Caleb!

Here is Hannah on her very first horse ride ever!!!!

We were so proud of her as she was not scared at all!!

She loved it!!!

Hannah just loves swimming!!!

Yeah!! Finally I got a picture to post and it didn't take an hour!!! Here is the Yonker family!!!!

Nathan, Brenda

Nikolas 9

Ekaterina 8

Heather 7

Hannah 6

Caleb 5

I am not even sure if anyone is checking this anymore but I really apologize for the delay in updating?

Things have been very busy but very good at the same time!!

Hannah is adjusting beautifully. Her English is really coming and she starting to use short sentences.

Last saturday she got her ears pierced. She wanted them so bad and we kept explaining to her that it would hurt but she didn't care. She didn't even flinch when she had them done and when she looked in the mirror she just squealed with delight!!!! What a joy. I am bummed that we did not have our camera as we did the spur of the moment.

We did finally get a family picture done. A very good friend of mine (we have been friends since Kindergarten) went out and purchased matching outfits for all the kids!! The kids looks so cute!!

Hannah has done so many firsts!! She has been camping, horseback riding, tubing behind a boat, She swims like a fish and just loves it. She loves trying everything and just giggles with delight over all of it. If it sounds like I am gushing its because I am!! I can't believe that we almost said No to this adoption. I am thankful that God intervened and said "Yes, you are"!!

Don't get me wrong she has her moments like all kids do. However she does not scream. She cries very softly and when I give her a time out she actually sits there and stays. amazing. After a few minutes I ask her I make her go and apologize and hug the person that she was not nice too and she does this very willingly and on her owns says she is sorry and gives them a big hug. I tell her I love her and she gives me a big smile and goes on her merry way!!!

Summer is flying by. Hard to believe we have been home almost 7 weeks.

We keep telling Hannah about school and she laughs and says NO NO!! I laugh and say YES YES!! I know she has no idea was she is in for and it makes me a little nervous but I think she will really enjoy it!! At least after the first few days of getting used to things.

Okay my picture is not loading properly so I will have to try again next time.

OUR FAMILY IS NOW A CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE!!! (That is what it will feel like when we get all of our kids together)




June 20th 2006

Only 1 more day and we leave for home.

Yesterday our Bethany Guide went to the U.S consulate on our behalf. He went for 3 families. The Bonks, The Bridges (a family that just arrived that is with Bethany)
And us. We were happy as our children’s passports came through today after a computer glitch happened and they were not sure we would get them on Monday and we were a little worried that we would not get to come home when planned. However for us we only had one small problem. All the paperwork had Nathan’s correct birth date on them however when they were translated by the Notary office they translated it wrong so the official document read that He was born June 14, 2006. So they had to retranslate one. The kicker is that WE had to pay for the mistake the notary made. Luckily it wasn’t too much but we are trying to figure out why WE had to pay for this mistake.
The Bonks had a problem also as the consulate said that they needed the Federal tax records from them and not state. Luckily they said that they would let it go this time. Well Thank God for that. However if the consulate would actually look through her tax records it would show that he ACTUALLY had submitted them. She had submitted both just in case. The Bridges however were not so lucky and it sounds like they will have to stay a few more days as their home study had ONE line that the consulate was picky about and this family was told they would need an addendum done before they could get a visa for their son. It was something that was written wrong by their social worker. Hopefully they can get this faxed back quickly and it will be done soon.

We are excited as Al and Carey Richardson and Zack and their new son Luke should be here anytime and we will have one day with them before we leave for home. You will remember this is the family that traveled with us from Grand Rapids. We split up in Beijing as their son was in Shanghai and they had the glitch where because of a summit going on in Shanghai the passport office was closed until Monday. They will now not come home until Friday.


This picture is of some friends we made at a store called Jordan’s. Their names are Jason and Wendy;
I hope you all had a good day. We will be home soon and I can’t wait to see everyone.

We are having a blast but getting lonesome for everyone.

