Official Numbers

We are officially, as of Friday, june 26th, on the Wait List!!! FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our numbers are as follows:

GIRLS

BOYS

SIBLINGS

Hello and goodbye!

Today we said hello and goodbye to our homestudy. We received our homestudy officially at 2:15 this afternoon. It was sitting sadly alone on our porch until Dan got home from work around 3. Then he grabbed it and raced down to the office on his bike (in 100 degree heat, none the less) and added it to the dossier and finished making copies. We were in a serious time crunch because we were hoping to get it out in todays UPS shipment which leaves Staples (handily where Dan works) anywhere from 4-5. So, the race was on. We got it all finished copied and together and then Dan hopped in the car and raced back to Staples (thankfully we live in a small town), and got there at right about 5. Thankfully, the UPS shipment had not been sent. Being an employee, Dan just went behind the counter and did all the shipping stuff himself so we didn't have to wait on anyone to 'serve' us. Our dossier will officially be at AGCI tomorrow by 10:30! WooHoo!!!!!!! You have no idea, ok, some of you might have an idea, but still, you have no idea... Ok, here are a few pictures... (we thought the binder clips were fun...)

Also, here is a fun picture of what I went to bed to the other night. I had stayed up reading, and when i went to bed, the cat had taken my spot. He had no intention of moving either. I even laid down and used him as the pillow and he didn't move. I actually had to pick him up and put him at the foot of the bed...

Homestudy Coming!

Our homestudy has officially been mailed out. it should be here tomorrow afternoon - then we can turn around and overnight it Thursday to AGCI so that they can get it and review it Friday!!! It has been a long time coming and we are so excited!

Praises Be!

Praises be to God our awesome Father. Our Maryland background check came in today and we got a final, final, final copy of the homestudy to reveiw and the confirmation sheet to fax in stating that all is correct. There was one little typo that I noted, but otherwise PERFECT!!! So, hopefully within a day or two we have the official notarized homestudy in our hand. The dossier is copied, ready to go, so yea!!!! We are excited!

Our Saturday - Monster Post with TONS of photos!!!

This is Tara's wonderful grandma Fuller. We all threw her a 90th birthday party this past Saturday. It was a wonderful fun filled day - which you will now get the photo commentary of... :)

Tara's mom Marsha, Fuller, and aunt Rhonda

Niece Macy excited about all the yummy cake.

Sister Bobbie Jo getting the punch out and ready.

Tara (who started the day off by making all the cakes) with niece Macy getting ready to serve cake and nephew Grant a bit impatient for a slice of his own.

Grant finally got his slice!!!

Step - dad Kevin taking pictures of the event.

Grandma Fuller with adoring youngest graddaughter Michelle.

And to entertain the kids, turtles were found in the courtyard of the retirement village.

The kids had a ball with these poor unsuspecting turtles. It became an afternoon of 'turtle games'. Who could stack the most turtles vertically, turtle races, which snacks would the turtles eat (yes they ate nuts as well as pillow mints), tossing mints at turtles and seeing who could get theirs closest at the end (you know, moving target). So, you get the idea...

"Turtle fighting" - totally fascinating to see who's turtle would stay in the sand the longest. Here are nephews Brendan, Trevor, Grant and niece Macy with Tara's cousins looking on.

Here is nephew Grant being a big man standing on the wood like the older kids did - big stuff - with the help of cousin(-in-law) Nicole


Here is Macy- after the party at Fuller's house. She was changing out of her party dress and didn't want the two or three of us in the house to see her, so she got behind the curtain in the picture window to change, not caring that everyone outside could see her...

Bobbie Jo (tara's sister) outside before dinner playing with Trevor, Macy,and Grant on the swingset, which our dog Mickey looking on.

In the kitchen, getting dinner ready, Uncle Dave, aunt Rhonda, and Grandma Fuller all laughing about Dave's shoes (I think his granddaughter gave them to him or something like that)

Here's a close up for you to enjoy!

After dinner, to entertain ourselves, someone decided to come up with an obsticle course. It started out as the younger generations, but we soon got the older involved. Here is Dan starting. It starts out by climbing the tire, swinging off with the rope, as shown below...

