This and That!

Mom, Daddy, and Lynn came over for my birthday! We had a great time!

We recently went to Laverne and Baylee spent a fun time with cousins, Jordi, Jaci, and Josie!

My beautiful Grandma Margie with Baylee Bear! We got to spend time with My sweet Grandma Brown too, but I missed getting a picture. Darn it!

Baylee with he daddy!

Aren't they crazy!! I took probably 8 pictures and all but the one above this one was like this!

Things are going well for us! Staying busy, but havin lots of fun! Our adoption paperwork is going somewhat smoothly so far. Please pray with us that we can get our dossier(paperwork/otherwise known as your whole life story) in Ethiopia next month. It is a big prayer, but with God all things are possible!

School for me starts this Friday. Officially it starts next Friday for teachers, but this Friday, I am going to a teacher share fair all day. It should be fun! Next week, there is no way I can wait until Friday to start on my room or I will never get it done. So Baylee and I will be working on it almost every morning next week. Baylee is a great helper. She has been coming to my classroom to help ever since she was a toddler, but let me tell you, I not only can get way more done now that she is 11, but she can do about anything I ask her to do. Thanks Baylee!

COLORADO PICTURES!

Sunset view from our campsite.

Baylee and I doing our traditional Colorado rock painting.

Tame chimpmunk in Creede.

Brian and Baylee in the Creede firehouse.

This is the coolest firehouse ever! It is inside a cave! Brian was in heaven!

Mining competition in Creede on the 4th of July

At the Creede 4th of July parade

Smokey the Bear during the parade

Creede is a neat little town nestled in the middle of lots of mountains. This was the start of the parade.

Our almost nightly ritual. We sit around the campfire and be goofy usually! We laugh a lot!

If you click on this picture to make it bigger, you will better be able to see the herd of elk.

Close up shot of a deer on one of our evening drives.

Look at how tiny Brian looks! It makes you realize how small we really are in God's great big beautiful world!

Our almost 10 year old camping outfit. We have shared a lot of wonderful memories in this camper and truck. In the next couple of years, after we expand our family with 2 babies, we will hopefully be able to get a bigger camper and truck.

The fishing wasn't good this year, but the memories made trying are awesome!

Hummingbirds were as always thick! We enjoy watching the amazing and mean little creatures!

I love this happy picture of my silly daddy!

My little sister Lynn and Baylee. They had quite a time together!

Baylee and her grandpa share a lot of silliness and laughs!

Freeman's is a little general store a couple miles from our campground. We go there quite often for their delicious and large icecream cones! They make great burgers too!

OMG............Is that Baylee reading?

Despite overall bad fishing this year, daddy did manage to catch a 16 incher, or was it a 20 incher?

My beautiful and silly mom gathering fire kindling!

Yes, snow in July! Isn't it awesome!

Throwing snowballs........oh what fun!

This looks like snow, but it is actually cotton from the cottonwood trees in Lake City.

This is the waterfall Baylee and I sat by during our picnic. We went on about an hour hike.

Baylee during our hike!

We are off to Colorado!

As my daddy would say, "We are off and running like a roaring herd of turtles!" My parents will get to Bristol Head today. We are heading out early in the morning to make the 12 hour trip in 1 day. I have our lunch and snacks made for tomorrow. Baylee and I have new magazines and books to read. Baylee has her I-Pod and DVD player with movies ready too! Kids these days have it sooooo much easier traveling than we did in our day! Of course, I am sure my parents said the same thing when I was a kid! All 3 of us have been crazy busy today. I like the house to be clean, the bedding to be washed, and everything else to be in order, so that when we come back, it's all nice! Poor Gracie knows something is up. I so wish Brian would let her come camping! I try every year to talk him into it, but to no avail!

Our paperwork did not come in the mail today.......pooh!!! It will all work out though. We did get a letter from Kim at our China agency, basically stating that they will make sure we meet the 12 month between adoptions requirement. She stated in the letter that due to China's continuing lengthening referral timeframe, we would probably feel little or no impact from the 12 months between adoptions, but if we did, that we could put our China dossier on hold for 6 months and then if we needed still more time, we could put our travel on hold for another 6 months. So there is our 12 months! This was very good news! The part that would be extremely hard though and I pray we don't have to do, is put our travel on hold. This is because we would have our referral at that point. We would have our picture of our baby and know who she is, so to have to wait to go get her would be very hard to say the least. I highly doubt with the backlog and wait times, that we will have to do that. We will choose to think optimistically, and know God will take care of it all.

I wanted to thank everyone for the nice emails, post, and calls. I love the friends I have made through this adoption journey! You are all very special and true blessings to our family.

Well, I better get busy again, still a lot to do! I will post Colorado pictures when we get back!

We are approved!

We got a call today from America World Adoption approving us to do a concurrent adoption! This means that we will be working on our dossier (paperwork) over the next couple of months to adopt from Ethiopia. Please join us in prayer that the paperchase process moves quickly. First prayer request is that we will get our official paperwork from AWAA (adoption agency) by Thursday before we leave for Colorado on Friday. We want to get the paperwork sent before we leave. All we can do is take one day and one step at a time. We are very excited!

RANDOM PICS!

Baylee's newly decorated room! She fell in love with this bedspread and wanted polka-dots on her walls, so we set out to find just the right paint colors and room accessories. We still have more to do, but she's very happy with it!

At each school year ending since kindergarten, Baylee and I go and pick out a new cross for her collection. This year makes 6! My baby is growing up right in front of my eyes!

Look at all those Webkinz! Way too many!

Baylee and I paint rocks each summer while in Colorado. It has become quite a tradition. We are making the town of Lake City and adding to it each year. Last year we made this apartment building, a gas station, a church, and a few other things. This year our plan is a school, a grocery store, and more houses!

Baylee is a constant flipper!

Fun at our 1st annual Chin-okie picnic!

SUMMER IS HERE!

Whew!! I am glad it is summer! I had a wonderful school year with super kids, but summer break is always awesome! I did go to a 2 day Great Expectation workshop yesterday and today at UCO. I had a wonderful time and learned a lot! I just hope I remember all the ideas when school starts!

On the adoption front, things are going at a snail's pace. We will be extremely lucky at the rate we are going to get her in 2 and half more years!!! We did apply last week to adopt a baby from Ethiopia. We are waiting on approval. They may not approve us because of our concurrent China adoption. We will not pull out of China. We are praying that we will have time to adopt from both countries. Ethiopia at the present time is taking around 12-15 months from start to finish. Once you bring your baby home, you have to have him or her home for 12 months before you can adopt another baby. It will be pretty close possibly, but who really knows............we may have plenty of time.............or China could miraculously speed up and Ethiopia slow down!!! Only the big Guy upstairs knows.............and I am pretty sure He is the One in charge. Make that I am positive He is the One in charge! Are you hearing me God? I know you are in charge...........Haven't I learned my lesson?! Not my plan, not my timeframe...........I know already. Please help everything to fall into place a.s.a.p. (just kidding God)!