Thanksgiving

Wow - what a great Thanksgiving we had this year. So much to be thankful for with Deniss in our family. It was fun trying to explain our tradition to him - part history lesson - partly I just kept saying "It's all about the food".

We had Thanksgiving dinner with friends from church. Having a big group around always makes Thanksgiving fun. We couldn't get Deniss to try the cornbread dressing. Maybe at Christmas.

On Saturday, Ken's birthday, I had arranged for all the Likumi kids to get together for ice skating. All of the families came. That was eight kids that have been or are in the final stages of adoption that live in North Georgia. They all came from the Likumi Children's Home in Latvia. There are two brother/sister siblings groups that are in family's with two other siblings. There is a set of twin girls who were adopted by a couple with no other children. There is one girl who now has three siblings and then there is Deniss with two brothers. All of the siblings were there ice skating as well with the exception of our Bobby and one other older brother from another family. So we had a great crowd. The Likumi kids loved getting to see each other - after all - they are like family as well. The parents all enjoyed talking to each other and sharing the joys and pains of adopting older kids from another country. It seems like we all were able to laugh about our shared "issues". Kids that eat us out of house and home, kids not understanding why they need to tell us before they leave the house, kids that struggle learning enough English to get by in school. The list goes on - but it was nice to talk about these things and know that we all had the same issues. But most important - it was nice to see the joy and happiness from all of the families and the kids! We are already planning another get together for February!

Deniss got to experience his Dad's birthday as well. He was with us for Aaron's and my birthday back in June but our birthdays were overshadowed a bit this year because we were still in Europe. We were busy getting paperwork completed in Riga on Aaron's birthday. We were traveling to Poland for our US Embassy appointment on my birthday. Now that I think about it, we were busy with Deniss on Ken's birthday as well. Maybe next year we will all have birthday's that are not overshadowed by the adoption thing. By then we will just be busy with everyday life.

Robin