Vacation trip

I don't have pictures yet as we have no way to download them onto my laptop from here. But I can still give you an update. We are in Culver, Indiana where the weather is a beautiful 68 degrees. I don't think it has gotten over 85 the entire time that we have been here. We spent yesterday at J's old band camp that he went to for six summers, Culver. It was great to get to meet some of his old buddies and to hear stories of what my husband was like in his teen years. It was also fun to see him march in the reunion band, which will be in a parade later today. Yesterday there was crew racing for both boys and girls (students at the camp). Today there is a full on sailing competition for anyone who wants to enter. We will not be entering but looking forward to watching it. There has been so much to do, but at the same time, it is exhausting. I feel like I am back at camp with early morning calls and late, late night events. I have to say that is really has been fun to see some of the places that my husband grew up and some of the events that he was involved in.

I can not forget to mention that we stopped off at his cousins house in North Dallas area. It was a blast and I hope to be able to visit them more and for them to be able to come visit us. Well there will be more to come with pictures too.

Adoption Update

Well, I thought I would give you an update. We have recently found out that all of our paperwork is in order and all we have to do is wait on the homestudy. When I talked to the trainer at our agency he said that it would be a few weeks until they were able to get to our homestudy due to the fact that they had a lot of people out on vacation. I laughed and said that we wouldn't be ready for a few weeks anyway because we are out of town. Needless to say he was relieved. We hope that come August we will be able to get our homestudy done and be verified like our close friends soon. We are so excited to be this close to our forever family, but since we are not going the straight adoption route, this is actually going to be just the start of a whole new adventure. What an exciting time for J and I to be truly leaning on the Lord for our strength.

Rain!

We finally got rain! If you're not in the Houston area, you may not be aware that Southeast Texas has been experiencing one of the hottest, driest summers on record. The last serious rain we got was in late April. We had a couple small rains in early May and one in June. Other than that, zippo! Doing our best Arizona imitation. Jonathan's back yard has born the brunt of it. A few bushes and most of the grass died. He started off watering, but it kept dying anyway, so he gave up on the grass in back and just watered the front and bushes. Now we are under a drought restriction and are only allowed to water twice a week.

So the good news is that Saturday we had a really good, 30+ minute downpour. We even lost electricity for a couple hours. Normally that would be annoying, but it actually seemed worth it!

The July picture is actually after the rain, so it is a bit greener than it was a few days ago. Let's hope we can back in a normal rain cycle and let our slice of nature flourish. And of course, anybody around here that relies on rain for their living, like farmers, is much worse off than us. Pray for rain!

Girls night out!!

Last night was girls night out and I have to say it was much needed. I know I don't have kids yet so what can I be needing it for, but sometimes you just need to hang out with the girls with no guys around. We went to dinner, came back, chatted, watched the movie "He's just not that into you" and laughed. I have to say that girls are just great, especially when you can just be you!!!

Jam making

Well, I made Jam again this year. My neighbor and her daughters went and picked Blueberries and wanted to make something with them, so they came over on Friday and we made Blueberry Jam. We also made some Strawberry Jam too. It was so much fun and I think the kids really enjoyed it. See for yourself.