being patient...

I cannot believe that once again I am finally posting after a whole month of being off blog-world. We have had so much going on in the last month that it has just flown by which is a good thing but then I have this guilt over my head of not updating my blog.

As far as an update on our adoption, there isn't a whole lot since my last post. We submitted our dossier to our agency in April and thought everything was perfect and it was on its way to Ethiopia but after reviewing it all there were 3 little fixes that needed to be done. 2 reference letters had our agency's name on them which needed to be removed and re-signed, notarized and sent back to us to send back to our agency and then our marriage license which is from Hawaii was notarized on the back and was a stamped signature and not a blue-inked one so that had to be fixed. Dealing with getting a vital record in Hawaii is not easy at all especially with the time change but an awesome lady at Dillon got it taken care of for us so now the marriage license is finally fixed and in our agency's custody and the 2 fixed reference letters are on their way which means as soon as it gets to them, our dossier will officially be on it's way to Ethiopia at which point we will continue to WAIT! Currently we have been told that a child under the age of 3 years old comes with a 10-14 mth wait so we are going to try to be as patient.

It is very hard at times to be so still and patient when I think, see and hear about all the orphans out there just getting older in an orphanage when we have a perfectly good extra bedroom and lots of love just waiting here in the mean-time. There are some countries right now that have a start to finish time that is less than 6 mths and less travel and cost and I can't lie and say that it isn't tempting to want to say "sign us up". I have met many families who have started an adoption in one country (ie: China) and then knowing the wait is 3-4 yrs, started another adoption from a different country while they were waiting and that is something that has been on my mind a lot lately. Of course it's not that easy because this means, whole new paperwork, much much more fundraising, much much more late nights and sounds just plain crazy to almost anyone I mention it to. Going through ONE adoption is a lot, let along attempting TWO? All this to say, these are just thoughts in my head right now, nothing is changing as of now but I feel like I have to do my part to keep my eyes open to how we can best serve the orphans in our world and not just sit back and wait. Of course there are always going to be waits and we know this as much as anyone. With deciding to start the adoption process over a year ago and officially starting it over 9 mths ago we are well aware of the wait but there is a BIG part of me that is thinking a "wait time" can mean more than just sitting back and waiting for one thing to happen.

So please keep us in your prayers that God will speak clearly to us and guide us towards what we are supposed to be doing right now during our WAIT.

So now for a quick month long re-cap in pictures:

Jalen at Peace By Piece event, cleaning up Ada to raise money for the American Cancer Society   

Jason and I at Relay For Life last weekend, I was there from 7pm-2am walking, watching Jalen, hanging out with lots of friends and doing 2 classes of Zumba on the field!  A great evening.  Jason was there until it ended the next morning as he was asked to DJ the event last minute from midnight on.

My wonderful husband threw me a surprise party for my big 3-0!  Complete with a fun slip n slide in our backyard for the kids, a chocolate fountain, good food, great drinks and all of my closest friends who are more like family!

Jalen has had a lot of friends to play with lately and this is one of my favorite pictures of him and Peyton who belongs to one of my friends/co-workers.  We have had wonderful weather lately and playing outside in our sprinklers, slip n slide and baby pools is a day of fun to him and me!

I also got the day before my birthday off at work so on my day off I thought I would get my hair cut and use my gift card to get my nails done, then I thought why do it alone, why not take someone with me who would love doing that and maybe never get a chance to.  I signed up through our local DHS office and after getting my background check complete and given the ok, I got to pick up a little 11 year old girl from our local shelter and spend the day with her.  There are kids in our shelter who are waiting to be placed either with a family member or into foster care and in the mean time they are just waiting and wanting someone to come hang out with them and care for them.  My lil girl and I had breakfast, went shopping, got our nails done, had lunch, got sno-cones and then by dinner time I had to get her back.  She was so grateful and I was so excited to get the chance to do that and can't wait to do it again!