Sunday, August 31, 2008

Finally.......

Finally...well, probably not what you are all waiting to hear, but we are excited! We got a call on Friday and hopefully we have found some renters for our house in Memphis!! Yeah!! Yes, we still own that place. Not because we want to or because we really enjoy having rental property 1400 miles away but because we have to in order to at least keep our credit in tact. It is one HUGE prayer that is being answered. I started praying a novena and that day we got the call (hmmm...). Of course I wish it was a call saying somebody wanted to BUY it, but we will take what we can get. For now, this means a few less bills we have to pay for awhile anyway. That is, of course, assuming that these people get approved etc., etc.



Travis is still LOVING school, he has learned so much in just 5 weeks that I just can't believe it! He really is a little sponge, it is great to see. He got his cast off two weeks ago, so that was exciting. Of course we had to save it...Daryle told Travis this way he can show it to his kids one day! I hope it keeps well. I put it in a ziploc bag, I don't know why, I just did. If anybody has advice about that, let me know. I have never had a cast before so I have no idea about these things.



Well, the local office for our agency officially closed on Friday. I am hoping the new office will contact us in some way this week. If not, then I will contact them and check in and see how our paperwork is coming along. As far as I know, things are waiting to be translated I guess.



Not much else, we are just keeping busy with regular life. I hope you all enjoy a nice Labor Day weekend!!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

A quiet week

There is not much to post about this week. I did get an e-mail from our agency telling me I forgot to sign my medicial. WHAT??!!?? I couldn't believe I did that! Well, come to find out I had handed in the wrong form to the agency. The one I had signed was sitting here in my folder. Oh well. It is now in the mail to Tuscon. Hopefully my next post won't be that it got lost in the mail, that was my original copy!!!

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Gotcha Day 2008

Ok, so I promised some pictures from the past! We just can hardly believe Travis has been with us for 4 years now. We were remembering today what court was like, what we did after court and when we went to pick him up from the orphanage that afternoon at 3:00. They handed him to me, I changed his clothes and they literally rushed us out the door because we had to go straight to the picture place to get his passport picture taken. While I did that, Daryle gave a donation to the orphanage and none of us looked back. We were thrilled, excited, amazed this day had finally come yet nervous to be first time parents to this already 16 month old baby. He weighed 15 pounds and was 28 inches long. He wore 6-9 month clothing. From that instant he became our world and we became his world too. Here are some pictures that we hold dear to our hearts.



This first picture many of you may remember...it was our referral picture of Travis at around 4 months old. We carried this picture everywhere with us for 10 1/2 months!!! Here is the passport picture...isn't that the cutest??!! I know he looks absolutely terrified, I had to sit in a chair behind this white sheet and hold him on my lap. He wasn't very happy, but we love this little picture anyway!
Here is the card we sent out announcing our son!!
The little girl in the background is the image that has been haunting us for the past 4 years. On one of our visits this little girl was just staring at us (mostly Daryle). Daryle wanted to pick her up so badly, but we were not to have any contact with any of the children. I didn't even realize we got her in a picture. We were told her name was Sasha and that her parents were coming to get her the following week. We really hope that was true. It was because of seeing children like her that we feel called to return to Russia for our second adoption. She was/is a beautiful little girl!
Travis was barely walking when we brought him home. Look how tiny those legs and arms were!!
A cute picture taken after being home for a few weeks. I can see some life coming alive in those eyes!

Our first official family portrait!
Our first try to get a cute picture for the Christmas card.....that didn't happen!! All we got was this!! Oh well, that only lasted about a year and now he poses for pictures all the time!
Before his first hair cut.
This was taken on our one year anniversary of Gotcha Day-2005.
Hope you enjoyed my little trip down memory lane. We plan on going out to dinner tonight to celebrate. We have started a little tradition on Gotcha Day. Since we can't send things to Travis' orphanage directly we decided to help children in a different way. Twice Travis has been to the hospital and has been able to recieve a toy from Andrea's Closet. (For sick children at the hospital). We decided last year that every year we will go shopping and donate toys to Andrea's Closet for other children who are sick and in the hospital. It made all of us feel good to bring cheer to a child's day as we celebrate our own special day. Happy Gotcha Day, Travis!!

Friday, August 15, 2008

Home Study...Check!

Phew! I wasn't really worried...but you just never know! I think the whole meeting went well, Travis was even a little angel. Well, I did tell him she was going to let Russia know how he was doing (she will when the baby gets home...but just thought I would put the idea in his head now anyway!) I guess it worked. Yeah! Daryle and I feel like "pros" now with the whole thing. We may have found a little loop hole regarding these parenting classes...we will see. So, now our home study gets written up, submitted to our agency and then they send it to the state of Arizona so we will be approved to adopt in the state of AZ. From there all of our papers will be translated and then sent to our region. We still don't know our region yet. With the changes within our agency we are not sure of what exactly will happen.


