Every once in a while, I have to pinch myself and make sure I’m not dreaming. San Diego can be so beautiful and sometimes doing life here feels surreal. I never “wished I could live here” and there are lots of beautiful places on this planet, but some days I find myself in this “world class destination” and looking at the tourists around me and wondering why God said we could live here.

Saturday was one of those days. I found myself on more than one occasion asking myself, “Are you kidding me? This can’t be real.” Since Tyler’s soccer tournament was canceled due to the rain all week making the fields unplayable, we decided to take the kids to the Children’s Museum in San Diego. Oh boy, so much fun. We landed parking on the street for $2 and hung out in this kids wonderland of play and creativity for a few hours. Plus… since we have like 500 kids now, the $10 per person entrance fee got us so close to a season pass that I sprung for the extra $5 it required and now we can go all year for free.

here’s some of our fun in photos….

Afterward we headed to Seaport Village for lunch and to see the boats and Grandma even sprung for a merry-go-round trip too… The whole day amounted to some great bonding and an entire new set of “firsts” for Becky and Billy.

I’m sure my rainy days are coming, but this valentines day was a sweet day of love.

Well, pretty much everything these days is a first for our kids.  Here’s a list of the Becky and Billy firsts from our first half week in America as a family of 7.

• first time in a car seat

• first trip to the grocery store

• first trip to the doctor’s office.  Billy weighs in at a hefty 33 lbs according to the doctor.  Hey- that means the kid has porked up a full 3 pounds while with us!  His wrist is so skinny that I can make a circle with my index finger and thumb and slide it up and down his arm with room to spare.  The doc is doing a bunch of tests to make sure everything is functioning correctly too.  But I think he’s just a tiny kid in a happy home.

• first time touching a dog.  Yeah, pretty much that took 3 days to accomplish.  Our dog is a lab/rottweiler mix and he weighs over a 100 pounds, so he weights 3x more and stands almost as tall as they do.   In addition, in Uganda, dogs are either wild or trained to defend the house and eat you.  So to say that they were petrified of this GIANT beast before them is the understatement of the year.  But we’re making solid progress. 

• first time eating cherrios cereal

• first milkshake

• first PB and J sandwich

• first time taking a bath… and first one with a muzungu 🙂

lots more firsts to come. 

Well, after 20,000 miles in the air, 4 planes, 3 continents, 4 passports, 2 U.S. visas, months of planning, 32 days in route or in Uganda, too many hours to count of waiting in line, filling out legal documents, praying, anxious waiting and wondering we are finally and officially home safely in San Diego as a family of 7.

I have just finished sorting a 24″ pile of bills, tax documents, and stuff I need to follow up with down to about 6″ deep, but I felt the need to stop and update you on our progress before I try to go beat some of my jetlag via my pillow.

Here’s a few tidbits for you.

PICS: I have posted the best of my pics via facebook along this journey. I restricted access to the face shots of our kids until we got home. So, if you want some family pics, minus our arrival shots which I have not gotten yet because they were taken by the entourage of family that was there to greet us, I have now changed their status to be viewed by the general public. I probably won’t leave them up for forever, but if you want, you can find them

• here
• here
• here
• and some scenery shots I already gave links to are here and here.

A FEW QUOTES FROM OUR KIDS WE HAVEN’T SEEN IN A MONTH:

Jake, our youngest white boy:

• “Dad, I thought that having a sister would be bad. But I like her.”

• “Dad, will they ever turn white?”
• “No Jake, they’ll always be brown.”
• “Oh, Ok.”

TJ, our first born:

• “Dad, can we go to breakfast on Wednesday?”
• “Yes.”
• “Good. I miss breakfast with you.”

Tyler, the former middle son:

• “Dad, you know what I missed most?… tickling.”
  

SOME TIDBITS:

• I think our kids think that our latest additions are part puppet, part new friend, part playmate, part brother and sister. They are constantly asking them to do new things, trying to hug and kiss them, and teach them anything and everything. It’s so fun and slightly corny. It’s like bringing home two new babies from the hospital to the house except that they can actually play and are potty trained upon arrival. I’m sure this will all go away in about 5 days and they’ll all be fighting for stuff. But don’t burst my pretty little bubble.
• Our table does not hold 7 very easily.
• 7 people go through a loaf of bread really fast.
• My first 3 kids grew like weeds while I was gone.
• We have sweet grandparents for our kids and an awesome set of supportive and risk taking family members to join us in this journey.
• The internet is FAST in my house.
• I don’t miss my TV. I am out of the news loop however.
• I never left my pajamas today. It was like Christmas day at our house and every toy was brand new.
• My adoptive kids have slept like babies in any bed I have put them in.
• I think it is going to be just fine.

Should be a crazy week ahead, but I’ll try and post some pics and updates a few times this week. Thanks for praying with us in this crazy life changing process.

Well, I’m headed to bed soon for one final nights rest before heading home to the U.S.A. We are about 98% done with the papertrail between Uganda and the US. and about halfway home from Kampala to San Diego.

I’ll post more pics and more details about our adoption her on my blog once we are home and I’m psuedo sane again. But for now, I posted some more on facebook and I’m aware that I’m increasingly becoming a mixed bag of emotions. Here’s a few I’m kicking around on this rollercoaster:

• FEAR: wow. I’m a dad of 5 kids ages 5 to 11. And my parenting quotient almost doubled virtually overnight.

• ELATED: wow. I’m a dad of 5 kids and finally have a daughter. wow.

• FEAR #2: Everyone I see who asks me for my passport or for the papers for my kids seems to be searching for a way to tell me I have to turn around. Man, I’ll be so glad when I don’t have to walk around with my passport and prove my case every 5 minutes. We still have to finalize our adoption in the U.S. I so am ready for this legal crud to be over so I can simply love on and live with these kids.

• ELATED #2: God kept us on schedule and we have become the legal guardians of 2 more kids in about a month. Crazy.

• FEAR #3: Racism. I don’t know that I fear this really, but I’ve found myself wondering what people were thinking. It was intensely awkward in the Entebbe airport. I never knew what people were saying, but the combination of looks, fingers, and words said we were the subject of the coversation. I wonder if I’ll feel that way in SD?

• ELATED #3: At all the support we have gotten from friends and family in the last 3 months. Prayers, facebook words of encouragement, financial gifts, and so so so so much more. Elated is probably an understatement in these things. Thank you Jesus and thank you to those of you who joined us in this process from last summer to today. What a ride. What a ride.

Ok… sleep is calling. Hopefully by late afternoon tomorrow, I’ll be firmly on the ground, airport passport checks securely behind me, and starting a new series of family adventures as our Berrytribe is now officially tribal. (ps: more on my kid’s tribes to come in the coming posts).

When you’re in Uganda, here are some things to note:

If your bike is going up hill and the traffic is thick, just hitch a ride on a semi.

This is not a truck filled with breast implants.

Word to my son billy: ” these pretty balls in the bottom of the urinal are not candy and this is not a sink.”   Word to self… pay for a urinal to be installed in the orphanage so they know how to use it and not to wash their hands in it.

Milk Man still comes door to door.  Via Bike.

Fed Ex really does go everywhere.

This is a Mobile Home