The Adventure Continues

Just a little update on what we've been up to~ We got a house! We will still be in the hotel for one more week while waiting for the moving company to deliver our things. I took the boys over to see it yesterday. 3 of them had not seen it yet because they were staying with their Nana and Papa when we found it. All 6 kids are just thrilled with their new home. Jude kept walking around saying "It's PERFECT, just PERFECT!".
Each day has been it's own little adventure. Saturday- Met up with my parents in Vacaville where they returned our boys to us. We had a great time catching up with them over pizza before they headed home. Then we went to the Jelly Belly factory. The kids loved it! We left there with 6 POUNDS of Belly flops! Sunday- Took the kids to San Jose Children's Discovery Museum and were thrilled to end the night at Old Spaghetti Factory with Jim's sister and family. Monday- Went to the movie theater to see Mall Cop~ pretty funny. Tuesday- Hit Chuck E Cheese for a few hours.

Yesterday was so adventurous it gets it's own paragraph! Let me start off by saying that Hayward (where our hotel and Jim's work is) is not exactly the safest neighborhood. We started out in downtown Hayward and went to the movies again. This time to see Hotel for Dogs. I was all braced to just hate this movie. Our kids LOVE any movie that has anything to do with dogs and I find them all to be the same and not so exciting. I was wrong, this one was actually okay. Then we had to take a little trip to the bank. The security at this place is unlike anything I've ever seen. We had trouble getting in and out of the bank. It was crazy! Afterwards we swung by the realty office to take care of some things with our new home. They let us borrow the keys so that I could take the kids to see the new house. We stopped at Taco Bell for some lunch were I chatted it up with an elegant elderly lady that has lived here for 50 years and filled me in some on the areas. Then interacted a bit with a drunk homeless man that was very kind. My heart broke for him and took a minute right there to pray for him. At lunch Luke announced that he had left his stuffed animal, that he got out of a McDonalds Happy meal, in the bathroom at the movie theater. This may not sound like a big deal to most people but Luke gets very attached to things and this silly little inexpensive toy was very important to him. He just crumbled into tears. I promised to return to the theater to get Soda (which is what he named this toy). Then Kyle announced that he just realized that he also left his bag (which has his wallet) at the theater. Oh brother kids! So back we went. We had to park in a garage that is in an alley and then you walk a little ways to the theater. While in the alley there was a not so clean cut looking guy (don't like to judge people too much by how they look... but when you are dressed like a thug, walk like a thug, and in a bad neighborhood.....) that we found ourselves alone in the alley with. He was walking right behind us and I was trying to keep an eye on him and the kids at the same time. Jude was in one of his sulky moods and was hanging back behind us no matter how many times I yelled to him to get up next to us. The whole thing was very uncomfortable. Then as we neared the street the guy behind us yelled out to a group of guys on the street (dressed similarly thuggy) and all the sudden I found myself and the kids BANG in the middle of a drug deal!!!! Thug #1 behind us in the alley and group thug in front of us where the alley met the street. I screamed at Jude that he needed to get with us RIGHT NOW and booked it out of there. My heart didn't stop pounding until we were safely inside the theater. After all things had been happily retrieved from the theater I took the kids to check out their new home in Castro Valley. On the way back we stopped at the park around the corner from our house and had a wonderful time together playing and doing exercises on the par course. Today we are headed back there to explore some hiking trails at another park we came across.
Tonight I get some very exciting grown up time out with one of my best friends many years ago. We have not seen each other in about 8 years and will have lots of catching up to do.

The kids are all doing okay with the hotel stay but I'm trying to get them out for something fun each day. We've had some really great moments and a few very sad ugly moments too. Sunday will be 6 months since our newest family members came home. I'm going to try soon to post an honest overview of how it's been going.