Our Busy Lives

Pam ~ Yes, we're still here.  We're still waiting for a referral phone call.  We're still living our lives one day at a time.  We're still thankful for God's blessings.

I thought that I would update you readers on what we have been doing these past few weeks :-).

Surgery Update ~ I got to take my brace off on July 12th, just shy of six weeks after my hip surgery.  Two weeks later I started physical therapy.  My PT is having me come 3 times a week until school starts and then we will drop down to 2 times a week.  My poor leg is WEAK!!!!  I am doing strengthening exercises when I go for my appointments and some stretches at home.  Things are going well, and will hopefully continue to improve since I have 10 more weeks of PT!!!!  I am walking normal again (for the most part) but still have lots of moments of stiffness and even pain when I move in certain ways.  Slowly and surely things are getting better.

Walking to the 4th of July Parade w/my nephews.  Isn't my brace fashionable?!?!

Summer Enrichment ~ I went back to working part-time on July 7th.  During past 3 summers, I have worked part-time at my school's Summer Enrichment Program (SEP).  Think of it as a summer day camp.  We have different themes each week and do activities that relate to the week's theme.  This week is "Poppin' Around with Popcorn" and we made a popcorn volcano yesterday :-).  My fellow teacher (and fellow SEP worker) just had her baby last week!!!!  The kids were sooooooo excited to see the tiny picture on my phone of her new little girl!!!!

Garage Sale ~ We did have our fundraising garage sale the weekend of July 22 & 23.  It went VERY well!!!!!  We raised just under $600 to put toward our adoption travel expenses!!!!!  (Which reminds me.  I still haven't gone to the bank to make that deposit.  Whoops!!!)  But when we looked around our garage, we still saw LOTS of good things that hadn't sold.  So we decided to have another sale the next weekend :-).  We both had to work on Friday, so that wasn't an option, but we kept all the tables set up in our garage and put them all back out again on Saturday morning.  To be honest, my mindset wasn't on how much money we would make that day.  I just wanted to get rid of more stuff and not have to box it all up and haul away.  So when we didn't have ANYONE stop by for the first hour and almost two hours, I was wondering if it had been worth it.  When the first people DID finally start arriving, we told them that the marked prices were just a suggestion.  They could "barter" with us on just about anything.  BUT.....................God decided to teach me a lesson.  We sold basically NOTHING!!!!!!  At the end of the morning, I think maybe ten to fifteen things were gone.  But we had over $100 given to our adoption!!!!!  People would say, "I don't see anything I really need, but here is $5.  God bless you!!!"  We got to have several conversations with people about our adoption, or about THEIR adoption journey.  What a blessing!!!!!  Even though we had a lot of things to take out of our garage (which we took to "Hope Ministries" in Des Moines) we received many GREAT blessings from the day!!!!

Friends ~ Our friends, Garth & Carmen, along with their two little boys, Jeremiah & Simon, drove from NE to visit us after our sale on Saturday, July 23rd.  They have been home from Ethiopia with their boys for 3 months now, and it was sooooooooo much fun to get to finally meet the boys!!!!  The boys warmed up to us as the day progressed and we had a GREAT time with all of them!!!!  I can't wait until we have our own little brown-eyed, brown-skinned little ones running around our house!!!!

I LOVE the way Simon's hand is up like he's saying "NO more pictures, PLEASE!!!"

Habitat for Humanity ~ Nathan volunteered at Habitat for Humanity last Friday.  He had a GREAT time!!!!  But I wasn't sure I wanted to let him in the house once I saw him.  He was FILTHY!!!!

 Family ~ We had a GREAT time with my sister and her family over the July 4th weekend.  We learned that my nephews are petrified of fireworks, but LOVE to get lolipops at parades :-).

I love to make Ben laugh!!!!

My sister & her family.  Doug, Debbi, Benjamin & Joseph

We also got to go out to TCBY's for ice cream on August 2nd, to celebrate their 3rd Bday!!!!  I can't get enough of those boys!!!!  I love them to pieces!!!!!

So...................we're still here.  We're still praying for patience.  We're still praying for our children.  We're still living our lives as best we can; even though our hearts are far away in Ethiopia.