Some friends have been asking what are we going to do with the war activity that is going on in Russia right now. Well, I have faith that it will all work out. I know I can't get stressed out over things that are totally out of our control right now. We have no idea of how these issues and conflicts will affect us. We know from our adoption of Travis that God has a bigger plan out there and He will lead us to where we need to be. We know our child is out there somewhere and when the time is right we will be united forever. Most of you know what we went through to bring Travis home. You know we started out in Guatemala and ended up in Russia. It is obvious to us all that it was Travis' destiny to be in our family. It is this miracle that happened in our lives that gives me peace right now that we have to trust God, put things in His hands and pray that we have the patience and understanding to accept that. One day we will see how God orchestrated this new miracle to be part of our family too. It is amazing how hindsight can give us perfect vision! Please join me by keeping the people and especially the children of Russia in your prayers. I also am praying that God will allow us to get one more child out of a Russain orphanage to a forever family, but mostly I encourage us all to pray for world peace.


Thanks for all the well wishes regarding the home study, it went well and the paperwork is moving right along!


Oh!!! TOMORROW IS TRAVIS' GOTCHA DAY!!! Can you believe tomorrow it will be 4 years since we went to court and were officially named Travis' parents?? Boy how time flies! I will post some pictures tomorrow. I am going to put in a few surprise pictures of things most you haven't seen before or that you haven't seen in a LONG time.....so stay tuned!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Is this week over yet??!!

Boy has this been a busy week. Of course Travis had to start it all out by coming down with one of his infamous sinus infections. I usually know exactly when to bring him in. It took about 2 weeks for the symptoms to progress. His doctor wanted me to try using a sinus spray for a day or two before starting the antiobiotic. Yeah, right. The poor guy couldn't even stand the lights on in the house let alone go outside in the bright Arizona sun. His eyes were watering and all goopy and he was just miserable. I started him right away on the antibiotic (along with the sinus spray of course). So then the medicine loosened things up and of course went right to his lungs and thus the asthma and breathing treatments have begun! Last night I was up with him twice to do a treatment....of course Daryle is sick too so I got stuck doing both treatments after a long day at work and my first night of class for my master's program. Oh well, that's what moms are for, right??!! Daryle and Travis both stayed home to rest today, and Travis is already doing a little bit better. It feels like this week has lasted forever! Tomorrow is our homestudy, so I have been busily cleaning up the house this evening. I will wait until tomorrow to vaccum just before she comes. That should do it. What do you expect on a Friday after a long week of sick people and busy schedules? I keep hoping the next week will be less busy but that has yet to happen! It's a good thing I like to be busy and challenged because that is sure how things are going lately.
I really enjoyed my class last night. Of course there will be some work, but I think I will enjoy it for the most part. I haven't written a reasearch paper though in probably 14 years!!! Wish me luck on that! A few of us told the teacher that and she just laughed and said don't worry about it, we will be ok! I sure hope so!! Wish us luck tomorrow!!!

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Home Study Scheduled!

Finally our social worker and I caught up with each other tonight. Our home study is scheduled for next Friday, August 15 at 6 pm. I warned her my house may not be perfectly clean after a long week at work! She said that would be ok! I am not nervous at all about it, I guess that is because we have been through this whole process already. She sounds very nice, it will be fun meeting her.

We had some surprising news last Friday. When I got home I had 2 e-mails from our agency. It seems they are closing the office that is close by our house!!!! We couldn't believe it!! I guess they will transfer our file and information to the Tuscon office. That is about 1 1/2 hours from us, not too bad. BUT...we went with them because they were CLOSE!! They have assured us that everything is fine, our case will be seen through to the end and it will go smoothly. I don't know all the details, only that the office had been there for 18 years. I was shocked, and I think the employees were too. They were all so nice and helpful and I really liked them. Daryle and I talked about it and we decided to stay with the agency. They are in 3 other states and are a pretty good size. They said they were closing because of the economy and the fact that adoptions in AZ are slow right now. That does make sense to some degree. We are sad but at the same time we are trying to stay positive. Daryle's first response when I told him was "Oh, here we go again!". Not that we had this exact thing happen, but it is just one of those "bumps" in the road on an adoption journey.

Travis LOVES school!! He loves his teacher, his principal and everything that has to do with school. I had a quick meeting after school and Travis said he wanted to go back to my classroom and play with some toys. Well, I came out and found him having an in-depth conversation with the secretaries!! They are all finding out how social he is! One of the funniest things is how he wants to show me where things are as if I have never been there before. For instance, he says "Mom, look! This is where I go to computers! Come let me show you!". Or, "Mom, look, that is where I eat lunch!". Everything is such a big deal and he is so proud of his school. He is so funny. However, what ISN'T funny is when he uses scissors to cut holes in his clothes (and his friend's shirt!!!!). Hopefully we have moved passed that phase! (Ok, that was only yesterday, but one can hope, right??)