Gymnastic sleepover

Tent city

The slumber party girls

The pit with the girls that stayed the night

Monika and her friend Isabella sleeping, I slept outside of the tent

Making her tie dye shirt

Monika jumping into the "Pit"

Monika getting some air

Photo shot

Monika and Grace (same girl in the capital pictures, she is in Monika class at school too)

Most of the girls from her level

Monika's wild hair do.

The night was a success. When I arrived, the fun night was 15 minutes into it. The kids, coaches, volunteer were eating unlimited pizza, fruit and cheese puffs along with unlimited juice boxes. Once everyone's bellies were full and kids all got in their pj, the fun activities started. The girls got broken into small groups, they got to make monastic picture frames, tie dye shirts, get hair curled and sprayed painted, finger and toe nails polished, pose for picture both by themselves and with their small group, do a blowpop/animal "cake" walk, make their own ice cream sundaes with all the fixings, get face painted, tattoos, jump on the trampoline, running down the tumble track and into the pit, and play on some of the other equipment along with just hanging out. I had a lot of fun visiting with the kids, some of the parents that were there volunteering and watching all the smiling the girls were doing, they all were enjoying themselves. We managed to get them all in tents by 12:15 and believe the last of them went to bed around 1. The lights in the Gymnastic center don't go off, so it made it a little hard to sleep along with the floor mat has springs in it, so every time a kid needed to go to the bathroom, I would wake up since I was close to the door. All the kids, no major injuries (a couple of bloody noses and a small cut) no one needed to be picked up because they decided they couldn't stay and from what I can tell, no fighting. All in All very successful and I was glad to be part of it. This morning we had bananas, yogurt juice and muffins.
On the adoption, there was no news....and this is a time when no news isn't good news. We are day 15 in waiting for TA. I am hoping to get some productive work done the next couple of days and finish Erin's room and her lifebook along with Katie and Jenny's life book. Those are my 3 main goals for the next week. And to continue to follow God's footstep and see where it leads me to.
Tonight the three younger girls have friends staying the night. This is the first time they have had friends stay at our house that the parents aren't here. They had a blast playing in the water (small pool and sprinkler), running around in the yard, grilling, taking a walk to A&W for 90 cent floats and ice cream, watching Hotel of Dogs while eating popcorn. Put them in bed at 10:30 and by 11 they are sound asleep. While they were outside they were laughing and screeching so much, what wonderful sounds. Happy children living in the moment without a care in the world as I sat on the patio watching them while doing things on my laptop, not much things sweeter then that. Thank you Jesus.