Words of a Life

One More In a Long String of Catch-up Posts

Wow, so July just kind of flew by.  Want to know what we were up to?

Here's the bullet-point version:

• 10 days in Michigan visiting family & friends and watching our niece and nephew.  Major fun was had!  We got to celebrate Marshall's (nephew) birthday.  And we got to celebrate my birthday - canoeing, lunch & waterpark with friends, cupcakes at Cake Nouveau, dinner with family, my mother-in-law's amazing chocolate cake, and the return of my brother and sister-in-law from their weirdly awful North Carolina adventures.
• Oh and saw Toy Story 3 and sobbed my freaking heart out!
• Flew in late Sunday night and met Birthmom for breakfast the next morning.  She is adorable and it was good to meet up with her again.
• Home for 3 1/2 days.
• Drove down to Omaha on Thursday night and had a lovely evening strolling thru the Old Market and relaxing.
• Flew out early the next morning to meet up with four of the most amazing women, my Hannah girls!  Seriously, it was exactly what my heart needed!
• Arrived home on Sunday.
• Worked like crazy all week - driving over 200 miles a day. 
• Headed to Omaha for the weekend for a meeting and get together.
• Home again on Saturday night - impromptu date with my cousin and her husband, Tina & Josh - they crashed our booth at Applebee's - way fun!
• The following week was a mixture of craziness - pedicure with Tina, massage, baby shower with work friends, stess about the adoption.
• Spent Saturday at my friend Sara's salon getting my hair cut & colored, chatting with her and the kiddos, and the she gave me tons of baby stuff - yay!  Oh and we got Sunshine Donuts - the best ever and what memories.  Relaxing evening with the hubs followed by church on Sunday morning, an awesome lunch with friends, and small group.  Good times.

And now we wait.  Just waiting for a call from our social worker.  I know that's what you're all here for!  Will update when we know more.

Recap

Hmm, almost 3 months of non-blogging - definitely not a record but still a sizeable absence. 

Let's recap my from last real post -

• We've been here almost 5 months.  Again, good but tough months.  We are settling in although we still miss our Harlan/Irwin friends.
• We are starting to kind of have friends here.  We are now in a Life Group through church and went to a movie last week with one of the couples.  And some of them came to our annual Christmas party.
• We now have no immediate family here.  Mom moved in November.  But we have cousins, very lovely cousins.  My cousin Tina and her family had us over for Thanksgiving dinner and her sister invited us for Christmas.  We didn't make it for obvious reasons.  And my cousin Tom and his wife had us over for a pre-Thanksgiving celebration and we've been able to hang out with them a bit.
• The job is still awesome!  Love my boss, love most of my co-workers, love the field office staffs I get to work with, love the State Office staff I get to work with - just pretty darn happy with the work situation!  And very hard to believe that I've been here almost 6 months - I honestly learn something new every day.  Love!
• Chris is still loving working from home too.  Loves the rolling out of bed at 7:59 and being at work at 8:00 aspect!
• The house is still wonderful and it has become home.  We officially hung pictures and prints and decorated around the 1st of December.  Which was then followed with frantic Christmas decorating in time for our annual Christmas Open House on the 12th.  And yes, our house can hold LOTS of people at once!
• Church was the one area where we were really struggling back in September.  I am very, very happy to report that we like it.  We really, really like it.  Chris is now co-teaching the 8th grade boys on Wednesday nights and we are starting to meet people.  We got involved with a Life Group and feel incredibly blessed by those God has placed in our group.  We are currently studing The DNA of Relationships by Gary Smalley and it has been a great experience.  We also love our pastor's teaching style (Deed - reminds me of Dave Bartlett!) and the sermons are fantastic.  We are enjoying being in a church where a lot of folks step forward to help in ministries and we are not required to serve in an area we don't feel led to serve in. 
• Infertility/babies, etc.  Not a lot to say. We've enjoyed a lovely break for the past 6+ months - simply focusing on each other and our relationship and relaxing.  It's been wonderful.  Is there more to come?  Yep, but we are just not ready to share on this blog yet. Stay tuned.

So what else has been happening, you wonder.  Great question!

• Um, lots of relaxing!
• Quick trip to KC for our 4th anniversary!  Got to meet some dear online friends for the first time in person!  Wonderful weekend and beautiful weather.
• Planning a mid-February trip to AZ to spend a week with Chris's parents.  And I'm so hoping I get to meet up with a couple of my dear Hannah's Prayer friends, as well as our friend Stacy.  Wish, wish, wish!
• Lovely Christmas celebration - just Chris and I as we were snowed in.  Still hoping to see family later tomorrow or this week.
• Looking forward to 2010 and all it has to offer.

I'll post our Christmas card that my awesome friend Amy made for us - if you need cards or invites of any kind go visit her website at ZaZaZoo Cards & Invites!