Weekend review

I did not sleep well at all Friday night which made for an interesting Saturday. Oh well. I did manage to get a few things done although I think there is still a load of laundry in the dryer.

It rained off and on yesterday which we really needed. Let it rain.

The swelling in A's hand has gone down considerably. It took until Friday afternoon before it started going down. When it was swollen you couldn't really see where the actual sting was. Now that it's down, the sting shows up quite a bit. Weird.

T got the rest of the work done on the camper. Yay! Now we are ready to go camping.

We had some frustrations this last week with trying to refinance our house but things seem to be a go for now.

R and I have worked a lot this week as everyone else was on vacation. It's like that through the middle of this week. Sigh...but we are thankful for jobs.

We're praying for a passport for J tomorrow (Monday). Please pray with us. They originally promised it on the 15th. Huge sigh...

More of the bizarre

Weird day. I'm feeling quite frustrated by the whole adoption process. 45+ months is an awfully long time. I know we're supposed to be thankful for times like these because they produce character, faith and hope. But I don't want any more faith. I don't want more character. I don't want more patience and perseverance. Is that awful? Am I horrible? I don't have an answer right now.

Moving along here. I opened up my knee again today. After nearly two weeks from the fall in the gravel, the scabs were gone and the new pink skin was there. Then I bumped into a cardboard tootsie roll display at the grocery store and broke a small section of new skin open. I was mad more than anything. Sigh...T said chocolate will get you every time. I maintain my stand that tootsie rolls are not chocolate.

A got stung by a wasp today while working for my mom. Her hand is quite swollen. See?

It's even swollen up her wrist a ways. It looks like she has elephantitis of her hand.

Here's a recent sunset. I may have posted this already so if I did, enjoy it again.
Here's a pic of Choji when R first brought him home. He was so little and so cute.

He's quite a bit bigger now. R does this thing where she slowly lays him back in her lap and it's almost like he's hypnotized or something.

He just lays there, doing nothing.

You can even move his little paws around and he just lays there. It's rather bizarre. But then, a lot of things around here are rather bizarre right now.

8:30 edit; More bizarre. We came home and the two dogs were standing in the driveway panting and there was a baby deer with them. Sigh...we've called the vet and are praying that momma deer will come to collect her baby tonight.

Thursday morning edit; Momma deer came and got her baby, thank God.

Still no passport

I got an email from the O worker and he said the passport was not done (are you surprised?) and he thought I should ask for another extension for DHS, again. Huge sigh...please pray. This is incredibly disappointing, again.

It's official...no passport

We still do not have a passport for J. Please pray for us. After nearly 4 years we are incredibly tired of no news and bad news. We just want to bring our son home and he desperately wants to come home.

We "almost" have a passport

T got to talk to J today. I thought that was appropriate since it's the day before Father's day. T asked him if he had a passport yet and J said, "Almost. You can come get me now." So he almost has a passport, whatever that means. We have not heard from the O worker yet so we have no real idea what's going on. It's only been 45 months, right. What's a few more days? Huge sigh...

Remember my friend who broke her arm while pumping gas, got stuck in a dress in a fitting room, killed a bird with her car antenna, etc.? This week they took their truck to the mechanic because they're getting ready to go on a trip and the AC sounded strange, like a huge swarm of mosquitoes. Turns out it was a drinking straw from the glove box that got sucked into the system somehow and it had to be extracted. How funny is that? Then the guy that was bush hogging their farm told them that their horses and donkey "ate" his truck and tore the mirror off the side. Turns out, the animals ganged up on the guy's truck while he was on the tractor and did in fact chew on just about every quarter of the truck, leaving deep scratches and bite marks. And they did in fact, pull the mirror off the truck. M had to call his ins. co. and see if they were covered for truck hungry horses wreaking havoc. I haven't heard the results on that one. I'm not sure if they think it's funny or not but I do. Our first van had a slight dent in the sliding door from one of the horses' hind quarter. I thought that was funny too. Maybe my sense of humor is warped.

Medika Mamba revisited

If you haven't already, please go to the Livesays blog and consider supporting Tara in her marathon for Medika Mamba. Y'all, she's running a marathon. I'm lucky to walk a mile on the treadmill. For more info on Medika Mamba you can look at www.livesayhaiti.blogspot.com and they have some links to info from there. You can also look at www.haitirescuecenter.wordpress.com for some more before/after photos and info about it.

