Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all of you, and best wishes for a great 2009. Thank you to all of you for your support and friendship throughout the craziness of 2008, and my very best thoughts and prayers and thankfulness to those of you who have shared your journeys with me throughout the last year. To those of you who brought your kiddos home this year, my prayers for a very happy 2009 together and houses full of laughter, joy, and blessings. To those of us who are still waiting and for whom 2009 is going to be "the year", I ask for God to stay close to us on this journey, giving us encouragement and peace and the reminders day to day that this is going to happen for us. My love to all of you!

No, I have not fallen off the planet...

Ok, it has been way too long since I caught everybody up with what is going on. I profoundly apologize, but in my defense it has been a really busy month here. In this post, I’ll try to fill you in on the Thanksgiving in NY experience. Perhaps I will be caught up with everything some time in January! Thank you to all of you who have been checking up on me...I AM ok, I am following your blogs, and I'm so glad for all of you who have brought home kiddos, especially Kim and Jackie. We're still in the game, but I'll catch you up on that stuff later.

The last post I made was about getting ready to head out for New York at Thanksgiving. Short summary—it was a really LONG trip, but it was a fun week. We met Laurel and Kirt and the girls on the way out to Buffalo (in Pocahontas, IL of all places! If you’ve never been there, make sure you visit it and have brunch at the Powhatan Restaurant.) and caravanned out there in one day.

The next morning (Wednesday) we got up and drove from Buffalo into NYC. On Thanksgiving Day we got up early and walked from the apartment we were renting down to Central Park West, where we watched the Macy’s Parade. It was very cool just being there and seeing all the people, and I understand now why they have the balloons---if you’re on the street and not in the first two or three rows, the balloons are basically all you see!

But they are HUMONGOUS!

After the parade and Santa Claus, we walked down to Times Square (after lunch at a deli where we had amazing cheesecake)

The gang near Times Square—yeah, we look like tourists!

and then explored lower Manhattan. We did Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, Battery Park, and ended up in China Town for dinner—like in the “Christmas Story” movie.

Amber’s Pineapple Chicken---she was pretty surprised!

The next morning we were up and on our way back to Buffalo. That evening we had dinner and crashed (and Sarah and Steve worked on her guitar skills), and then got up on Saturday and fixed Thanksgiving Dinner. It was a joint effort (but mostly Laurel and Sarah, although I made the pilgrimage to the grocery store), and pretty amazing. That evening we drove up to the falls, where we basically had the whole park to ourselves. Quiet, except for the sound of all that water, and cold, but not so bad that it was uncomfortable to walk around. Very cool and peaceful, especially with the colored lights on the falls.

The “girls” at Niagara Falls

We headed back home on Sunday after going to church with Jeremiah…we were doing great until we hit really crappy traffic outside Cleveland…and when we got to Illinois around midnight decided we probably needed to stop and spend the night—so it was Monday when we made it home. Luckily, I had already told my class that I probably wouldn’t be there that night, so they got a night off and I could come home and crash. It made everyone happy--and I don't think they missed too much!

(By the way---finals went well, and I ended up with a bunch of students who had great grades for the class---I was really proud of them, and it was fun doing Russian history with them).

There’s more to tell about what’s going on with the adoption, and us, and Christmas but I’ll save that for the next post…

Best wishes for an amazing New Year for all of you--

Preparing to Head Out for the East

Hi everyone!

Just wanted to post a quick update on how things are going with us. Tomorrow morning early we are headed out for the East--yep, we're making the drive out to Buffalo, New York to see Jeremiah (and Sarah and Laurel and Kirt and Bri and Amber, who are also driving out) for Thanksgiving. The plan is to meet up in Buffalo, and then drive into NYC for Thanksgiving morning and the Macy's parade, then come back to Buffalo the next day for "dinner". I'm trying to be not uptight about all this and not giving into the worry (weather, crowds, what to pack, leaving the new kittens in the house all this time, etc.), but instead just praying that this will be an amazing time with my family.

