Sometimes I just don't understand.

This weekend we had an all day VBS at church on Saturday. So, when we got up Sunday to go to church Feromsa wondered, "Why we go to church today? We lived there yesterday!"

With that as a backdrop you may understand why I was quite confused when Feromsa, on the way to get his haircut, continued to ask me, "Hush-for-Sunday?" I was assuming he was trying to say something about the great deal of time we had spent at church this weekend.

Finally after several more attempts at getting me to understand "hush-for-Sunday" he decided to describe this mysterious "hush-for-Sunday." Apparently a "hush-for-Sunday" is ice cream with chocolate on top. You may know it better as a hot fudge sundae.

Use your head, boy.

So in our last post I showed how wonderful and insightful Feromsa can be. Well here is a quick post to reveal that he is also just another goofy 7 year old.

The other day Feromsa was doing something that was not all that bright (he was trying to close the fridge door without closing the drawer that he had opened). While he was struggling to accomplish his task I looked at him and said, "Feromsa, close the drawer. Use your head, boy."

To this he thoughtfully replied, "I can't think all the time."

Nice Mommy and Daddy

If you need a reason to consider adoption, particularly to adopt older children, I submit the following two stories that are brought to you courtesy of Feromsa:

1. Out of the blue Feromsa began to discuss being at Kids Care Orphanage. In this discussion he made this comment, "In Kids Care I pray, 'Please give me nice mommy and nice daddy' and now I have nice Mommy and nice Daddy!"

2. In another discussion about being in Kids Care Feromsa offered this observation, "The big kids know that people don't want them. They want the little kids. I was scared I too big."

I don't think any commentary is necessary.

"Why you get me?"

A few weeks ago I was looking at pictures of picking up Feromsa and Bereket in Ethiopia. Bereket saw what I was looking at and asked, "Why you come to Ethiopia to get me?" I told him because we love him and wanted him to be with us and live with us. Since then he has continued to ask either me or Dottie this question time and time again. He isn't asking because he doesn't know the answer. He keeps asking because he likes to hear the answer. Every time he asks and we answer, he just smiles. Guess what, every time he asks and I answer, I smile too.

Adoption Legislation

I know that lately when you hear anything about legislation it is all about health care but I'd like to take a moment to alert you to some legislation that has been introduced and is now in committee that needs your support. These bills will be helpful to orphans, adoptive parents and to children who are adopted. The following is from the Center of Adoption Policy. Please read and then please contact your representatives letting them know that you support this legislation.

July 15, 2009. Legislation: CAP Supports Three New Bills Before Congress. CAP Supports the Foreign Adopted Children Equality (FACE) Act (S. 1359; H.R. 3110). This bill will give U.S. citizenship to internationally adopted children as of their adoption, rather than, as now, when each child comes to the United States. It will restore citizenship to internationally adopted children who were not covered under the Child Citizenship Act or whose position was jeopardized by the 1996 Immigration Act. It would also confer on foreign born internationally adopted children of U.S. parents all the rights of biologically born children of U.S. parents, including the right to become president.

CAP Supports the Families for Orphans Act (H.R. 3070) which is designed, in the words of the bill itself, "To encourage the development and implementation of a comprehensive, global strategy for the preservation and reunification of families and the provision of permanent parental care for orphans, and for other purposes." This legislation will create a new U.S. diplomatic and economic initiative to support existing families and to provide permanency for unparented children. It will replace the current decentralized and sometimes contradictory, government efforts with a consistent, pro-active approach led by a State Department Office of Orphan Policy, Diplomacy and Development. For the first time the development of a continuing strategy to ensure that all children grown up in permanent, loving families of their own would be part of the State Department's responsibilities.

CAP Supports S. 1376 which will allow adoptive parents to obtain their child's immunizations in the United States after travel, which is standard international adoption procedure for Hague countries. It also conforms the age requirements for siblings adopted internationally to a consistent standard.

To contact your representatives and senators, please go to http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml or http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

Day 3 of the WV Trip

Ok, so I've been a little busy but I'm finally getting to Day 3 of my trip to West Virginia with the boys.

We woke up early on Saturday morning, packed up, checked out and headed toward our first stop for the day which was a nice little overlook of the New River. We were only here for a few minutes. Our time here would have been a lot less but Bereket had to go KaKa in the very nasty port-a-potty. Where is the gallon of hand sanitizer when you need it?

Anyway, we left there and headed to our next stop. In the town of Talcott, WV there is a grand statue dedicated to John Henry. I had made sure that the boys saw a video on John Henry before we visited the statue. Of course we also listened to the Johnny Cash song, "The Ballad of John Henry." By the way, if you don't know who John Henry is then I'll just let you google him.

We then continue our journey by visiting Pipestem State Park. This was a highlight for the boys. This state park has an aerial tram that takes you down the mountain to the Bluestone River. They loved the tram. It was very exciting. Once off the tram we went and explored the Bluestone National Scenic River. Joshua and Feromsa were having fun with "boat" races. The boats were large pieces of tree bark. Meanwhile, Bereket was "spearing" something in the river with a large stick he found. For all the time we had spent at rivers on this trip, this was the only one that one of the boys fell in. Joshua went down but fortunately it wasn't real deep so he just got a little wet.

After taking the tram back to the top of the mountain we left Pipestem State Park and headed home. On the way home we stopped at Cracker Barrel for lunch (this is a bit of a Raymer family tradition to stop here on the way home from a trip). We left there and traveled on. In the van the boys were watching Superman 4 and hardly noticed the tunnels that we went through this time.

Admittedly, we were all getting a little tired and were looking forward to being home but we had to make one more stop. We had to pay respects to Andy and Opie in Mt. Airy (aka Mayberry). I love this town. We stopped to see the statue and to look at the Andy Griffith memorabilia collection. Driving through the historic downtown area of Mt. Airy Joshua asked why they kept the place looking so old. I simply replied, just because they wanted to. He then asked, "So, this is how things looked back in the 1990's?"

We finally left Mt. Airy and made our way home. It was a great little trip. We saw a lot of beautiful places, historic places, and even a couple of statues. The boys watched 3 Superman movies and one classic Don Knott's movie. I love these trips where I get to see and experience new places but what really makes them great is sharing these trips with people that I love.