By Laura

Hi There ! I've been called upon once again to write on the glorious Kapi Empire's blog, the Empress being too busy to do it herself. What an honor! (But seeing that the last post is from spring, maybe she really needs me.) ;-) 

So, to start the wonderful telling of our Kapi summer vacation, I will tell you about the two weeks we spent at a campground, with some of our cousins, in the beautiful region of "Vendée!" The campground is operated mainly for British Christians even though it's in France. So our days where packed with activities, worship services and much more, all in English! 

One of the possible activities: Ping-pong !

(Will and Wes and Marc)

But I think most of us preferred the pool ;-) especially our cousin Mélina!

Will: "Whoa" !!! 

Marc: "Kamikaze"!

Nathalie: "I think I'll go the ballet way"

With the camp directors wife: Monique (in the middle)

Beach outing!

Melina: "I found something!"

Nathalie: "Weird..." / Marc: "Do you think we can eat it? — I'm HUNGRY!!"

Reading Manga Bible every evening with our great Dad/Uncle!

Delicious BBQs all the time!!!

Board games! (but I don't think they were too bored.) :-) 

Kapifamily size sandwiches!

One of the evening services. (we're in the row right behind the big guy in red.)

OUTING TO THE PORT TOWN OF PORNIC

Luckily some of the troops are missing, it's getting squishy!

(We took this picture just for you, Michel!)

Majestic boats!

The outing team.

Looks like their feet are more interesting than the sailboat! 

What a beautiful girl!

Mom, Nathalie and Aunt Esther! 

I joined the family for the second week!  I missed the first week of camping as I was in Germany trying to improve my German. 

More food! Good food is important in our family. 

Our dining room: 12 of us around this table for breakfast, lunch and supper, every day!!

Sorry, but that's it! Stay tuned for much more is to come, I hope. ;-) 

Christmas Kapi Style

We had a wonderful end to 2015 with all of our children, their spouses, our grandson, AND my dad, Earl, here to celebrate Christmas and New Year's with us. Our hearts were full as we enjoyed the rare blessing of being all together.

Morning snuggles with my grandson

 Christmas brunch

 Trying to corrupt Grandpa. He played along well, with his apple juice.

Which one has a real baby?

Cambodian pants (Grandpa wasn't too sure about those!)

Hot chocolate!

The kids surprised us with this beautiful birthday calendar that they designed and made.

 Lego time!

Nathan in the News

Nathan has been in the news a couple of times in 2014. The first time because he was one of the top students in his Aviation Skills class. (This class does not involve actual flying.)
And more recently because he is participating in the Science Olympics for high schoolers. He has passed the first selection (written test) and this week will have a lab exam.
Here is a link for those of you that read French or just want to look at the pictures. Not sure how long the link will remain active.
Here is the news article.

Ants, ants, ants

This Summer. One of the little boys found an ant hill with eggs etc. He wanted to know more about ants. We found a good book with lots of pictures that I have, and they begged me to read it. Now, it was vacation, and I wasn't really up for too much reading... so after a few pages, I tried to put the book down, but the four youngest (our 12 year old reads just fine on his own) BEGGED me to finish the book. So I did. Then we went online to look for an ant farm. Too expensive. Then we went on Wikihow and made our own ant farm. That jar was the center of attention for many days! (I wish I could say that this is how I teach all the time, but mostly I am just caught up in getting things done, and I don't follow their lead enough. So don't think I am like this all the time! I guess since it was still summer vacation, I felt a little freer…)

It has been a BUSY year !!!!!

Wow! Today marks a year of blog silence. Silence doesn't mean life was boring, silence means we were too busy to keep in touch! And so, to celebrate the end of the silence (we hope) here are a few fun pictures, in no particular order, of our busiest month this summer.

Bothering Grandpa. (He doesn't seem to mind too much)

The big international football game (soccer game).

Fun times at Buffalo grill, the French version of an American steak house.

Finally able to see all ten of our kids together in one place!!!

And both of my sisters in France!

Learning Ukrainian

One of the unexpected bonuses of adopting is free language lessons. I tried to learn some Ukrainian with a computer program before we traveled, but nothing seemed to stick... Six months later, with 8 weeks in country, and 3 months with our new kiddos, I know alot more. How useful these words are is another story.
And are these words really Ukrainian? Our children actually speak more Russian than Ukrainian. We think. So who knows what they are really teaching us! They often don't agree as to which word is Russian and which is Ukrainian, although they know them both. Sometimes we end up on Google Translate to get things straight.
[Philip had a huge head start. He grew up hearing Polish. Never spoke a word of it (except of course, a few of his favorite dishes) but could follow a sermon pretty well. While we were in Ukraine, he started communicating in a language that I didn't understand. When I asked him what he was using, he said he guessed it was Polish! Turns out Polish and Ukrainian have many, many words in common. Seventy percent according to Wikipedia.]

I know my colors. (Or at least the ones needed to play Uno. And black and white. And pink of course. We adopted a girl.)
I can count to ten.
I know quite a few food words: meat, potatoes, parsley, onions, carrots, ice cream, milk, butter, rice, fish, sausage, cheese, kasha (I don't know what the word is in English for that one!)

And then there are all the words that don't fit in a category:
Hands
Water
I don't know
I don't understand
Later
Maybe (very important answer to many questions)
Today
Tomorrow
Day after tomorrow
Friday and Saturday (for some reason the other days of the week will not remain in my brain)
Underpants
Car and Motorcycle (these two words need a whole blog post devoted to them!)
Bus
Bicycle
Zoo (that one is easy, I admit)
Come on
Hello
Good bye
Glory to God
Bible
Church
Helper
Diaper (I probably don't know the real word for this, since the word I know is Pampers with an accent)
Washing machine (this is a hard one to pronounce but I have it down!!!)
Peepee
Poopoo (I thought these words were international, but they aren't! And when I ask the kids if they need to go "potty", they have a good laugh at that word so I try to use the Ukrainian)

And then there are the words I learned, that I don't want to know the meaning of... They probably mean something like "stupid" or worse.

Fancy Jacks

On Sunday night we usually keep supper simple. Crêpes (French almost paper-thin pancakes) or pancakes. Of course making enough for nine of us isn't that simple. And we often have a few more than nine of us!
Last night I decided we would have bread and cheese. I was a bit too tired to cook. Except that Nathan volunteered to cook pancakes if I would whip up the batter. (from scratch, no pancake mixes over here)  So, we had pancakes. Nathan worked hard to fulfill the wishes of the eaters. Philip joined him because two heads and four hands are better than...