Dirt Bikes, Laundry and Love

We have been spending what little free time we have in the evenings clearing trails through the woods for the dirt bikes. The heat has been extreme this week, I think I heard them say 101 today, plus all the humidity that comes with the south. We have made one trail already, and last night connected another one to it. Although this has been fun for Nate and the boys, it has left me with an unbelievable amount of laundry, and if you know me you know that I hate, hate, HATE laundry. When it's dirty, it's exploding out of hampers or laying on the floor, when it's clean it's in drawers that nobody sees anyway. I need to do chores that reward me by looking better, something tangible. Anyway with all the sweating, and getting filthy every time they ride my laundry situation has hit critical, you should see their socks (oh my). The man and boys are going through 3 outfits a day, there is a creek outfit maybe two if they go twice, a riding outfit, and then a inside the house outfit. I am truly not complaining, I am soooo glad that they are outside doing things, just being boys, and last night when we were walking through the creek Luke runs up to me with a tiny little turkey feather, he hands it to me and says "this is so you will always remember my love" AWWW. That's what it's all about it, being a happy mom, getting dirty with my kids, and making memories for the future. I will always remember the love.

The Old House

As you know people moving face many challenges, the biggest one to me is dealing with the old house. I've moved out and on with my life and I hate to have to go back to the old place to clean, and pack up all the old stuff (trash and Junk) that wasn't allowed to be thrown away. I spent thurs, fri, and Sat over there doing stuff, like scraping old windows, cleaning the place where the washer and dryer once sat (yuck). There was however one unbelievable event that transpired on sat. Friday night Nate put the for sale by owner sign out, and while we were there working on sat, a husband and wife stopped by to ask us about the house. To make a long story short, the man's mother who now lives with he and his wife, grew up in that house. The man's mother lived there till she married and moved out of the house, so his grandparents lived there till they sold the house to my in laws. My house has an incredible history of owners. These people thta came by were the original family who sold it to my in laws, so that Nate and his siblings were mostly raised there, then the Elmers who have a son that is still Nates best friend and his sister who is in my sidebar as one of my friends (Fritz files) rented it for a year before my in laws sold it to some people named Pollard, who their daughter after being raised there became one of my close friends, then her parents sold the house to us, so that we had the chance to raise our boys in the same house their dad grew up in, (same wallpaper in Austins room that was there when Nate was a boy), now we are trying to sell the house back to the original owners, Toccoa really is a small world. I hope you followed all that, because it really is an amazing story. We are waiting to here back from them tonight, they made us an offer last night and have to meet with their banker to see if they can be approved. I don't know if this will work out or not, but I sure hope so, for one thing, it would be fantastic to have had our house on the market for a day and a half, and also I would feel so happy to know that this couples mother would spend her remainning days in her childhood home. We love the house, it has sentimental value to us as well for a number of reasons and I think this would be a perfect ending to this chapter in our lives. Boy my sentence structure stinks, but I'm leaving it as is.

Update on Dania

I am diverting from my schedule this morning to update on all that has happened with my dossier and my adoption. Basically nothing has happened for the last 2 months, I was just notified last night that my file along with 23 others is being "studied" and awaiting signature to go on to the next phase. I found out one of the problems about why this is taking so long. There is a law on the books in Haiti from 1974 that states only childless couples will be eligible to adopt, but the need was always so great that all govt. officials would usually by pass the law, well every time the govt cleans house and gets in new people, they don't want to be accussed of neglecting the law, so it becomes a touchy situation. They have in the past always got permission to by pass, but it just slows everything down. So the pattern for Haiti has been up and down for years, for a while adoptions will just fly through, but then someone corrupts the system and they take their sweet time, then the govt cleans house and replaces people with hopefully better people, but they tend to be cautious of the law or don't care about their job. They are trying to get that law changed, but once again we are dealing with a 3rd world country, so who knows what will happen.

Since so many people ask me on a weekly basis how I am doing with all this, I thought that I would take a minute and write about how I have felt through this whole process. This is not my first child so I do not have all the nervousness and uncertainty that comes along with the 1st. This whole process has been smooth to me, although pretty long, we are now in our 18th month, at least 3 or 4 of those months were our delaying the process. One of my life's motto has been "good things come to those that wait", I have said that 1000 times if I've said it once. I say it to myself, others, and my children constantly. Dania is fine where she is because she has the one true God as her father until we get there. I truly believe that God's timing is best, that being anxious is a lack of faith in the one that says he will be a father to the fatherless, and through this whole thing God has revealed himself to me in so many ways that I have never really understood before. It seems that every few weeks I gain some little insight or tidbit into the character of God, and it is slowly transforming me. When we decided to adopt I knew that there was a grander purpose than just adding another member to our family, or changing the life of one little girl. God has given me a greater vision for the oprphans of the world, for what it means to be a child of God and adopted into his kingdom, the list goes on and on. I feel called to stand patiently and wait for what the lord has for me in this life. I do long for her to be a part of this family and share with us the blessings that our merciful God has given us. I can't wait to see what her personality adds to our family, and how she will change us all, but for now all I can do is be like the persistent widow who knocks on the door of heaven, and to me that knocking doesn't look or sound frantic, frustrated, angry, or hopeless. I can hardly wait to see how this chapter in our lives plays out, I'm pretty sure it will be a best seller.