I had hoped that we would have all of our documentation done before Thanksgiving (well, I was seriously trying to get it all done--and stressing about it), but God has other plans. Again, I'm learning to listen to God and His timetable, which is frustrating because I'm just Miss Impatient, (LOL), but is also growing me through this whole experience. I am learning over and over through this whole process that God's time is not my time, and that God's timing is so much better than mine is. We had our physicals on Friday, and because of the time factor for the TB test requirment, we have to wait until after Thanksgiving for those to be finalized. Because we've both been so busy trying to get other stuff finished up to be gone, we still have one online class to complete for our homestudy. And, because the homestudy isn't quite finished (background checks that are new because our new homestudy agency is Hague compliant,along with other stuff), we're waiting on that for some of the paperwork we need to complete. But, on the positive side, so many other things are DONE--and so much more quickly than when we did them the first time for our original agency. Thank you to all of you for your help and encouragement, and to Karyn for the paperwork templates that she shared with me. I am learning that it not only takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to get them home--how amazing is our God that He can use this whole process to bring people from all over the world together who share a heart for these children?!

Please pray that we can finish these things up quickly when we get back next week, since I would really like for all of the paperwork to be "done" and sent off before Christmas. There are also so many people traveling or getting ready to travel, and I send my wish for traveling mercies out to all of you.

I'm not sure if I will be back here before next week, so please know that all of you are in my heart and prayers. A blessed Thanksgiving to all of you--and may God fill you with His grace and peace and joy.

On the road today

Hi everybody!

It has been cold and rainy and overcast here. We have definitely turned the corner into fall with winter closer than I would like it to be! My Monday class this week was on the rise of Stalin --what perfect weather to talk about bleakness and struggle.

In an attempt to get more of our paperwork taken care of today, I'm going on the road to the state capital to get new certified copies of our marriage license (the old copies are in our dossier, which we still haven't received back) and a couple of our work letters. I don't think there will be any problems here, but prayers that things go quickly and smoothly would be appreciated.

We've completed one of the classes we need to do online for our homestudy (just 2 more to go), and got word last night that the homestudy update is proceeding, which is great. It would be great to get everything done and to Russia before the holidays begin, so keep your fingers and toes crossed that this all works out as God sees that it should.

Hope that all of you are having a great week!

Update

"Gracie" now has a new and more appropriate name--although it is a bit geeky. We have tried several names for him, but not one of them seemed to fit him. Then one day this week he was playing with his sister, and they were close to Dinah, our older female cat. She has been more and more accepting of them, but not exactly "happy"--especially when they want to play with her. "Gracie" began to show some interest in Dinah's tale, but he sort of stopped himself, and then went out of his way to jump over her tail (jumping about a foot in the air). He then turned and looked at me for approval. I said, without really thinking about it, "Ah, you have chosen wisely, young Padawan." Steve then said, "that's it, that's who he is!" So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you.......Luke Paw-walker, young padawan cat


And his sister, Amelia Cat-heart. They're already into the books, so they should fit right in at our house!


So things are back in motion with us and the paperwork again! It has been so long since anything happened, that I have sort of forgotten how it feels to be making progress. But, we are beginning to actually get things accomplished, and that is such a good feeling--I almost feel as if I had been frozen and I am slowly starting to thaw out again.

Steve and I met Tuesday with Janis, our Social Worker. She did our original home study for the old agency, and we were finally able to get all the legal stuff taken care of so that she can do the new one, too. We have a few more hoops to jump through, but mostly the hard stuff is done. We went this morning and got our fingerprints redone, we have made appointments with the doctor to have our physicals redone in a week or so, and we're working our way through the stack of required paperwork for the homestudy redo. It has been so nice to work with someone that we know from before--much less tension about everything, and we know most of what we need to get done (or redone) this time with the paperwork. Please just pray that everything goes smoothly, and that stuff that we've had to send off for comes back quickly. We requested our old paperwork back from the original agency, but so far--nada. I'm not holding my breath. Unfortunately, that means having to get new official copies of our marriage license, etc. so all that is a work in progress at the present. I had hoped to have it all done by the end of this week...well, hopefully it will almost be all done by the end of NEXT week.

So this is has been a week of getting stuff organized and lists made, phone calls, email contacts, etc. On top of that, I've been trying to prepare for class, and to draw up book order lists for next semester. Throw in some stuff at church, both choirs, playing with new kittens, and family stuff, plus just doing laundry and cleaning, and it has been busy.

