Congratulations to....

my dear friend Amy and her husband Clint. They just received their referral for a precious 5 month old little boy from India. We rejoice with them and can't wait until little Simeon is in their arms.

First day of school and Vjay

We are off to a good start with school. Kaylin loves her new teacher who is a man. I am excited for her to experience having a male teacher. My first male teacher was in 4th grade and he was my favorite. Blake started school yesterday and also had a great time. He is in a pre-k class with his best buddy Eli. The two of them pretty much think they own the school and that their job is to "help" the other kids with all they do. We'll see how this goes, his teacher seems to think it will be fabulous to have both him and Eli in the same class...the moms think otherwise.


We had the pleasure of meeting and sharing a meal with Vjay, the lady who runs the SOS orphanage in Delhi, India. She was a riot! When she found out that we were the parents of Aparna, she was so so excited! She kept saying, "Oh, Aparna is my favorite girl, my favorite". You are so lucky to have this girl in your home. It sounded like Adia pretty much runs the place and gets away with anything. She shared all kinds of stories with us and continually told us how great she was. She also told us that she was quite strong willed. Great, she will fit right in! We also met several other families who either were in process or already had their kids home. I left feeling revived and so full of emotion, my heart aches for Adia to be home! :) What a blessing tonight was for our family. I am so thankful we had this opportunity to meet the closest person to Adia...she said she holds her everyday and that makes me smile. :)

Tid bits...

Soooo, I have been terrible at blogging and Im sorry! This last year has definately been challenging for many reasons and I am emotionally tapped to the max. When I think there can't possibly be more I get news that there is more to come that will make me very sad (can't explain yet) and I just feel completely overwhelmed with emotion. I keep being reminded of the great joy our daughter will bring and that having her home will redeem everything that is and is to come. We are praying sooner then later! :)
This being said we have managed to have fun in the month of August in the midst of Eric working non-stop. I am thankful for all the side jobs my husband has been offered so that we could have all of our travel money to India in the bank, we just need the call and we are on our way. It has been very difficult to not have him around and I'm so glad that part is almost over.

Now for the longest post ever...
I had the great joy of getting to meet the infamous Malak (Tara's baby from Ethiopia). He is just precious and it was so good to get to love on him and visit with Tara. They are such a sweet family!

We finished up our second session of swim lessons. Kaylin moved up to the next level and really enjoyed swimming and feels very confident in the water. Blake had moved up to the big pool and did not enjoy swimming as much, the big pool is cold! He did well the first week and then the second he was pretty much done so he will have to do that class one more time. We did a lot of swimming this summer!

Eric's cousin Ellery was married and we had a wonderful time at the wedding. It was beautiful! It was held at her husbands parents house and there yard was perfect. However, the weather was not, 100 degress! We were very hot and sweaty.






The same weekend, on Sunday, we attended the India Festival down town pioneer square. Blake and I went right after church to watch a little girl dance who had been adopted 2yrs. ago from SOS where Ava is. It was so fun to watch all these children participate in their cultural dances, the costumes were absolutly amazing! That evening our whole family and our friends family went back to have dinner and watch some more of the performances. When we went back there were thousands of people. I love so much that Portland is such a diverse place to live and has a very large Indian community. It seems whenever there are cultural events there is always a huge turnout.




Last week I was back at school for meetings. It was nice to be with all the staff again...I love them, they make me laugh and smile! After our day of meeting we were treated to a wonderful dinner out at the Black Rabbit, Edgefield. YUMMY!