Hannah had another very good day. I am hoping that she will not get shy when we get off the plane so that everyone can see her true personality but I have a feeling she may get a little shy at first. She is such a sweetheart!!! Trust us! She’s a keeper!!!

It is 6:05 pm right at this moment which means in 24 hours we will bee seeing everyone!! How cool is that!!! We just got back from the U.S consulate where we had our swearing in ceremony and Hannah officially received her Visa to enter the United States!!! She told our guide that she is very happy to go to America.

Love ya all!!

We had a few people us to post a reminder on the blog as to what our flight details are.

Tomorrow we will be leaving the hotel at 5:35 am and our first flight to Tokyo leaves at 8:30 am. We then catch a flight to Detroit and arrive in Detroit around 2:30pm. We have a 3 hour layover in Detroit to get through customs and Immigration. It will be exciting as Hannah officially becomes a U.S citizen when the plane hits the tarmac!!!

Our flight to Grand Rapids arrives at 6:05pm via Detroit on Northwest Airlines!!

P.S.

A BIG HAPPY 8TH BIRTHDAY TO EKATERINA!!!!

We love you sweetie and we will celebrate when we get home!!!!! We miss you!!!

Nikolas and Caleb!!! We miss you!!! It won’t be long now and we will be home with you!!!!!

We are just waiting in our room right now to see that everything with our consulate appointment went okay. Daniel our agency worker was able to go on our behalf today and then we go tomorrow for the Oath and on Wedensday we leave for home!! Hard to believe!!!

I had kind of a tear jerker this morning when I called my mom and dad. My little boy Caleb will NOT talk to anyone on the phone. He is scared of the phone for some reason but my mom told me that he was going to just listen and not talk and when I said Hi sweetie he said Hi Mommy right back and I lost it in the middle of the store. I almost fell off my chair. It was great talking to all the kids today. We are in the middle of a very long thunderstorm. Which is very typical in Guangzhou. If you don't think we see much of the sun in Michigan you should come here for awhile. I don't think I will ever complain about Michigan summers again. We have not seen the sun since we were in Beijing.


We went shopping yesterday. I can't believe how many people are in this city. I know they always talk about how many people are in China but Wow!!!! It is amazing.

Last night we went to Lucy's again for dinner and we ended up going very late and about 5 minutes after our food arrived we looked over and Hannah was sound asleep. She had such a big day and we had to carry her home and she did not move until 8:00am this morning. a day of swimming and shopping just wore her out!!

I wish I had brought our camera with us as it was so cute.

We have a free day today so it is very relaxing today!! Hopefully can write more later.

June 18

Today we went to a park. The statue is of the five rams. It is from an old legend of how the city was founded. We have learned alot of history and we did not realize how bad the Chinese had it during world war two. It is interesting to see how the chinese live. In the park (and everywhere else} people play a game like hackysack but with what looks like a large badmitten birdy. Many older people play this for excersise in groups of five.
As Brenda usually writes I will give you my take on Hannah. I know this is why you read this sight anyway. I wish you could see our pictures but you will have to wait.
In the pictures you have seen it may look like she does not smile much. This could not be farther from the truth. She is always laughing and giggling. She loves to play and is very energetic. She has bonded with both of us which is very nice. Any insecurities she had are gone. Today at the pool she would jump into my arms from the side and let me hold her with one hand while she swam. As you know this is sure sign that she trusts me. She even wanted me to take her under the waterful. She has been scared of that until today. There is no problem with the language as she has figured out when we don't understand to show us with hand signs. She is already speaking alot of English and can name all her brothers and sister and Grampa's and Grandma's by name! It is as though she is saying " I have been waiting for you to come get me, what took you so long?" We know God has always planned on her bieng in our family and cannot wait for you all to meet her.
The weather is unbelievable. It is so hot you cannot stand to be outside. This morning at 9:00 it was 90 with about 95 percent humidity. Then in the afternoon it storms everyday and seems to get hotter.
The accomidations here are great. We are living well above our normal lifestyle and the people are so nice. We have made many new friends.
See you all soon!