Dan

Kevin

Uncle Dave

Grant wanted his chance to try...

Then over to the monkey bars as shown here...and you had to shimmy across one level (depending on which 'class' you were in)

Nicole (class 3)

Rhonda (class 2)

Dan (class 3 and 4 - Class 1 was the lowest bar with only Macy and Grant, Class 2 is the next up and so on and so forth - higher number is harder bar)

Then over to the other side of the yard to the swingset, where you had to use the rope to get from one rock to the other. This is the only picture we got - when cousin Jenette helped Grant do his round.

Then over to the clothes line where you spin three times around one end, then run to the other end and spin another three times. From there you ran to the fence at the end of the yard. Here is Bobbie Jo spinning.

and Trevor (cousin Shannon is timing)

And after running to the fence (behind Kevin and down the side of the house to the front part) you ran and hopped over one flower bed, back over another, and then over another to make it all the way back to the tire to end it all. Here are some spectators/competetors - Fuller, aunt Rhonda, mom (marsha), and friend Ronda with Mickey.

Michelle and Grant playing in the yard, Nicole walking by.

Michelle - isn't she beautiful...

Grant needed a 'drink' of water after all was said and done (actually playing with water - his hand is int he cup)

Then, later that evening - not pictured here - we had the guys come to my house and move our piano out of the basement and into a truck to haul it over to my sister's house.

After the piano wa smoved, the cousins and Aunt Rhonda came over to play some games.

Here is Michelle, Chris, and Jenette.

And, here is Nicole, Shannon, and Aunt Rhonda.

They all came over and we had a great time. here we are playing two different 4 player games. Rhonda left about 10:30ish. The rest stayed until about 2:30 A.M. It was late and we were all exhausted, but it was a wonderful day.

Sunday, after church, we had family lunch at Rhonda's where the final results from the relay races were posted. Yes, they were all timed and everyone was given three runs (if they wanted to use them) with their fastest time being used. It was a wonderful weekend. I just love hanging out with the family!!

ON THE ADOPTION FRONT: I am still frustrated, but trying to enjoy myself and remind myself that which I already know - we have a wonderful loving God who is in control of all and has our best intrests in mind. My wonderful husband has been a huge comfort this evening for me. He is wonderful and I love him with all that I am! T

Frustration.

First of all, sorry this is going to be long with no pictures. I will post a fun weekend post with pictures, but for now, this is what you get. I don't have a whole lot of time before I have to head to work. (Like 10 minutes) - I just wanted to ask my friends out here in blogland to pray for us. I especially am getting frustrated with our homestudy agency and don't want to make things worse, but am hastling them a lot. We were told at the orientation that it would take 4-6 weeks to get our homestudy completed - we are at 9 and it's still not done. It just is getting a bit frustrating. They 'didn't know' that we had to go all the way back to the age of 18 on our background checks (statewise), so way into the thing, I had to send two more request out. It actually all started back when we turned in our initial paperwork. We had worked our tails off and got it all done in 1 week. That's how motivated we are to get this done. Then, the social worker was supposed to call and set up our home visitwithin 2-3 days. A week later, no home visit scheduled. So, I start hounding them. Finally get it scheduled for another week and a half later. Frustrating to say the least. Then when she is here doing her thing (on a Saturday) sayus that we will have the rough draft by the end of the week, almost two weeks later we get a call from her ad she has some questions for us because she is 'finally' getting to work on our report. So, about a week laster or so we get the rough draft to make corrections to (and there were a number). It is abou tthis point when they realize that we are supposed to have the other background checks, so I do those that same day and get them out. (Still waiting onthe MD one). Then I start hounding them to send it to AGCI even without those dates to get it reviewed, but it isn't their policy to send it in to be checked until it is completed. So, with a bit of begging and pleading and a 'we wouldn't be waiting still if you had known what we were supposed to do by way of background checks', they ask the head lady and she approves sending it in 'just this once'. We get it back from AGCI, in almost record time I might add, with corrections that need made. No big deal. Those get made and I get another draft to review. Review it and make even more corrections. Now a week or more later, we are still waiting ont he MD background check (which I have called on twice), the homestudy still has to go back to AGCI for final approval (from what I understand) before we can get our hands on it. Let's just say that ALL of the other dossier paperwork has been done since April 2nd. I am getting a bit frustrated!!! Also, I get to see all these people who were right where we were about a month and a half ago, thinking that we would be put on the list right near each other. They are getting on the list and I am still waiting on a homestudy. Don't get me wrong, I am so excited for you all - just frustrated with our homestudy agency and the time it is all taking. So all this to say, please pray that we get my background check today, that I am able to calm down and not be so frustrated and that we can send our dossier in by the end of next week... hopefully. Please, just pray for us. T