I'm still bummed about the lack of a passport. Some people would say, it's just a few more days. But days become weeks, weeks become months, months become years. We're pushing the four year mark of waiting for this child to come home. Each day is another day of lost time with him. We're at 45 plus months of waiting. Sigh...

No passport

Immigration did not have J's passport done. They said to check at the end of the week. Sigh...while we're not surprised it's still disappointing. Please keep praying.

New pics

Thanks to another adoptive mom we got some new pics of J. Seeing how old he looks absolutely kills me. I want to scream at the "powers that be" why can't he come home?! Why so long?! How is this good?! But at the same time I'm so grateful for new pics. Thanks adoptive mom, J. I really am grateful for the pics. Thanks for loving on my boy and taking some pics of him. Oh please, Lord, let him come home. He's signing "I love you".

I think he's smiling in this one.

Weird day

Today was a weird day. The first thing I did this morning was fall in the gravel on my way over to take care of my parent's dog. I skinned my knee up pretty good. Then a storm BLEW through knocking a tree limb down on the fence and T had to cut it up with the chain saw. There is another large limb down in the other pasture but at least it's not on the fence. It broke some glass on the front porch of the store so I had to clean that up. It also took a small tree down in the back of the store. And it tore up several pieces of the new metal roof at our church, the one that lost it's roof on Good Friday. One of the guys climbed up there and because it was slick he fell off the roof. Please pray for G as his heel is shattered, he has a broken knee and one vertebrae is broken.

When T got home he discovered the pool had blown a hose and quite a bit of water leaked out. Huge sigh...see, it was a weird day. I think we'll take our walk and then come in for the night and watch a movie.

Chicks and tiggers

The ticks are awful this year. We have picked countless numbers of them off the dogs. Even with the stuff between their shoulder blades they are still covered up in them. Yuck. I think each of us humans has had at least one on us too. Yuck. The mosquitoes don't bother me much. R had a bunch of mosquito bites and T is bothered by them too. The thing that loves to bite me is chiggers. I HATE those little buggers. Although, there is something mildly uphoric about scratching a chigger bite. I have two on the back of my right knee plus some others. But two in the same spot? They kind of blend into one big bite. Sigh... The "Chicks and tiggers" title comes from talking about the little buggers one day and someone switched the beginning letters around. We've called them chicks and tiggers ever since. A romantic night around here involves a tick check, or in the spirit of the title-a chick teck. Isn't there a country song about that?

Medika mamba

Please go to the Livesay's blog and look at the pics of Renald and then consider what you can give towards Tara's marathon for Medika Mamba. http://livesayhaiti.blogspot.com Thanks.

T is finally home from his business trip. Yay! A got her driver's license this week. Zoiks!! My dad cut his ankle trying to help move tin for the church roof. Boo! But he got up early this morning and didn't let it stop him. Yay! This post is starting to remind me of the book "That's Good, That's Bad".

Well, we are on our way to a home Bible study. Don't forget to check out the Livesay blog.

Looks can be deceiving

Awww, look at her all cuddled up in the laundry. Isn't she cute?

She's so sweet and snuggly.
Don't be deceived. The little heathen brought a dead mouse in the house yesterday. We usually label this particular cat for not being the brightest crayon in the box. But, she is the only one of the three who can let herself out and back in through the screen door. They all let themselves out if it's just the screen door but Sanomae has figured out how to let herself back in by snagging the door and pulling it open. She went out, found a mouse that someone else had killed and decided to bring it into the house. She dropped it when I came unglued. I had to scoop it up in the dustpan and take it back outside. She then spent the next few minutes looking for it in the house, thus standing by her "not the brightest crayon in the box" label.

Confirmed

Well, I finally got a hold of the O director and our file did in fact make it to passport printing. There are still 50 things that could go wrong so please keep praying. Our son signed his "new" name (he's actually had it for over 2 years now, sigh...) for his passport. Then we still have to get DHS approval and visa medical and a visa. It was nice to know that it did actually go to passport printing. Now if they can NOT run out of passport booklets, keep the stamps from breaking, have plenty of ink, keep the printer from breaking, etc. maybe we can actually get a passport. And yes, those are all things that have kept people from getting passports. Like I said, keep praying.