roadtrip

This past week, Leland and I took a mini-vacation to Vicksburg, MS and Jackson, MS. It was a great opportunity to let leave our busy schedules and simply relax. It was also interesting to explore some history in the area.

Here are some of the things we visited.

The train station in Vicksburg. It must have been a hopping place during its peak.
The bridges in Vicksburg across the Mississippi.
Mississippi state capital.
The southern states know how to make elaborate state capitals. It is indescribable.
We ended our trip finding the old train station in Jackson, it was a surprise.

the garden

Here are a couple of pictures from the garden. The vegetables are looking wonderful. They are also demanding a lot of water because this week the temperature is in the 100s.
The tomatoes are starting to turn red...now we are just waiting for them to get ripe.

We have a couple of little peppers.

It is wonderful to be able to cook with fresh herbs.

We doubted that the zucchini would actually produce fruit, this is the first glimpse at the possibility of having some. I am excited to see what happens.

joy of paperwork

I knew when the summer came and students left my life would change drastically. When you spend the majority of your time hanging out with people, the mass exodus of summer changes things quite a bit. Things with Chi Alpha are keeping me fairly busy, moving facilities is a lot of work.

The biggest change of the summer for me is focusing on administrative things. I am working on the paperwork for our Dossier. It has been a long time since I have done an administrative project, so this is a stretching for me. I am growing through this process and remembering how to focus on details again.

I am focusing on one thing at a time and I am slowly plugging away at this project. I can see how God is going to change me through this process.

We are also celebrating the small victories. Here are some of them:

• FBI fingerprints are in the mail and being processed.
• We collected the addresses for every place we have lived since we were 18. It included 5 states for Leland and 10 Washington addresses for Jenni. Interesting fact from the process: WSU's recorded did not go back to my freshman year.
  
• For every state we have lived in we have child abuse clearance we need to receive...the paperwork for them is completed.
• We have finished a homestudy.
• Three of our adoption education courses are completed.

Adoption is a unique process that includes a lot of paperwork, government departments (state, US and Ethiopian), and lots of waiting. The process is full swing forward and we are trying to take it one thing at a time.