6 REMPELS!

Bill has been wanting to start a side job of renovations and I feel like it's finally really taking off. He just got a job through the town, concreting a pathway that goes from our house to the school which is one block. It will be wonderful to have a clean path for winter when the girls walk to school. He just finished our fence around our yard and has received tons of complements on it. He has now been offered a job doing fences for next summer through a contractor. Needless to say, he's excited!

I'm really getting excited about the next few weeks. We have a couple friend who have a beautiful site at a local resort and they have offered us the use of it for all of next week. I'm still trying to fix the program that allows our camera to download pictures to the computer. (Did I ever say we have an old computer?) I hope to take a bunch of pictures and then I'll post them. They have an amazing water park with slides and games for kids. They also have the most amazing bands in the evening. Bill has a few days off so I hope that this passes time as we continue to wait for our referral. We also have the Cafac camping weekend August 10-12 and will once again have a wonderful time with a few of our friends who are also in the process. If my next post takes a while please check back again.

Almost 10months and no referral. I would be lying if I said I was not disscouraged. I am kinda starting to feel like this just won't happen. Every where I look are families coming home with their children and receiving their referrals. We have been keeping ourselves very, very busy and for the most part it is keeping me from getting frusterated. But today is just one of those days where I'm just tired of it all. We don't regret starting the proccess at all but it is very hard at times to keep motivated. My prayer was and still is that we will be together as a family for Christmas. We have several friends who have just started the proccess. They all have the same determanation that things will be quicker for them. Bill and I have made sure not to point out reality to them because I believe that having that hope for the first six months is what got us through. To just believe!!

Our first year of having children in school has come to an end and we are having wonderful summer holidays. Bill is taking next week off and we all can't wait to have a week of relaxation and fun. The very first report cards for the girls was a little hard. They did wonderful but to be honest, I'm a bit of a perfectionist and find it hard to need improvement in any areas. Well we've decided we'll work really hard for next year. I'm a little sad that they will be in school all day, but I can't wait to spend some one on one time with Jonah.
On the adoption end of our life, we don't have our referral at this point, but we do know that we are very close. I've had a lot of dreams of her lately and can't wait to see what she looks like and how old she is. We have had so much fun buying a few adorable summer outfits for her on sale racks at Gap recently. I really was hoping to show them but like I said, I can't get it to work.

We have had a wonderful week of fun. We went with our friends to stay in a cabin at Riding Mountain National Park and what a blast! I tried tubing and fell in love with it. We also set up Beach Badmontin and I realized how many years have gone by since high school. Our children also kind of tried tubing and wow!!! We are really water sports lovers. It was great to see the couple we went with having so much fun and just relaxing. It was awsome for me to just get away and forget about our waiting time for a while. I will try to post some pictures of our weekend but for some reason our computer is not allowing us to load the pictures up right now so I'll do it in a later post.

I am so sorry about my lack of posts in the last while. We have had quite the busy summer so far. My aunt who is just a few years older than me has just gone into her last stage of cancer so needless to say this has been very difficult. She has three young children who are such incredible mommy children, it's unreal. We often talked about us adopting and although that's not really her culture to mix cultures, she has been a big support. I have been replaying things her and I did together as kids, the things she and I talked about and the physical things I have from her. I am really hoping I will have the opportunity to share my picture of our angel with her. I guess I have been feeling so depressed and I don't want to just have a sad negative post so I just don't post at all. I then took the time to think about what my purpose in posting was and reminded myself that it's for me and if that's how I've been feeling lately then why shouldn't I be honest?

I want to congratulate my friend who has been trying to conceive and is finally pregnant!!! Congratulations Lena! I love you and I'm very happy for you!

WOW! I waited all winter for spring, so we could get our yard done and now it finally here. It is so exciting to see a big lot of weeds turn into a nice landscaped yard. I'm having fun adding the finishing touches now. Once I'm all done, I'll post a few pictures.

Jonah is in 7th heaven!! He and Bill(my husband) have been talking about getting a 4 wheeler for the past 11/2 years. Bill finally got a small kids 4 wheeler.(They can still both go on it) They are having such a great time. It's so awesome to see that bonding between them. I sometimes feel a bit of guilt with us getting a girl, but then I see them together and realize he has a bud.

The adoption end of our life seems dead right now. It's frustrating when you don't hear anything from Cafac for what seems an eternity. We got an update at the end of last month and I'm really praying for one this month as well. I feel like months are a year right now. I am getting so sick of going into Zalea's room and everyday it's empty with not even a picture of her. I have never been at a point in life where I have felt so depressed for such a long period of time. I'm kinda wondering if others got to this point in waiting. I'm generally the one building everyone else up and now I'm the one distancing myself from everyone. You know when you just want to sleep and sleep. Don't get me wrong, I don't do this, and I am still caring for my children as normal. I'm doing everything I can to encourage them to keep praying for Zalea and telling them she will come in Gods time. It's just hard to tell them this when I have a hard time believing it. I keep telling myself that once I see that picture, all the waiting will go away, but it doesn't change the fact that I don't have the picture. I really dislike it when I get so pessimistic, and I have to find a way of just living each day to it's fullest, as hard as this can be.

As much as we are still desperately waiting for our referral, and of course a day does not go by where I don't think about it, we are finding ways of keeping busy to pass the time. We moved to our new home in November and are now doing our yard. I think it will look great when it's done... I can't wait. On Saturday, myself and a friend are going into the city while the men do the grass. (Nice exchange hu?) I can't wait till I can see Zalea on the play structure having fun.

I was reading a friends blog this morning and reality set in! How blessed we are to live in a country that is for the most part safe and filled with freedom. Her clips were talking about the Aids crisis! I really feel like sometimes I want to block out what is happening out there because, #1. It is so devastating to think about, and #2. I feel that I can't make a big difference is such a huge problem anyway. Bill and I know that we want to adopt as many children as possible, but I sometimes catch myself thinking.... What a difference am I really making in such a massive, wide spread issue?? (I realize we can't adopt children with aids) I just know that the chance for the children we adopt to get aids at some point is high. I don't mean to be pessimistic in this post... I just can't help but think about this tragedy. I sometimes picture my girls being the ones abducted and raped and then being forced into marriage and needless to say It just puts things into perspective. I am somewhat frustrated in my community because I feel like we all live in such a bubble of comfort that I will have people ask me not to mention that things like that happen out there, because it's to hard to hear. If it's to hard to hear.... What about them. Sorry, just venting!