Happy New Year

Our New Year's eve party was a blast. I took videos of the tree blowing up and I can't post them from here because our internet is too slow. R took some good pics of it but my stone age computer won't read the card. She is having to put them on a flash drive for me. Sigh...I feel old and my technology is old too.

I wanted to be able to share some great news with you about our adoption but it's snafu. Apparently when the O worker went to get our file yet another mistake was found. We don't know yet if it's a 2 day fix or a 2 month fix. My head knows that God is sovereign and He is in control and has a plan, but my heart is breaking none the less. How can this be? We are going on month 40 of waiting. I can't dwell on it or it makes me depressed.

Maybe I'll do some highlights from '08. Let's see. R graduated high school, with honors, 7th in her class. She also bought her own car (yay!), started college and got straight A's her first semester, along with 3 day measles, mono, and laryngitis. Do you think maybe she's burning the candle at both ends? She still works part time at the same place that I work and sings and plays keyboard at church.

A got her learner's permit and makes her mom's hair turn gray while she drives. Zoiks! She continually cracks us up with her wit, whether she's trying to be witty or not. She "talks" for the tv commercials that T mutes. She loves God and loves her family and friends. She loves to decorate her room and cut her clothes up (occasionally) and sew them back together (or tie them) and make them into something new.

T likes his job. He continues as a deacon and sound board operator at church. He's a wonderful man I love him lots. We struggle through the adoption process nightmare together and his heart breaks along with mine. He rides with A to school every morning and he hasn't lost it yet. Bless him.

I'm still working part time, leading music at church and muddling through the adoption. I love God, my family and friends and am thankful for each one of them.

Okay, got R's pics now so we can share a little of what went on last night. If I get to a place where I can upload a video, I will. But for now you'll have to just look at pics.

We started out with Haitian Soup Joumou. It's a basically a vegetable soup with a pumpkin base. It's a tradition in Haiti to make this on New Year's Day and share it with your company. It looks kind of gross in this pic but it's actually quite tasty.

There was a "how many chex mix can you catch in a row" race. I have great video of this but again, you'll just have to look at pics.

That guy needs to look out or he could get hurt. This is a serious game.

We had monkeys, or boys rather, hanging on the steps.

And this little guy was quite enthralled with the skating rink. He was even singing along to the some of the songs. Too cute.

Then it was time to go out in the cold and blow up the tree. Here's some of the crowd that gathered to witness the tree's blast off.

Aww, they love each other. They really love each other.

We didn't have access to good fireworks so it took a while to get the tree going. Once it did it went pretty fast.

There were firecrackers going off and someone had the bright idea of putting bottle rockets on it so those went off occasionally. I don't have any pics of that (I have great video though) but I love this pic that R took.

Here, it's starting to burn down some.
And this is what's left of Christmas tree 2008. It went out with a blast.