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.

adoption

This blog is an avenue for us to share about our lives. I realized that we have not really shared anything about our plans to adopt a child from Ethiopia on the blog.

We have begun the process have been accepted by an agency that has Hague Accreditation. Right now we are working on saving and fund raising so we can submit our contract and begin the home studies & paperwork stage. Adoption is a slow process and there are many steps along the way.

This Christmas we received the first present for the baby. My parents gave us the piggy bank in the picture. It really represents where we are in the adoption process...saving, fund raising, and saving some more.

We will keep you updated as we come up with more concrete ways to fund raise.

the house

The past two days have been really nice; 6 weeks and lots of work is coming to a close. For the first time since we have moved into the house, it feels like a home. There is no roof caving in or massive amounts of work we need to do on the project. It is a blessing and we are simply grateful for God's help finishing it all before Christmas.

I decided to post some pre-remodel pictures...it is completely different.The picture of the den from the kitchen. Got to love the 4 by 4 and bucket catching the water...the reason this project began.
The picture of the room pre-remodel from the corner by the fireplace.
Picture of the den from the new hallway by the kitchen.
The view of the den from the fireplace corner.
The working fireplace...thanks Leland!
Before the ornaments went on the tree.
Leland's creative picture.