Eastern Shore FUN!

 In 1987, I moved into a dorm as a freshman at Xavier University…..

I had a unknown roommate from Virginia...I could never have predicted that 26 years later we would still be the best of friends.  I have visited so many times that I can easily navigate the city of Baltimore… and even run into people I know at Starbucks on my morning coffee run.  Her 4 children, ages 16 to 8 love Theo and after a week they still argue as to who gets to sit next to him in the car.  This year we decided to extend our summer visit to 2 weeks… our longest visit to date… We began in Baltimore traveled to Easton MD and onto a week at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.  We crashed their family reunion, and Theo has fallen in love with the extended family.  We are so lucky to have such gracious and fabulous friends….

Getting ready for the shore...

Let's go O's

1st boat ride... Easton, Maryland

Theo & Talbot

The extended 'family'.

Up close...feeding sheep at the Easton farm.

 My Baltimore Besties.

Next stop Rehoboth Beach, Delaware...

more to come

Reunion

Theo and Aaron

These 2 have a lot in common, they are both from Asella, Ethiopia.

They arrived to the orphanage in Asella @ the same time.

They moved and lived in same orphanage in Addis Ababa.

They completed the last leg of the journey to the USA together.

We are blessed to live close to the Eberle family.

This is our second visit and I LOVE to see these happy children.

Lydia and Theo are 20 days apart

and both are sassy little spit fires.

This party of six makes me smile.

Thanks Eberle family for hosting our reunion.

Extraordinary Ethiopia!

Extraordinary Ethiopia!

A great article, about a truly special place.

Fear vs Fun.

Over the last several months T has developed a fear of monsters and various 'scary' things.  He was never wary of masks, the dark, loud noises, etc but lately..... for instance if we play in the house and jump out at each other... this is fun.  If the lights are out in his room.... fear.  When going to bed at night: dark room...fine.  Random.  But one thing that is non negotiable is masks... scary masks, friendly masks, animal masks, these are not ok and cause major fear.  Therefore our trip to the dentist on Friday was great until they put on the masks...... ahhh fear..... then we traveled to the 'police office' to have lunch with Uncle Jerry... fun! except for the siren that Uncle Jerry let loose on his police car... fear.   After a picnic we ventured in to see the big fire trucks, this picture was huge because it took a while to get T to touch the truck..... T became more comfortable and although he chose not to sit in the driver's seat, very cool I must admit, he did have fun touching the trucks, until an alarm went off in the garage, FEAR, and although it was nothing more than an alert for a truck out on a run, it ended our day.  Good thing I took pictures early!

Cincinnati Zoo

I just LOVE this picture.

today we visited our zoo's new Africa exhibit.

For now, it is as close as we can get to Ethiopia.

Someday, we will see some of these amazing animals

in their natural habitat.