Not much else to share that's all that interesting. I DID become sort of domestic this evening and made a pot of soup. It was my attempt to re-create the potato soup at Olive Garden, and I must admit that it turned out better than expected. It was COLD here this evening, and soup sounded really good. Now I'm seriously thinking about putting on snuggly pajamas and curling up with one of the books I have to read for next semester!

Best wishes that you all have a great weekend.

OOOPS!

I took the new kittens to the vet this morning for their first shots and exam. They're all fine, but it turns out that Gracie is a boy! Even the vet said, "how can you tell with all this fur?" LOL
Anyway, now he needs a new name--and perhaps that's why he's been hiding under the dishwasher.

Other things here are good. Trying to do some cleaning out of closets now that I have time to do so (and it's also incentive to lose some weight!) and getting paperwork updated. We meet with our social worker on Tuesday to go over what needs to be taken care of for the home study update, and then I think we have all the information we need to get everything switched over. There are a few more hoops to jump through, but we've jumped through them before, so.....

Hope everyone has a Happy and safe Halloween! Much love!

I was blog tagged!

I think about three different people (Rachel, Nancy, and Michelle) have blog-tagged me in the last few weeks. For those of you who don't know what this is, this is a game that has gone around the blogs where you tag someone who has a blog and they are supposed to share deep dark secrets about themselves (well....perhaps not deep and dark, but I think the idea is that they get to know you better and that you share things about yourself that you wouldn't share in an ordinary blog post).

So, here are my 6 things. They're pretty random, but I'm gonna post them anyway.

1. I know the lyrics to every Partridge Family song, most Barry Manilow songs, the soundtrack to Disney's Peter Pan and Jungle Book, and can name all of the Jackson 5, Charlie's Angels, and all of the Osmond Brothers (and their wives). At one point I wanted to marry Donny Osmond, but eventually abandoned that dream (sigh). I am a child of 1970s and early 80s television and pop culture. I cannot usually remember, however, where I parked my car at the mall unless I am working really hard at it.

2. The nails on my baby toes are weird. Enough said.

3. I LOVE books. My dream job, if I had to stop teaching history, would be to own the bookstore that Meg Ryan runs in "You've Got Mail." I would also love to work at Barnes and Noble (even in the coffee shop part). I love the way that books smell, feel, and even how they look on the shelf.

4. I'm NOT a morning person. I have tried to be and it just doesn't work for me.

5. My favorite indulgence is Starbucks---a decaf latte. I’m not a big fan of the flavors, but sometimes I’ll really indulge and have them make it a mocha.

6. I'd secretly love to live in Key West and commune with the muse of Hemingway at Sloppy Joe's Bar on Duval St. We could wander back to his house and pet his cats and read his new novel. And enjoy the sunshine and the ocean. It’s a big dream for a girl from small-town Missouri.

Ok, now how the game goes is that I’m supposed to tag 6 other people. But almost everyone I know has already been tagged. SO, if you’re reading this and nobody has tagged you, please consider yourself tagged by ME. And keep playing, since this is really fun.

kitten pictures! UPDATED

Just wanted to update everyone who has asked about names. We decided last night (Tuesday). The gray one's name is Gracie (she just kinda looks like a Gracie, and she's a little shy and timid). The tortoise-shell one is Amelia--like Amelia Earhart--because she doesn't seem to be afraid of anything--including our big girl cat--and she's an explorer.

Ok, ok, ok....

So yes, I have been gone far too long. Lots of stuff has happened, and I haven't felt like I've had time to sit down and process it all, much less actually put it on paper (or on the screen!)

Let's see...the biggest news since my last post way back when is that we have been accepted a new agency--CSS--and we're in the process of getting our home study switched over and getting our dossier redone. It has taken longer than it probably should have, since we're still trying to figure out how to keep our old social worker (we really like her) and have her just redo things for us. But, we're moving forward, and hopefully all that stuff will soon be done and our new dossier will be on its way to Russia! I have to admit that all this seems a bit unreal. It is very different to have some hope about things, and it's almost frightening to feel excited about it. So, I'm fighting against my old feelings of just trying to be numb to everything and trying to enjoy the expectancy again.