And then there's Labor Day weekend...my husband was home all weekend! Yahoo! We have had a great weekend and have tried to fit in as much as possible. Friday we went to dinner with our friends John and Stephanie at Hoda's (Arabic food), it was wonderful! After dinner we went to a little tea house that was super cute, had tea and visited for a few hours. Our kids had gone to spend the night at my parents house one last time before school starts, which they love. On Saturday my sister wanted to take my kids to the Aquatic center so we met Kindra and Nick and had a blast. We surprised Blake and brought his buddy Eli and that made his day. :) We had never been to the Aquatic center before, why? I don't know, it was really fun and cheap! We headed home to change into some warm clothes and drive up the Columbia river to meet some friends for dinner that were camping. We had a nice visit and great dinner. We were glad we were coming home to our beds and not camping though. It has been cold several times in August! :(












Well, It's back to reality, we start school this Wednesday. I am looking forward to the "structure" of our home again. I will miss Kaylin a ton! I am looking forward to going back to school myself. I can't wait to meet our new class of kids on Thursday. I am starting to feel like this adoption will become reality soon! I get really excited when we start talking about travel plans and all we need to do to prepare. It feels so close! :) Praying everyday!!!!

Okay...if you have made it this far, thank you! I feel better all ready. TaTa for now!

Hallelujah!!!!

We received our NOC (No Objection Certificate) approval last week. We were told that it looked like we would travel in 4-5 months. Katie (our case worker) said it does take longer in Delhi for guardianship papers to be issued but they have a new judge and she seems to be processing things quicker. I am praying for the first part of December, it would be the best Christmas gift ever!

I just love her to pieces and can't wait to hold her in my arms.

Water, Water and more Water!

Our kids have pretty much lived in the water for the last several weeks. There skin is starting to show it...they are tan, shriveled and dry. They have just finished their second week of swimming and both of them made huge progress. Our neighbors have a pool so when they have not been at lessons they our home in the water. To top the week off our aunt Teri treated us to a day at the water park. We have enjoyed getting to spend so much time outside and life seems so much happier when the sun is out.

On the adoption front... nothing to report! Im sad and frustrated, I was hoping we would have our NOC approval by the end of July and that did not happen. So we continue to wait! I have a call into our case worker and hope to get some answers in the next week or so. I can't believe its August already! I am not ready for school to start it seems like we just got out. I know it will occupy more of my time and hopefully make the days go by quicker while we wait. Please continue to pray for our approvals to come quickly we need our little girl and I know she needs us.

A little taste of India

We took the kids to Indian food tonight. We needed a little boost of excitement and thought it would be fun for the kids to try it out. Kaylin LOVED it and Blake did not take one bite. Eric and I love Indian food, it is so rich with flavor and color as is so much of their culture. Everything is bright! :) It makes me happy!

Blake is trying some Indian Iced Tea

Our "YUMMY" food

...and some fresh fennel to help our digestive tract.

Blog Hiatus

I want to apologize for the significant break in blogging. Life as we know it has been turned upside down in the month of July. Don't get me wrong, we have had some fun times and yes, I am still thankful for everyday! However, I am having a difficult time putting my thoughts into words. I plan to continue my "52 weeks of Thankfulness" in August and hopefully be less overwhelmed with life.
We started out July with our church camp out, which is always fun for everyone and the kids play so hard everyday all day long and are very tired at the end of the day, its great! On the 4th we went to a rodeo with some friends and enjoyed getting to see bull riding, barrel racing and the one armed bandit (this was a man with one arm who road a horse with huge buffalo in the ring), it was really cool and scary. They ended the night with a big firework show. We came home to organizing a "huge" garage sale to benefit our adoption expenses. Our church family all donated items so we could have this sale, it was a huge success and we raised $2010.00. WOW!!!!! We were hoping for around $700. I am so thankful for those who helped organize this event. What a blessing it is to have so many who can't wait for our sweet girl to come home. This week the kids started swim lessons and are having a blast, they could live in the water! They both are already swimming by themselves. On Wednesday we headed to the zoo, it was a fun day, the weather was perfect. We have no big plans for the rest of the summer and I am so glad. I am looking forward to just sitting, spending time with my family and friends.

Here are a few pictures of the fun things we have done in the last few weeks, enjoy!
Camping with Dad in the yard


The golfing cowboy!

Is he not the cutest cowboy you have ever seen?!

Kaylin and her new love....glasses!

Crash and Burn = 6 band aids and a very sad boy


Blake enjoying swim lessons


Fun times @ the Oregon Zoo