Samuel

To answer your questions about Samuel...he is doing great! We were really worried this summer when he quit rolling over and got pneumonia, but he is fully recovered and back to his happy self. Johna's niece came from the Philippines and help with him for a month and he made huge strides in that time. Ghizelle was such a blessing to him. He is now rolling all over like a steam roller with a mission. Aaron keeps trying to teach him how to crawl, but Samuel's legs just do not have the strength to do that, so he does what he needs to get to where he wants to be. The neurologist at the international hospital said he believes that there was some nerve damage to the peripheral nerves to Samuel's back and abdomen that are needed to support his legs. This would explain why he can move them and has ticklish feet, but still does not try to sit or stand or pull himself up. There is still hope that these nerves will regenerate or that he could walk with braces. Thanks for all of your concerns and prayers for this (not so) little guy.


Aaron is always so excited to have Samuel come over for a visit!

Believe it or not, this is his slimmed down self! He lost some weight (1 kg / 2 lb) when he had pneumonia. He used to have 4 rolls between his wrist and elbow

Greetings from Shanghai

Eric's First Day of School (Madarin 2)

Eric was excited for school to start, too, but even with that excitement, he just isn't much of a morning person. He did manage to eat and get dressed before his bus arrived. He still was in denial that he was moving to a new class this year, so I pray that all went well once he arrived and saw some familiar faces in his class.

Lily laoshe (teacher) was still his bus monitor, which helped a lot. She was also one of his assistant teachers last year. The assistant teacher rotate around classes and even back and forth between his school and a sister school. They didn't know where they would be working at the end of the year, so she may even be his assistant teacher again, which would help him a lot with the transition.

Then he just bolted for the bus - this was as fast as I could take a second picture after the one with him and Lily

Then he refused to look back and get another one at the bus - he was ready to go!

Ian's first Day of School (2nd Grade)

Ian has been counting down the days until school starts for most of the summer. His mom and didis (little brothers) do not provide enough entertainment for him I guess.
He woke up this morning in a great mood, ate in record time, got dressed in the blink of an eye with no complaints and went and sat in the car long before we needed to leave or either of his parents were dressed. Let's hope this keeps up (yeah, right...but I can dream)

Ian waiting in the car - buckled up and ready to go.

Ian running up the stairs way ahead of Shane and me

In front of his cubby

With his new teacher, Mrs. Forrester

Catching Up

The way I post to the blog is blocked and has been for months and month. Many of you have written me and asked if they were dropped from the journal email list, but no, I haven't had the time to do that either. So, here I am, typing on Ian and Eric's first day of school. I hope to have a bit more time with them gone during the day...we'll see.
So to catch you all up - We went to India to work with an orphanage there that we have been in contact with since before we left Korea. we met old friends and new from Korea there and also took our friends Cleo and Josh and their oldest daughter Lia with us. It was an amazing time. Since many of you have seen those pictures on Facebook or in person, I will start by adding more recent pictures today (hopefully today). Our summer involved interns coming for Gathering Together, a VERY quick trip back to the US, and then one of Shane's coworkers from GM-Daewoo's daughter coming for 2 weeks. Baobei was SO incredibly busy (both due to new babies, old babies with complications, and lack of most of the staff being in China) that the computer gathered dust the whole month of June. We returned from the US the 20th of July and Johna took off to Guangzhou for 2 weeks and left me with 3 boys, 2 of which got the stomach flu, 15 bags to unpack, and rain, rain, and more rain, so poor Ian, even though he wasn't sick, could not go out to play. We have now all recovered, Johna is back, and somehow we blinked and Ian is now in 2nd grade, Eric in his 3rd year of pre-school (2nd year of Chinese) and Aaron is 10 months old, standing and talking and trying to be the biggest of the Olson boys. Pictures are coming...just be patient...

Love from Shanghai