In a week's time.....

Father's Day.
Two birthdays.
A week of VBS.
Football practice.
Guitar and cello lessons.
The ACT.
Full- blown potty training.
A house showing.
A mission trip.
And a new driver behind the wheel of my car.

Last week was WHACK.  Fun, but WHACK.

PLUS, on the 17th, I began mentally living in the past..... one year ago, to be exact... cause THIS TIME LAST YEAR, we were adding a spunky little girl to our family (but that's a whole other blog post).... so I've done all of the above with only a few of my brain cells actually living in the present moment.  (Which, Joe would note, isn't all that unusual....)

Anyhoo.... here are some photos of our week of fun!

Father's Day!  Glad this fella goes with us!

On June 16, Jack Powell turned 15!  

He made a perfect score on his permit test and walked out a happy dude.

And later that day.... he was here.  

Prayers are appreciated.

Seriously.

On June 18, Max Powell turned 12.  He got everything on his wish list:  a new cello case, a blue shirt, and two cases of Propel bottled water.  He's interesting.  And awesome.

Mary Powell spent her week enjoying her very first VBS!  

Way to hold that sign, baby girl!

She did some crafts.....

And had WATER DAY along with a sno cone!

We also sent the boys off to Mission Serve with their youth group. 

They're in there somewhere.

And Mary sang her VBS songs in church.

Barefoot.

Cause I couldn't find her sandals that morning and forgot that the kids were singing and figured that it wouldn't matter cause she is in the nursery anyway and we were keeping the nursery that day so nobody would really even know except her Sunday School teachers and they are totally cool so they wouldn't care if she was barefoot.

Oh, well.

It was a good week.  And all week, in the middle of such fun things, I was ALSO enjoying thinking back to this week LAST YEAR.  On June 17, we got Travel Approval from China to go get our girl!  On June 18, we found out that our Consulate Appointment was VERY SOON and we needed to leave for China in THREE DAYS.  On June 21, we got on a plane.... and 32 hours later, we walked into our hotel room in Shanghai.  On June 23, we walked around a tiny bit of Shanghai, looked through a nearby mall, gathered supplies, and WAITED.  

Then, on June 24,  Mary Powell entered our lives.  And it was GOOD.

But that's a post for another day.