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.

adoption update

We have not written much about the adoption process, mainly because we were in a stand still.

In May, we officially contracted with All God's Children International. Now we are in the paperwork phase. We received our planner and a workbook in the mail.
The paperwork phase of the adoption has officially begun.

break in a storm

the yard

This spring has flown and the summer is quickly approaching. We have slowly began making headway in the yard. This spring we rented a mini excavator and dug up shrubs in the yard. Here are a couple of before and after pictures.

We removed shrubs and trees at the front of the property and it opened up our front yard. The section was overgrown and had more vines than anything else. We are simplifying the yard and planting grass.

This is the side of the house and these shrubs left because they were too close to the foundation. I planted a garden because this spot gets more sunlight than any other location in the yard.

The little garden has tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, basil, cilantro, chives, parsley, dill, rosemary, and oregano.

Current picture of the garden. I have enjoyed using herbs from the garden and can't wait for some vegetables.

We dug up these shrubs because they were over grown. They are currently twice the size they should be so we decided it was easier to start over.

We planted 5 hydrangea in front of the house. They will look nice when they get bigger.

snow in Ruston

We got our first snow storm since we moved to Ruston. School was closed. Students on campus were up till 4 am building snowmen and having snowball fights. We just enjoyed the comfort and familiarity with snow.

Looking down our street



This is a tree blooms from the end of November through February.

The snow started melting yesterday and will be all gone by the afternoon.