Other news...our boy kitty passed away a couple of weeks ago. It was so very sad--he had cancer in his mouth, and he got to where he couldn't eat or drink. Steve and I both agreed that it was time to let him go, but it was still hard. He was such a great, loving cat--even when he couldn't eat, he would come and sit next to us and just want to be petted and loved...in fact, even more so than normal. We buried him in the yard, with a pink peony bush planted over him. He loved flowers, although he usually didn't smell them, he'd eat them!

Following up on that---this afternoon, Chris, the lady who is the custodian at the church, called and said that someone had dumped a momma cat and 3 kittens at her house. She asked if we would be interested in taking one of them. Long story short--we took TWO of the kittens and the church secretary took the other one. They are incredibly cute, but they were also terribly dirty. They've been bathed and are now holed up in the laundry room in the carrier until they're a little less scared (and our girl cat is a bit more friendly!) I'll post some pictures as soon as I can get them to pose!

Other things are going well...my class has been amazing. I just finished grading their first papers over "Nicholas and Alexandra" (another reason why I haven't had time to write) and they all did really well. It's so much fun to have non-traditional students. They actually read the books and think about the assignments. They love to discuss things, and so our classes have been really interesting. One of my students decided to study the process of collectivization in the Ukraine under Stalin for her research paper, since her family is from Ukraine. It turns out, when she called to talk to her father, that he had lived through that period in Ukraine and told her his perspective of what had happened---she had never known that about her family. How cool is that?

I also totally remember that I have been blog tagged--I promise to do that asap. Please know that I am still here, and I'm still going to post, but it has just taken my mind a few weeks to readjust with the change from our old agency and no action to our new agency and so much support. I am SOOO grateful to all of you who were part of that process...those of you who prayed for us, those of you who gave us advice and suggestions, and those of you who encouraged us to make the jump. Thank you all so much--I don't think I have enough thank yous and gratitude to even come close to being adequate.

I think that is enough for tonight. I hope that all of you are well, and I promise to be better in the future!

Take a deep breath...and move on...

Just wanted to bring everyone up to date about what is going on with the adoption. After many prayers, emails with lots and lots of very helpful people (some of whom are new friends—isn’t that just like God, bringing blessings out of a crazy sad situation?), phone calls to various adoption agencies and more prayers, we are moving on. Thank all of you so very, very much for your prayers and good wishes—we KNOW they have carried us through this whole situation.

We have applied and been accepted to a new agency, CSS, and we are very happy with this decision. This agency has a great reputation, they are small, and they are honestly head and shoulders above our old agency in terms of information they are able to give us just over the phone in two conversations. They also have some significant experience in working with people who have left our agency. We have learned in this process that, like everything else, there are some good agencies out there, there are some not so good ones, and there are agencies that were good in the past but are having serious problems now. When you’re dealing with Russia, like my friend Mike says, it is almost always about “who” you know, and whether or not they know you and trust you. We feel like we have that now where we didn’t with our old agency. I’m not going to use this space to bash our old agency here, and, quite frankly, I’m ready to let all of that negative energy just go now so that we can move forward positively. If any of you have questions, though, about this process, I am glad to answer them.

We do have to redo our paperwork, but not all of it (thank you, God!) Our social worker can update our original homestudy, and we already have our immigration approval, so it is just a matter of getting things redone and up to speed. We will have to redo our fingerprints, but we would have had to do that anyway as much of our original paperwork is now coming up on being nearly a year old. I’m focused on being much more active and proactive this time, on keeping better track of things, and on being in better contact with people who have been through this process recently.

So---we have hope, which is a very good thing. On a similar note, my Drury class is going really well. Only 11 students (compared with like 130 last semester at MSU and in my online class), and it’s Russian History! On top of that, they’re non-traditional students—they actually read the books, they come with questions, they have good topics for the research paper—what more can I ask for here. The only real problem now is that I feel like I should be doing more, since I do have a bunch of time where I’m not all that busy. With more expenses down the road, I’m seriously considering a part-time job doing something—not teaching, perhaps, but I’m open at this point. Please keep me in your prayers about wisdom in making a decision here.

One sad note—our male kitty, Asher, is very sick. We’ve been treating his a sore in his mouth with antibiotics for about 2 weeks, but a trip to the vet yesterday revealed ours and our vet’s worst fears—he has cancer. It’s not going to get any better, and so we’re sadly telling him goodbye.

Again, thank you all for all of your prayers and support---I’m looking forward to October being a much better month than September was!!

Much love