Coming to a theater near you…

The documentary Stuck is coming to Ybor this Saturday at 7pm. If you are in the local area and your heart is soft toward adoption, please come join us. If you are not local, please check out this website to see times/dates/locations near you.

Stuck Trailer

 

Biztown–Leaders for Tomorrow

Since January, the kids have been going to a weekly class called Junior Achievers Biztown. They have learned so much–interviewed for jobs, learned how to write/deposit checks, balance check register, how companies work, taxes taken from paychecks and much much more. On Wednesday, the class culminated with the trip to the Biztown center in north Tampa. It was a phenomenal facility and full of friendly staff and USF students. The kids had a fabulous time doing their jobs and learning who they all work together. I had a great group of students in TECO, our local energy company. It was fun to see them interact with each other and many other students. Local kids here get to go during their 5th grade school year. However, homeschoolers can go from 4th-7th grades and many kids go each year. There is always something new to learn.

Legoland

Last Monday, we had the pleasure of going to Legoland as a homeschool field trip with the Tampa Bay HEAT. Tickets were ridiculously cheap and we enjoyed spending the day with two of our Life Group families who also homeschool. It was warm for February in Florida, but the kids had a ball looking at all the legos and riding roller coasters over and over again. The only bummer was one of the boys in our group wasn’t feeling well. He might have been dehydrated as we aren’t used to the heat in February, so it is easy to not drink enough water to keep up with the new heat. Thankfully, by that evening he was doing better. Here are some pictures from our fun!

Awana Games fun

A week ago today, Gracie and a whole bunch of kiddos from our church competed in the annual Awana Games in Sarasota. She and all the kids had a blast. Their team took first and played well. Gracie and her partner Hanah DOMINATED the three-legged race. This is Gracie’s race. She won it last year too. 🙂 Here are the pictures from that.

 Here is a link to a fantastic video Matthew Skywalker put together for all the Awana families. He coaches the kids in Game time all year and leads the kids to the Games.

We’re still here…just a busy week

Since my last post, I have been busy printing and filling out paperwork. After lots of calls to various states around the country, we received all necessary information to complete background checks by state. It was like whack-a-mole to figure out which office offered the service we needed and it was not accessible the same way twice. I must say Oklahoma was by far the easiest state to work with. I called, explained, sent a quick email and then within less than 10 minutes the nice man emailed our agency the background check information and was complete. No fee, no fingerprints, no wait time!

So, now we are in the wait for items to return. We still have an FBI check to send in. It will cover our time in Germany, but China won’t recognize is as valid for each state–go figure.

We had dinner with friends recently and as they shared their adoption journey with us, the husband explained how his quest to collect aluminum cans brought in a little extra money. Now, I don’t think it will pay for much, but every little bit helps.  SO, I went through recycling bins yesterday morning before the Recycling guys came and grabbed as many aluminum cans as I could. (This included the neighbors cans near our house.) Stop judging me and yes, I crossed over to the dark side on this. What was cool as I was doing this, I got to share our adoption story with two neighbors who we’ve only been surface friendly with. One of which adopted their daughter from China years ago and she immediately said she would start praying for us. Another family was tickled too and offered to bring back cans from her kids’ Youth Weekend at church in a few weeks. So, I’m not too proud to put in extra effort to make this work! I’m sure many of you are thinking, I wish I had a picture of that. Ha! Thought about it, but didn’t happen.

As I type, Phil and Grant are out running 10 miles in prep for their half marathon in Sarasota in a couple of weeks. I am so proud of both of them, but particularly Grant. Later today, he’ll go to a Crossing Over ceremony for a Cub Scout pack as they enter Boy Scouts. Phil will be working on my car again. For those that don’t know, we’ve been plagued with car troubles for over a year. My dear, sweet, amazing husband has been able to do much of the work himself, but when you doing your best to love and honor God–the enemy doesn’t like it and he will mess with you. For us it is through the car and the dog now has allergies and skin infection. Crazy I tell you. But despite all that, God is still awesome and will provide for our needs.

