a very special gift (and girl)

Mike and I had a very nice 25th Anniversary. Julia was very excited about this anniversary. She asked me often if "I was excited about my anniversary?" She made this card for us! What a treasure we will always have.

Then I found out that Mike and Julia were in cahoots. They went shopping to the local jewelery store (while I was in Haiti) and purchased some "bling." Mike bought me a very beautiful diamond pendant (past, present and future) and diamond earrings. Julia helped him pick it out. Mike didn't want me to get him anything because he said he will be able to look at the jewelry on me. Julia kept asking me what I was going to buy Mike. She told me I "needed" too. She knew how special this gift was for me. (I didn't buy him anything because he said he would be "mad" if I did...I feel guilty now)

Another touching thing was she gave Mike and I each $5. She knows we are on a "budget" and knew that would make a thoughtful gift.

Thank you, Julia, for helping to make our day so special!

ps Not to be outdone by his little sister, Tim presented to Mike and I nearby items: a Scrabble game and a book that Mike hasn't finished reading. lol!

What Does 25 Years Look Like?

1983: Get married to my best friend. Take a honeymoon to Puerta Vallarta, Mexico. Begin our life together living in Normal, Illinois.

1984: Move to Cincinnati, Ohio (for the first time). Find out that we are pregnant, but miscarry our first child.

1985: Find out we are expecting again. Move to Evanston, Illinois.

1986: Kaitlyn is born. Our life was enriched.

1988: Nicholas is born. We are busy.

1989: Move to Lake Villa, Illinois. We bought our first house.

1991: Sold our house and moved to East Lansing, Michigan. We rented two townhouses.

1995: Bought our first house in East Lansing. Tim is born five weeks early. Life is full!

1999: Decided to move to Louisville, Kentucky. Mike is transferred. Our life is blessed during this time as we grew closer as a family. Kaitlyn and Nick were challenged to meet new friends and start in a new school.

2001: Back to East Lansing again. We are all pretty happy about this move back "home."

2002: Adoption is first on our hearts when I traveled to Haiti with my sister.

2004: Kaitlyn graduates from high school and begins college at Univ. of Michigan.

2005: Decide to pursue adopting Julia who lives in Russia. We find out about her heart condition and Karen and Nick traveled to Russia to meet her.

2006: Mike and Karen travel to Russia to adopt their precious daughter, Julia. Karen is diagnosed with breast cancer. Julia has open heart surgery to repair her VSD that wasn't repaired at birth. We are thankful for our health.

2006: Nick graduates from high school and begins college at Michigan State University. Mike is pretty excited to have a Spartan in the house.

2006: (more) Decide to move to Cincinnati, Ohio. (2006 was a BIG year)

2007: Mike begins his new job in Cinci and Karen and kids stay back in EL to sell the house. We were blessed with God's perfect timing on that. We spent our first summer in Cincinnati as a complete family.

2008: We are blessed by the announcement of our daughter, Kaitlyn, getting married.

I love you so much, Mike! You are my best friend and I cherish our life together. Here's to 25 more years of marriage!

Love,

Karen

Link to Haiti

http://www.miamiherald.com/multimedia/slideshows/090808_haiti_floods/

This is a link to the devastation in Haiti. This link is for "mature" people only. It shows death.

Love,
Karen

Hurricane Ike

Who would have thought a hurricane could hit Cincinnati?? Well, at least hurricane strength winds. Sunday afternoon was predicted to be windy, but no one called this one. We had gusts up to 74mph and trees were snapping and limbs fell everywhere. The power was out in 90% of the Cincinnati area. School was cancelled on Monday and Tuesday. Our power came back on Monday night. It was quite amazing and we are thankful that no one was hurt in our family.

Here is the tree that snapped in our backyard. Mike among the debris in our side yard. What a mess!

Debris in our driveway. The kids and I raked Monday afternoon. Good times.

A HUGE blessing came of this!
I have a clean refrigerator courtesy of Julia!
A movie of our back yard and you can hear the wind whipping around!

FI NULL LEEE

It seems as if life has a way of getting in the way of posting. School has started and Tim and Julia are liking their new teachers and routine. Tim started the year playing football, but now is out for the season since he has Mono! It's a real bummer as he was liking the team he was on. Below is him crashed on the couch after his first day back at school. He had quite a bit of homework to catch up on and is still working on getting it all done. The joys of middle school. Labor Day weekend we went to Michigan to celebrate Aunt Linda's birthday. I'm sorry I didn't get any photos of Linda or Tom. BUT, below is a photo of Kaitlyn and Nick. Nick had just arrived at the Tomala's house. Kait and Nick had not seen each other since mid May when Nick left for Germany. They were very happy to see each other again!

So happy together!

Julia recently got contacts and she is so happy!

And, Kaitlyn and Michael are now engaged!

They got engaged the day Kait returned from Haiti. Michael was here to surprise her. The wedding will be Thanksgiving weekend. We have been busy making all the plans. We don't have much time! We are very happy about this!

Please keep the country of Haiti and all it's people in your prayers.