3 years

We have officially owned our house for three years today! That is exciting for a number of reasons:
#1 - It's the longest I've lived in one place for a very, very long time! (like since high school)
#2 - The house is officially 'ours' none of it is in the state's hands (unique buying situation)
#3 - 3 years...that's a long time for me... :)

This is what the house looked like when we first checked it out three years ago:

It's not really a whole lot different, A flower bed here and there and a bush or so moved and trimmed. But you get the idea!

Update

What a wonderful weekend we had. It was nice to relax and just have some fun! We went to Eads, CO on Thursday night to hang with my parents. Friday morning we got up, Dan and my step-dad Kevin got up and moved a deep freeze from my grandpa's to their house (only about two blocks away). Then Kevin went to work, Dan and I chit chatted with Grandpa Alvin and then we took off for Colorado Springs. It was nice to get to see the mountains again. As much as we love the plains, we miss the mountains too. We were able to join Dan's sister and her boys as well as his mom for lunch at Chipotle. I love that place. We don't have anything like that here, so we try to eat there at least once each time we go to the Springs. We spent the afternoon shopping (nothing major, we don't like spending money). Bought some groceries and had the dog get a bath and nails cut. Friday night we went to the first of three recitals. They were awesome! here are a few samples I found on youtube:

They were so good! Even the younger ones were great. I couldn't find any other videos on youtube that had our friends girls in it. these were more of the older kids, but they were amazing.

Saturday we went to one recital, had a mid afternoon lunch at Red Robin, another place we really love to eat but don't have out here, and then the final recital in the evening. It was so great to see the girls, and Ryan. We haven't seen them all in so long. Here are some picutres of us with the girls.

Dan with Kaitlyn and Ashlyn

Rob, Rebecca, Ashlyn, Kaitlyn, and Ryan (the friends we went to see. I worked with her at Compassion, Intl. before we moved - we became great friends while there)

the girls playing on the "W" outside of the school

Me, Dan, Katie, and Ash

And on the adoption front: I called today on my VA and MD background checks. VA already has it done and in the mail. The guy in MD told me that they were backlogged and he would check to see if it got done yet and if not, would pull it and do it today and get it in the mail. Hopefully our agency will have them by the end of the week! We really are anxious to get on that wait list. Our good blog friends got on the wait list last Friday and are officially #11! We are so excited for them and hope to be close behind them on that list!

3 day weekend!!!

We both get a three day weekend! We are on our way to go to Colorado Springs, CO to see some friends and hang out. Our friend's daughters have their dance recitals, so we are pretty excited. We haven't been able to see them for over a year. We have stopped for the night at my parents house. They live 1/2 way between home and Springs in lovely, tiny Eads, CO.

It has been a crazy, crazy week. It was busy enough that I didn't pay enough attention b/c I was in a hurry to get back to work and apparently locked the cat in the kennel with the dog for the afternoon. They were ready to get out when we got home, but neither looked worse for the wear. See~

It was also the start of baseball games. The boys have been practicing two nights a week for the past month or so and games started this week. One game was postponed b/c of weather, but there were three games - we made it to two - one for each boy. Here is Trevor batting.

Here is Macy and Grant enjoying the first game of the season. (Monday night).

Brendan's game Tuesday night was postponed due to weather, Brendan also had a game on Wednesday which they won, so he was excited. Trevor also had a game tonight which we did not make because we were on our way here to Eads.

We will post more pictures of the fun weekend as time goes by. Good weekend all!! T