Rest of vacation

Well, the Isaacs are back from the West Coast! We had a wonderful time visiting my sister and enjoying the sites and sounds of Colorado, Arizona and California. The GPS said we drove for over 55 hours, and covered 3,545 miles. The only problem with the trip was that it ended up costing us more than we thought, and we had to pay for a new air conditioner compressor back home.

Here are some pictures of our worship service on Saturday night, the beach and the boys with Aunt Laura!

Grand Canyon

Here are some amazing pictures of the Grand Canyon. It really was amazing to see.

Wallyworld here we come!

I promised my sister in California that we would come see her this summer! As we all have been anticipating this trip for months, I kept getting flashes of Chevy Chase punching Wally the Moose in the nose. He drove his family across country in the original vacation movie, and it turned out to be quite different than he anticipated.

Well, we are officially at my sister's house in California, and so far I have not punched a talking moose, or anything else. (We did see some elk while we were at the Grand Canyon!)

We have had a great trip so far, and the boys are outside throwing water balloons with their Aunt Laura as I am typing this.

So far our GPS has done pretty well navigating us to Adventures in Odyssey (Colorado Springs), the Grand Canyon, and to my sisters house. The GPS did fail us one time, as we decided to make a quick little jaunt to the Great Sand Dunes in Alamosa, Colorado, and we had a crazy ride. Following Marsha's (the name for our GPS) instructions, we went through some back woods narrow dirt roads, that even had cattle on them. She said we had 4 miles to go when we came to a wood fence that announced only people could go past this point, no cars. We told the boys we were going to take a hike in the mountains, which ended up as a great lesson on God's creation, and they never knew we had originally planned the Sand Dunes. We hiked for about 40 minutes, didn't want to go too far, the boys had just heard about the tragic bear maulings in Montana, so they didn't want to go too far! We didn't see any bears, but Jen and I are pretty sure we heard a rattlesnake a few feet behind us.

Looking forward to going to Legoland tomorrow! It's not Wallyworld, but it will be a blast!

Dates w/ Dad

One of the things that Jennifer and I try to do is to have dates with each of our kids individually. Sometimes we do a good job at this, other times we don't! This past week we both took kids on dates and it was wonderful. Jennifer and Caleb went to the Underground Salt Mine in Hutchison. Eli and I went fishing and swimming. Joshua and I went to Sonic and the Museum of World Treasures. We all had great times spending some one on one time with each other. There was great conversation, great laughs, and I had a crazy memory moment with Eli that we said we would keep just between us. (But of course I told his mom!) Joshua amazed me at the museum as he asked for his allowance in the gift shop, and spent all of his money. The amazing thing was that he bought two things...one for Caleb and one for Eli. It was one of those warm and fuzzy feelings for dad.

The dates made me think of mine/our relationship with God. Have we taken time to have a date with our Heavenly Daddy? Have we made special memories in the time we have spent with Him? Have we spent our time and efforts in doing for others rather than ourselves?

I know time is precious, but I also know that there is no more precious way to spend our time than with our Daddy in heaven!

Mark 1:35-37 (NIV)

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. [36] Simon and his companions went to look for him, [37] and when they found him, they exclaimed: "Everyone is looking for you!"

Jesus knew it was important for time alone with His Daddy...what about us?

Update on Ezekiel Isaacs

Well, we have had our little Zeke in our house for about 3 1/2 weeks now and things are going well. We are still supposed to get him into a lung specialist to check things out, but he seems to like hanging out with us! He celebrated his first American Independence Day, and seemed to enjoy the fireworks! He smiles a lot more, enjoys the heck out of his brothers, and seems to enjoy food...a lot!

Just wanted to give an update on what's been going on in Zeke's world!

1st Week in the States

Grandpa and Grandma Isaacs With some new cousins Alaina and Christian Grandpa Bud and the Zekemeister
Aunt Janet snuggling with Zeke. Aunt Chris helping Zeke in his favorite activity.

With Aunt Stacia and Hayden
Uncle Tim

Here is Zeke with his friend Chloe. Chloe and Zeke were in the same toddler group at the orphanage in Taiwan. Chloe lives in Topeka with her forever family-the Cogswells.
Here are the Isaacs and the Cogswells (minus R.D.) and the 2 special kiddos from Taiwan.

Well, Zeke got to meet many family members and many friends in his first 6 days back in the States! He is doing very well. Had his first doctors appointment and it went well. She wants him to see a pediactric lung specialist to really see how his lungs are.

He is very close with Jennifer, always looking to see if she is around. He loves his brothers as well!

He caught a fever a couple of days ago, maybe from exhaustion, or too many people around, but he is doing really well.

Everyone seems to be getting back on track with sleep schedules, so that's working out well.

Here's one more picture that has to be posted.

P.S. I think we will keep him ;)

Home at Last!

One of the signs amongst family and friends that welcomed us home!

It was a long trip for everyone, including big brother Joshua (with Zeke on his lap)!

Finally, back on American soil! Mom and her boys introducing Zeke to an American pool!

Family and Friends at the airport

Grandma Stein and her newest grandchild.

Mommy rocking Zeke in his room for the first time!

Welcome home Ezekiel Lin Isaacs!

We are officially home! We slept in our own beds last night, which is always good to do after being gone for a while. I slept until about 9:00 this morning, which made me extremely late for the church golf tournament, but I wouldn't have been able to help a team anyway:)

Since the last post, we have been flying, eating, not sleeping much, and enjoying our new addition. Thank you for all the prayers for travel. Ezekiel did wonderful on all 3 plane trips. He didn't cry once the entire way. (I never want to be that father/family that has the screaming kid that makes the trip miserable for the other passengers!) The boys did well too. We left Taipei around 11:30 p.m. on Thursday night and arrived in San Francisco at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday night. After getting our bags, our shuttle and checked in, we got to the hotel room about 9:00 p.m.--we were wasted, but wanted to make the most of our last night. The boys swam, we ordered pizza to the room, and it took forever to get the boys wound down. We finally got to bed around 11:45 p.m., only to have to wake up at 4:30 a.m. to get cleaned up-packed up and to the shuttle by 6:00 a.m.

The trip home was relatively uneventful, which we will take. The worst part about the trip home was that lunch in the Denver airport was $44.00 for some sandwiches, a couple yogurts, and a bowl of soup. If you know me, that was very hard to do, but we had resigned to the fact that the boys had been eating too much junk food and our bodies were out of whack.

We arrived in Wichita on time and were greeted by family and friends who came out to meet our new little guy! We got home around 5:00 p.m. and had an amazing barbeque dinner waiting for us. We have 2 more meals that have been prepared as well, and we are looking forward to devouring them as well. Jennifer's family was able to come over and eat with us and then help start getting things cleaned up from our trip. Another blessing. Our yard was mowed. Brandi, our housesitter, deep cleaned the house before she left. We have received blessing after blessing from our families and our church family who have been so supportive of this adventure.

Jennifer and I can't tell you how much we have appreciated every prayer, every thought, every deed, every gift, everybody who has helped make this all possible. We love you and thank our God for you!

If everything goes according to plan, we will have Zeke at church on Sunday morning to introduce him to the church family. He is still a little sick, so we won't be passing him around much, but can't wait for you to meet him.

May God bless your love and kindness shown to Ezekiel and his new forever family!

Jeff and Jennifer