Paper Chase

So, yesterday and Monday afternoon, I spent the better part of the day trying to figure out the appropriate background checks to have done for our adoption agency and China. I’m sad to report, as of this afternoon–Wednesday, I still don’t have a clear answer. Texas requires fresh fingerprints and a letter and Hawaii requires a letter only. I’m still working on the FBI report for Germany and NC and OK. Thankful for our L O N G assignments in few places and that we’ve been in Florida twice. I got a ‘bye’ for Florida and only needed one background check, no fingerprints and it was free. Stay tuned for how the rest of the states work out.

On a positive note, I completed my physical and I’m about 100% I don’t have TB. 🙂 It is the little things, right! 

You know when you are doing God’s will, the enemy doesn’t like it. We’ve been attacked spiritually hard this last week. I was chastised for doing fundraising. The kids have slight upper respiratory infections and are on antibiotics while coughing their heads off. (It is very hard to listen to both of them cough all day.) My 8 year old car is about to die (145K miles) and Phil’s beater isn’t the most reliable for consistent around town driving. So, please pray for God to continue to meet our needs. 

Happy Monday

Well, Phil has today off, so we scheduled our fingerprint appts for this morning. It was quick and easy and we were out before my official scheduled appt began. We then went to the Sheriff’s Office to get our background check completed. It took all of about three minutes. We’re back home and Phil’s cleaning out the garage from his recent maintenance on my car. (So very thankful he knows how to repair our vehicles.) He took Grant and Gracie on a little run this morning too. He and Grant are signed up for a 1/2 marathon next month. Gracie isn’t quite sure about the running thing. It is new and anything new takes her a while to warm up to–unless it is her idea. 😉

I am working on fundraising ideas and paperwork. Hopefully, I’ll get Phil’s John Hancock on the remaining forms due and then we can scan and send. Our next big thing is to sit down and figure out all the places we’ve lived since we were both 18–what fun!

The day started off amazing by getting pictures of a friend who just had their “Gotcha Day”. Their little girl is precious and they are loving every moment with her!

Be blessed today. It is gorgeous here in sunny Florida. 

Conference full of endless tools

This weekend, I drove to Orlando on Friday and today. I attended the Empower to Connect conference. http://empoweredtoconnect.org/conferences/

Phil and I were supposed to go together yesterday, however sick kiddos kept that from happening. It was two intense days of science about the brain and how children (especially children from foster care/adoption) struggle with many behavioral issues. However, the science of the brain and how adjustments can be made in the lives of children is amazing. Dr. Karyn Purvis, author The Connected Child, was amazing and personable and full of valuable information and tools. If you have adopted or serve in the foster care system, this is a must attend. If attending is impossible, check out their website at http://empoweredtoconnect.org/

The Resources tab has many wonderful articles and video snippets to help. 

Even if you have not adopted, these resources are great for kids who aren’t completely compliant. As a parent, it is worth checking out!

Phil and I hope to have our fingerprints done by Monday along with our background checks complete. We are trudging through the other two dozen forms to complete for the home studies. Anxious to send them all in!

Fundraising has begun

So, I’m working on ways we can fund-raise to help bring our child home. Below is a link to a website that will accept donations and link to a store if you find merchandise you’d like to purchase.

Thanks for your time and willingness to look.

Fundraising Link to our Adoption

Happy Valentine’s Day

Today is about love here in the US. I’m not sure other countries spend gazillions of dollars on this one day to say I love you to their precious. Here’s a thought…God loves you everyday, not just on the 14th of February. Who or what else offers that kind of unconditional love? Our stuff, our jobs, our human-non perfect family cannot offer this type of love…only God, the one and only. If you doubt this, look at the Bible. God gives us countless ways he loves us.

John 3:16 (NIV)

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

God gave up his son so we could have an opportunity to live in eternity with him. If that doesn’t stop you in your tracks, I’m not sure what will.

On a previous post, I mentioned we had friends just arriving in China to pick up their daughter. I just read her latest post this morning with tears in my eyes. She was overwhelmed by the love given to the orphans she saw and her heart hurt to leave them all behind. How can we show love to those who know no love? How can you offer love to someone who is unlovable today?