Family Pictures

Our friend Karen has been such a blessing to us over the years. She is the mother of Andrew's dear friend Jake, served as kids Sunday School Coordinator at our church, was a tremendous support to us through so many things (along with the rest of her family) and is a fantastic photographer!! Since she has recently moved to the Twin Cities area, we took the whole family that direction to meet her and her family for dinner and a picture taking outing. As a bonus Andrew went with them to spend a few days. You get to enjoy her great work and great eye here.

Yesterday at church Jadon became very interested in the song "Agnus Dei" especially the Alleluia section. He sang with some gusto there, drew a picture of Pastor Matt preaching, copied some words off of the screen, and then launched into writing "I like my . . ." (an exercise that he is doing in writing a book in his tutoring sessions. He decided that he liked Matt and wrote I like my Matt. I pray that God is speaking to his little heart and drawing him to Himself.

Jadon continues to make steps of progress. Sometimes are slower than others. He has been telling us lately that English is hard, so we are trying to encourage him. He seems to really respond to the encouragement. Pray for him. He doesn't like to be wrong or to make mistakes. Pray for us that we would encourage him honestly and in ways that speak to his heart.

Oh the Glorious Days of Summer

All is not always work at the Rieck house! Today, for instance, we celebrated the Fourth of July quietly as a family - relaxing, packing for various destinations (Kirsten to Mississippi; Andrew to Camp Forest Springs; Alan, Ruth and Jadon to Chicagoland to visit Alan's family for a few days)and, of course, watching fireworks. The day was gorgeous with partly cloudy skies (keeping the temps down which is great because our air conditioner conked out--Yikes!). Happy Birthday, America!

After dinner we pulled out some sparklers for the boys to run around with (Jadon had obviously used them before) and roasted marshmallows...a big hit! Then it was off to watch the Eau Claire fireworks. To avoid traffic problems we decided to try watching them from the parking lot of Chancellor's Hall on the university's upper campus. The view was slightly obstructed but not bad at all. Jadon really enjoyed his first American fireworks display.

On the warm days this summer activities have included splashing on the slip and slide, riding bike and playing at the school playground. A favorite activity is actually digging in the sandbox there.

Jadon is making wonderful progress in his tutoring. His English is improving by leaps and bounds these days too. He has started using complete sentences all in English over the last day or so. It's been refreshing. We have expressed appreciation to him over and over again. He has started acting more and more like the typical younger brother too. Yesterday after he'd been told no one was going to play on the Wii for awhile he ran after Andrew (who had gone downstairs to get his shoes) yelling, "Andrew, Mommy said no 'ping ping'" (Ping ping is Jadon's term for the Wii) I had to chuckle to myself. Things have seemed to start normalizing. God is so good.

Go Fish!

A long time between posts. At this rate nobody is probably checking this anymore. It is a good therapy to write none the less and hopefully someone does read. As we have stated previously, we really appreciate the love and support of everyone and especially the prayer support.

Jadon continues to adapt (as do the rest of us). His tutoring has gone generally very well (although today was less than stellar on his part). We are very blessed to have such a great teacher and tutor and it is making such a huge difference in all of our lives. One of Jadon's favorite activities from tutoring is Go Fish. He has come to know his letters (upper and lower case) well enough to play that game with the whole family. It is good practice when he has to say, "Daddy, do you have M?" The v sound is a challenge, but it gets easier every day.

When we stop to look at all that has happened in the last two months (two month anniversary of Gotcha Day is July 4) it is pretty incredible all that this little man has had to take in. He really has done a remarkable job in that regard.

We had family photos taken on Monday evening at a park in Stillwater. Hopefully we will be able to share some of those very soon, so check back. Please pray for our continued efforts to communicate and understand one another. Jadon now knows how to tell us, "I don't know" or "no understand" so we know when we are making some progress or more is needed. Pray for his continued need to learn language and culture. It has got to be so overwhelming. Thanks much.