Turkey hunting

Lorelei went out on her first turkey hunting trip with Jordan. She was soooo excited. She has been asking for awhile now if she could go hunting. Fort Sill had a special weekend just for youth ages 18 and under so we thought this would be a perfect time to try it out. 

They went to an informational meeting and dinner on Friday night. Kids all got nice little goodie bags with a DVD and turkey call. It was a nice way to get the kids excited. 

Even though they didn't get anything, Lorelei said she was just was happy to spend time with her dad. It was nice for them to get some special time. They got to see several tracks and hear a lot of animals. They got to spend time in God's creation making some fun memories. I couldn't believe how long she lasted. They went out three times over the weekend (Saturday afternoon, Sunday before church and Sunday after church). Quite a trooper...she couldn't wait to get back out. 

Madelyn wanted to go too...

Maybe next time...

They snuck out while Berlynn and Coleden were napping otherwise there would have been very disappointed kids! Looking forward to moving up to fort riley and hopefully they have programs like this for the kids as well. If Coleden like hunting as much as he likes fishing, Jordan will have plenty of hunting buddies.

 Berlynn on the other hand isn't very interested....she would rather go to target and get a Starbucks! My kind of girl...

Lawton OK....we are coming back again!

Three years ago we left lawton Oklahoma with one kid and one trailer load of household goods. We were working on completing our adoptions and couldn't wait to have a house full of little ones! 

Lorelei celebrated her 3rd birthday there! Well actually she celebrated it in the car as we drove home for my grandpa's funeral. Here she is one our way back! 

Playing outside and loving life! 

Now we have four kids, one dog and a semi load of household goods!!! Can't wait to show our kids around! 

Lawton, OKLAHOMA!!

I am finally "updating" again. It has been a very interesting first few weeks. here. I guess I will start with my first impressions of our new place. My dad drove Lorelei, me and all our household possessions down after Jordan found an apartment and got that all taken care of. So after like 18 hours of driving we pull up to Lawton. But I need to back up a little bit...
Once we hit OK I was planning on seeing nothing for miles and dust clouds rolling in. Well I was pleasantly surprised with Ok. It was very pretty. Rolling hills, beautiful farms, lots of grass and trees. So we are driving along thinking "this is nice...maybe not so bad" Well....then came lawton....
Lawton...what can I say. There are about 100,000 people that live here not to mention the army members living at Fort Sill. But I can't seem to figure out where they all shop? Well maybe at one of the THREE Walmart Stores that are within like a 3 mile radius? There is a mall...it's not too bad but kind of small. But the weirdest thing are all the random stores in dumpy strip malls. You know "that part of town" the kind of dumpy older side? Well the entire town of Lawton is that way...
Ok back to moving in...well to be fair it was dark by the time we got here. But it took everything I had NOT to cry when I saw our apartment. It just seemed dark and dreary. So we started to unload. Jordan and my dad did a lot of it and then Jordan's friends kindly showed up to help. They had EVERYTHING unloaded in like an hour! They all worked so hard and we really appreciated it. Once we were all unloaded my dad took off and we just looked around and I thought "ok here we go". So what does any new family to Lawton do when they arrive...well they head off to Walmart!
So now it has been over two weeks and I have to admit..the apartment is growing on me. It is really close to the post so I can drive Jordan to work easily! It is just finding a place for everything. There isn't as much storage as I am used to! But we are getting settled. 

But this week Jordan is doing field training. So it is just me and Lorelei and the exciting city of Lawton! We have been reorganizing the bedroom and Living room. I got a new shelf to help with the storage issue. Hope that helps. We have a really nice pool that she really likes. We went there yesterday and were headed there again today but it was closed for cleaning. Lor was disappointed! So we headed out to Home Depot and attempted to kill time!
I do have one thing I am LOVING about this week...the temperature! It was 89 degrees today...SOO cool compared to what it has been since I got here. It has been in the upper 90s to 105 degrees everyday. It is SOOO hot! We are MI people...we aren't used to this! So today I was in jeans! It felt so good! I am very ready for fall. I am excited to see what fall is like here.
Well I guess this will do for now. Lorelei is demanding some attention. She misses her daddy...she keeps asking when we are gonna go pick him up. She heard a car beep like ours and she got so excited and grabbed up her new toy and ran to the door to show daddy. I felt bad when I told her it wasn't him! But she has been obsessed with her new game...Hungry Hungry Hippo. She plays it ALL the time! She loves it so much. She kisses them goodnight each night.

There is a great program on post for the kids. This is from a day at the pottery store!!