Happy Anniversary To Us!

Today marks the 5th Anniversary for Troy and I! Boy, time has gone by quick! It is amazing to think all that we have experienced in these past 5 years from 4 major moves, Troy completing seminary and is now ordained, my teaching experience and population I serve has changed tremendously, we have gained a new dog (Jackson) and lost a dog (Joey), celebrated the weddings of our brothers and birth of our 2nd nephew this past April, we bought our first house,
have gained some new friends, Troy has completed 2 more marathons and now has 2 triathlons under his belt (we did our first one together in 2003!), we experienced numerouse doctors appointments, testings, procedures for infertility, but now we are adopting from CHINA! Praise God for all he has done in our lives! We have been blessed!

Troy and I have been back for a week now from our vacation to Wisconsin! We stayed 2 days at an all-inclusive resort, ChulaVista in The Dells, and then we moved on to Door County! We LOVE Door County! Our first night was in Sturgeon Bay where we experienced a fish boil (ask us about our experience), we toured the local shops and beaches and took a gorgeous country drive. From then we moved up the peninsula to Fish Creek! This is a charming little city and we had a fabulous condo that we plan to go back to with family/friends. Our highlight in Fish Creek was kayaking on Lake Michigan to visit Cave Point and White Sands Park. I will post pictures once they are emailed to me from our guide! We had a blast and it was a great workout! Lake Michigan was so green and you could see the bottem of it the entire trip! Our trip home was a casual drive stopping at Lake Geneva to spend the day. That is a beautiful area and one we want to explore more! Our trip was incredible and we cannot wait for another one! This was our first vacation in 5 years besides our honeymoon in which we did not have to visit family or go to a wedding!

On the adoption front, we are still waiting on our homestudy! Our adoption specialist said she is sending it to CCAI at the end of this week (Today I hope!) to get approved and then it is off to Immigration! We are still praying we can send our dossier off in August!

Happy Fathers Day!

Happy Fathers Day to all the fathers out there, both spiritually and physically! Troy preached a great sermon this morning and made reference to all the spiritual fathers out there who have been there for those without a physical father. They are sometimes overlooked this special day! We remember that Jesus is our Eternal father who never lets us down!

Waiting...and more waiting...and...

The word this week was that our homestudy would be complete and we would receive a copy of it via email to look over before it goes to immigration. It is Friday morning, so I guess we still have time to receive it today! If not, it looks like our laptop will be coming with us on vacation! Troy and I are leaving for a week to explore Wisconsin. This will be our first vacation that we have had since we got married 5 years ago that does not include visiting family or attending a wedding! We are looking forward to spending time in Wisconsin without an itenerary! I have done some research and we know we will be going to Madison and The Dells, but who knows from there! Jack will have a house sitter so he doesn't have to be taken away from his rabbit friends that he likes to chase!

Good News!

Our first set of papers from the Chinese Houston Consulate are in! Check out the Chinese writing and the official red seal! In addition, our homestudy should be complete by next week! We got the bill for the second half last Friday which means we are almost done! Our adoption specialist will submit the homestudy to Immigration and we will be given a fingerprinting appointment. After that, all we have to do is wait for our 171-H to come in! Once it is in, all the rest of our papers will get their round of notarization, certification and authentication in Chicago! It still looks like we will be DTC (Dossier to China) by August, if not earlier! Praise God!

We FINALLY completed our landscaping around the deck!