BACK INTO THE SWING OF THINGS

A little of what we have been up to the last couple weeks....

Rowdy LOVED the boat

Went swimming in the lake EVERYDAY!

Had so much fun with Grandma

Beautiful nights on the water...ahhh.

Grandpa taught him how to drive the boat!!

Daddy gave him a good view of the Art Fair from here! (Rowdy showing his muscles to anyone willing to check him out...hee hee)

   

 My little fish couldn't get enough of the water!

 Sweet boy

A boy and his grandpa

Well the rest and relaxation are over!!! We have jumped right back into our wonderfully busy lives. This last week has been full of catching up at work for both Lance and I. Its always so wonderful to take vacation, but man you pay for it when you return! 

When we were in Idaho visiting my parents, Lance and I had the challenge to complete our autobiography...this was a CHALLENGE for me!  I am never at a loss for words, so I was thinking this would be the easiest part, and for some reason, mental block just took over. Basically we needed to write our life story from when we were born to present day. Detailed questions about how our parents raised us and our home life, view of ourselves, view of our spouse, view of our parenting, dating life, young married life, current married life, strengths, weaknesses, why we wanted to adopt, why we choose the country we did, why in the world we would choose a child with Down syndrome, resources or experiences that made us qualified to take care of a child with special needs, adoption training, intercultural issues, and SOOOO much more. I will admit, I couple times I may have had a flashback to early middle school and my math homework (i was never good at math), getting so frustrated I just start crying uncontrollably and throw down my pen in despair, crumple in a heap, and just say I can't do it (yea, a grown woman doing this... embarrassing).  We received a call from our social worker, Bev, that our meeting on the 12th had to be pushed back to the 18th. So we emailed her our autobiography last Monday, and then mailed her all the paperwork Monday afternoon. Done is good, we have sent it off for her the perform her writing magic and look forward to reading this Thursday what she has come up with. She plans on bringing a draft of our homestudy to us at the meeting to have final review before we send to our agency to be approved.

Lance and I are currently working this week on finishing up our online adoption training, we are required to take 10 hours of training. 1 course down only 4 more to go.

We are having our first Bring Rush Home fundraiser this next weekend, with a huge garage sale that is part of a HUGE garage sale at the neighborhood on the golf course. Its an annual thing, and it is the sale of all sales. Our "parent's in town" next door neighbors are adoptive parents themselves and agreed to let us use their driveway for the big event. We are so humbled by all the time and energy people have put into this already. So many friends and friends or friends have chipped in a donated so many items, and then this weekend, a few of my girlfriends joined me in pricing and sorting. I was so grateful for the help, and with many efficient women working, it flew. Still getting donations this week, so more pricing is to come. Funny, I ,have NEVER even held a garage sale before and here I am attempting to do the MAMMOTH garage sale, I have no idea what I'm doing. =) I still have signs to make and balloons to get along with another list of to dos, but it will all get done and all be great because i am surrounded by so many wonderful people who love our family and love our little girl so much. I am still pinching myself that she is going to be ours in just a matter of time. 

I feel like this is finals week in college, we have SOOOO many things to accomplish this week and feel like its impossible to complete everything. Everyday is one step closer to Rush, and one step in getting her home as quickly as possible.  Lance and I are also getting our house ready for our homestudy visit this week. Making sure we have all the safety requirements established and ready for her to check off the list. Cleaning up the house a bit and do a clean sweep to clean up the yards a little bit. I will say I have throughouly enjoyed purging unneeded items from my house/garage knowing that every little bit was going to help bring my daughter home. Lance had to remind me that we couldn't sell all of our things, we still needed things to live! I was on a roll. =)

This weekend was a long but extremely productive one,  now my eyes can barely stay open. MUST. SLEEP. NOW. 

G'night