Isabelle's creations

Cake decorating slowed down just a little bit when school work and everything else got busy, but Isabelle still managed to get some done!  She has even had several paid jobs and more coming.

Basket of flowers:

Hatching Easter chick:

This was an order for some elementary teachers that were retiring:

Nolan wanted a "lemon cake" for his birthday.  Isabelle delivered:

Easter

All throughout the week before Easter, the Wares were dropping all of these gifts off, one by one with activities and food and lots of Easter Lilies! 

The Easter Lilies were not originally part of the plan, but I had been so excited about my beautiful tulips that had started blooming and was happy that they were going to be beautiful just in time for Easter when all of the family would be here for Kami's report and a big family get-together and dinner at our house.  The day before, I looked out the window and all of my tulips were GONE!  Upon closer inspection, it appeared that a deer had walked the perimeter of the front yard and ate every single one of them.  I had mentioned this to the Wares, so they showed up with all of these Easter Lilies.  They are the best neighbors!

Kami's report was amazing: she really has a gift for bringing the spirit when she talks.  All but one of my siblings were able to come for it! (Nathan was missing, but the rest of his family came!) I grabbed the opportunity to get pictures because I don't know when that will happen again:

We had a real house-full (about 61 people) and the only way that we were able to feed everyone was that everyone brought lots of dishes to share!

I had everyone bring ten eggs for each child that wanted to participate and we had an egg hunt in the park by our house.  This pic doesn't even do justice to how many people it looked like, and this was just pointed in one direction!:

Two cute grandmas:

And grandpas:

There were cousins everywhere to be found; the decks, the kitchen, yard, every room in the house:

And the rest of the family was doing the Kerns thing. Talking and  Playing and picking and singing and listening:

This was a great day.

After Kami got home

Maddie went to school in Idaho for the last trimester of school and lived with Jim and Marilyn, but when we met Kami at the airport, she came on home with us to spend the rest of the week.  This was her and Kami walking over to invite two of Maddie's high school teachers to her report.  They are some of our neighbors.  They came and loved it!: 

Kami wanted this picture to send to one of her Filipino companions because she thought it was so "American" how much bread we had in our cart.  This WAS the bread store...

She had said how excited she was to "feel human" again when she got home.  Over in the Phillipines it was useless to do her hair because of the humidity.  SO, two days after she got home, here we were at the beauty salon:

Kami cooked for the family soon after she got home. Jim, Marilyn and Linda were here for Easter and got to experience it with us!

It was hard to find some of the similar ingredients to what they had in the Phillipines, like a certain kind of green bean that she said they had there.  She brought some of the spices that she used, though, and this Balut:

I can't say that it was a hit, but Kami has really developed a taste for it.  This was Pace's opinion:

It smelled the house up SO BAD and no one could get past the crunchy bones and eye balls!

Our neighbors stopped by right after it was ready and we couldn't talk them into staying to try some:

interestingly, Anni seemed to love the Balut, but stopped eating it when a bone got stuck on the top of her mouth...

Kami's home!!

On April 17th, we headed over to Boise to pick up Kami when she flew in from the Philippines.  We left with plenty of time to spare and boy were we glad that we did!  Her flight ended up coming in early and it would have been so horrible to miss it.

Isabelle got her bedroom wall all decorated up before we left so that Kami would feel right at home when she arrived:

Maddie brought some beautiful signs that she made for everyone to hold:

We had quite a bit of family that came to the airport:  both sets of grandparents, all the Farbers and Moultries and the Waites.

And before we knew it, there she was with all of the kids swarming her:

...and her dad:

And this was my first go around:

Grandma and grandpa Gee:

Grandpa and grandma Kerns:

We went from the airport to Golden Corral and all ate together. A Filipino woman served us and it was fun to hear Kami chattering away with her in Cebuano!  Then we left for home and got to listen to all sorts of neat things that we never heard in letters.  Kami GLOWS.  Oh, it is so good to have her home!