It's Summertime

 Playing on the beach at La Cholla Bay with the Tamietti's

 Adai, doing what he does best, sweeping up the place

 Awe, brothers

 Adai exploring, man

 At White Mountain Lake riding the 'rents' new ride!

 Fun with papa on "the unit"

 Playing

 First time camping at Show Low Lake with Oma and Opa

Adai and his cuteness

It's summertime here in the desert and we've already done some pretty fun things!  We've gone to Mexico with some friends and a trip up to the White Mountains to visit Oma and Opa!  Both of these trips were a last minute decision...that's how I like to roll!  This is how we have the most spontaneous fun!  The boys are growing up so fast and I love being there with them to experience all these adventures.  What fun they are...most of the time.  Ismael even went up to Show Low with us! 

Wow, so it has been a while! An update on my lot is of course we added a new little Lawani, Adai (pronounced Aday) in February 2011! He's been a joy to have in our home and Karim just adores him! He's such a sweet boy and will be 1 next month!

Good hair day!

Afro's back!

Corn rows #2

Snoop Dog braids

Corn rows #1

Karim has been going through changes as well, after all, it's not fair that only momma and papa get to have all the fun! So, last month, our friend from Togo who watches him often did three different braids on him...check 'em out yourself, what do you think? Most people's reaction was that he's such a pretty girl...not sure what to think. I was telling Ismael that his whole face just popped out so much more and I found myself analyzing who he looked like more every time I looked at him! All of a sudden his hair wasn't the main event. I have to say that after a few weeks, I missed his hair aura.

Graduation

Another huge thing that has happened in my life is that I graduated from the University of Arizona with my M.A. I stumbled across this wonderful program from a friend and co-worker about 2 years ago. The program is Orientation & Mobility which is in the field of Blind Rehabilitation. I currently work at the Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind in the Blind/Multiply Impaired residential program. So, when my friend told me about the program it sounded so doable as it was only technically a one-year program. At that time Karim was about 4 months old and I was really thinking about the future and what was going to happen next. Another selling point of the program was that it was grant funded, meaning gratos, free, cost me nada. Talk about perfect time and perfect place. So, I dived right in and took a few pre-requisite courses right away before starting the actual program...AND, here I am today! Oh how good it feels to have this accomplished...well for the most part. I still have an internship to start at the Veterans Hospital in August, but still the bulk is outta the way. Big props go to Ismo and his never ending support and being such a good papa to Kmomo! That's love!

Proud to be an American

So I'm incredibly proud of Ismo, he is an official citizen of the United States!!!! Woohoo! He filled out all the paperwork, paid the "hefty fine" and studied for the exam and aced it pretty much on his own. In fact, I wasn't even really aware that he was so on top of it as I seemed to have been wrapped up in my own little juggling act of mom, school, and work. It's funny that all of this came about right around the time of all this Arizona Illegal Immigration stuff is going down too. While at the Swearing in/Oath ceremony, my dad had the biggest content look on his face, (as only my dad can) and it was great to see how proud of Ismo he was. My dad even got up and said a few words as there was an "open mic/testimony meeting" time during the ceremony. Clearly Karim was just as excited for his papa! As far as Ismael is aware he is permitted to have dual citizenship with Benin and the United States...I suppose this makes him Beninese-American...African-American is so general and after all he knows where his roots are. Let the opportunity come a-knockin'!

With "so much time on my hands" I've decided to enter the blog world!!!! I so enjoy browsing friends and family's blogs and think it's a great way to organize life so that others can know exactly what's up! Excuse all the exclamation points, as that's how I role...periods just don't seem quite adequate for most of my sentences!