Julie Gumm - Author

Ethiopia

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My sister in law asked me today if, besides the fact that it means we are getting the kids, I am excited about out trip to Ethiopia. My answer is a resounding YES. In fact, I yearn to travel to this beautiful land. It’s different than the excitement I felt before our trip to England our Germany. It sounds totally hokey, but it is as if part of my heart is in Africa.

And honestly, I don’t think it’s just about the kids. I think God has truly placed an incredible love for this land in the heart of both Mark and I. That is without me even having been there yet. I know it must be doubly so for Mark who got to travel there in April (other parts of Africa).

Our current plan, based on passing court and traveling at the same time as the Slonigers, give us 5 full days in Ethiopia to experience it’s beauty. Unfortunately we won’t get to see a lot of the beautiful outlying areas because of the time we plan to spend at Hope for the Hopeless. But it is my hope that this will just be the first of many trips to this beautiful country.

ethiopiabluenilefalls

Bringing You Up To Date

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Seriously, I have been so bad at the blog posts lately. So this is the get-you-up-to-speed blog post.

Noah had a great birthday. The “sleepover” went amazingly well. The boys were all out by 10:45 p.m. which I consider a minor miracle. They were up around 6:30 a.m. but dad had morning duty 🙂 So Noah is officially 9! We are so proud of him. He’s doing really great at school and making new friends. He’s decided to play baseball for the Diamondbacks when he grows up. He loves a good joke and is frighteningly smart. Has an incredible memory (which sometimes drives me nuts) and is a bit of a perfectionist.

Natalie will be 6 in just two weeks. She’s having a small slumber party and very excited about it. She’s been talking about it for months. Any day now she’s going to start the “How many days til…?” questioning. She’s started taking ballet after school. One of the parents comes and teaches the K/1st grade girls once a week. We’re doing the 3 week “trial period” right now and then will see how she likes it and how much it costs. Natalie had a blast with her cousins last week while we were in Ark.

They got to climb the giant haystacks at the Haak Dairy (Mark’s Aunt & Uncle).

Here’s all the cousins, minus Annabel in the UK. From left to right are Isaac (2), Trevor (almost 8), Caleb (6), Averee (9), Natalie, Noah and Jayden (4)

Despite the 4 year age difference, Natalie and Averee have a great time together. They kind of have to stick together since they’re the only girls. I have no doubt they’ll watch out for Annabel when given the chance.

We had a great time hanging out in Arkansas. Unfortunately it seems we all picked up either allergies or hay fever or something so we’re trying to kick that out of our systems and get everyone rested back up.

On the adoption front our papers FINALLY got finished and our filed. Now we’re just waiting on a court date. At this point the end of December would be the EARLIEST we would travel.

So that kind of brings you up to date with what we’ve been doing.

Name Ideas

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We are still searching for the right names for our new kids. We’ve got it narrowed down for W-boy but are still really at a loss for B-girl.

While I’m not set on having a Bible name necessarily, I find myself always paying attention to the names in case I find something unusual that strikes me.

At our family worship time we’ve been reading through the Bible, beginning in Genesis. Right now we’re about at Jacob finding a wife.

It’s usually dad or I reading and we do our best but honestly, some of the names are just wild. We stumble through the pronounciations as best we can.

And occasionally we read a name, or in this case a set of names, and I can’t help it. I start to giggle. And then the kids start to giggle and it takes us a couple of minutes to regain our composure.

Genesis 22:21 Uz the firstborn, Buz his brother…

The first thing that flashed into my mind was these guys:

“Hi, I’m Uz, this is my brother Buz.”

The other one that get us in trouble is Phicol (Gen 21:22). Now I realize it’s probably pronounced more like Ficol but the first time I read it, I read “pickle” and my stomach hurt we were laughing so hard. And it’s just kind of stuck.

I’m not sure how much dad appreciates our giggly diversions but the kids and I have great fun.