Just wanted to let you all know that we were in a pretty serious car accident this morning. After enjoying breakfast this morning with some old friends at the IHOP, (Thanks for paying you two, very sneaky! :O) We love you both very much!) we were taking Sarah B to the pediatrician's office (has an ear infection so we'll be on a second round of antibiotics). On Red Mtn. Express Way, in front of St. V Hosp.
Honestly, I have no recollection of what happened. I was driving, Todd said that I said, "I hope they don't hit me!", and blew my horn. I don't remember any of that. I was hit by at least two separate cars, spun around and around across the other two lanes and wound up in the far right lane against the guard rail, traveling in the wrong direction, with cars coming head on, and my foot still on the gas! Todd reached over and threw the car in park about the same time I realized I was on the gas and hit the brakes.
I am telling you when we spun around and were facing the other direction, it was just like the Red Sea parting. No one hit us head on. One of the vehicles that hit me, veered off to the right, hit the curb and flipped. They crawled out the windows to avoid being hit again in their car by the on coming traffic. Amazingly, they were not seriously injured, certainly their car is totalled. The damage to our van is rather extensive and so it may likely be totaled as well.
People stopped all up and down both sides of the Expressway and came to see if everyone was okay, and to tell what they saw happened. Four people gave us their names, numbers and addresses as witnesses. Another woman, came "out of nowhere", said that she did not see the accident, but felt led to stop and tell me "He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways." Ps 91:11 She looked at the girls in the back seat and said, I see (His) peace all over her (talking about Sarah Beth), she then proceeded to tell the girls how God had watched over them and how He had a special plan for their lives. Whew, gives me chill bumps again, just thinking about it.
The Lord has once again, protected us, and our precious little ones. Praise be to God, my King and my Lord.
Lori
Monday, December 24, 2007
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Pictures of Antigua
I am certainly not an expert at photography or computers, but maybe these will be adequate in conveying to you how beautiful this Country really is.
Lori
Lori
 |
 |
| Make a slideshow - it's easy! |
Saturday, December 22, 2007
We're home!
Well, we made it back in this afternoon, right on time. Thank you again - so much - to those of you who took the time and made the effort to come to the airport to see us home. Your love and friendship mean the absolute world to us! Coming home wouldn't have been nearly as fun without you there to enjoy it with us!
I'm only going to blog a sec as everyone else is fast asleep, and I should be too.
I am hoping and praying that one of you amazingly blog literate people will help me figure out how to make my pictures into a slideshow to post them. I have many pictures of Antigua I would like to share with you all. It is a beautiful city. In the meantime, I posted a few of the pics of us, and thought I would do a little narrating. I wish I'd gotten a good picture of all of us together at the airport with those of you who came. Anna took a shot with her camera, but who knows how that will turn out, and it doesn't include her unfortunately.
Anyway, here goes:
Picture 1) is the "momma" who was her primary caregiver at EN. She rode is with them to bring her to me and to meet us. She asked that we please send pictures of her back to them, she loved her so. It was translated to me that she was expressing how much she loved her and caring for her and that the pictures help to "keep them going", it's a reminder of why they do what they do.
Picture 2) is obvious! We love our new little addition, and we think she's just the greatest!
Picture 3) is of my sweet girls in front of the enormous Christmas tree in the Marriott lobby. This hotel is quite large, and that was some tree! One of the best parts about Guatemala is that you always heard "Merry Christmas" or "Feliz Navidad", none of this "Happy Holidays" crap - (pardon my language - Anna puts me in a one minute talking time out when I use that word)!
Picture 4) is of myself, and Sarah B with a lady named Ruth who hounded us like crazy to buy her authentic Mayan wears. She told us all about how they hand make the items, described how many hours they put into it, and Jose' our guide backed up everything she said. We purchased this wrap for carrying babies. She literally had the thing tide up and on me in less than a minute. She showed me twice how to do it to carry her on my hip, or my back. I don't know if I'll ever be able to figure it out again, but I had to have one. :O) I also purchased a beautiful brightly colored piece that can be used as a wall hanging in the baby's room. I'll try to get a pic and post that later. I laughed because when I asked her if I could get a picture with her, she then added the scarf to her head.
Picture 5) lastly is a picture of us with our guide Jose' without whom we would have been in BIG trouble. He helped clear up the fiasco mentioned in the last post, took us to our Embassy appointment and to get picture for her Visa. Then had someone else go back to the Embassy to pick-up our documents while he took us on a tour of Antigua. Can't beat that!
If someone can tell me how to do a slide show, I'll add those pictures too.
Oh, and one more thing... I have passed by the baby's room a hundred times since we got it ready for her. And tonight, I rocked her in her own rocking chair, sang to her the lullibies my other girls were rocked by and placed her in the same bed they slept in as babies. I walked by the room moments before I sat down here and just sighed with relief and amazing contentment. Those of you who are waiting, just keep holding on, they will come home soon.
Blessings,
Lori
I'm only going to blog a sec as everyone else is fast asleep, and I should be too.
I am hoping and praying that one of you amazingly blog literate people will help me figure out how to make my pictures into a slideshow to post them. I have many pictures of Antigua I would like to share with you all. It is a beautiful city. In the meantime, I posted a few of the pics of us, and thought I would do a little narrating. I wish I'd gotten a good picture of all of us together at the airport with those of you who came. Anna took a shot with her camera, but who knows how that will turn out, and it doesn't include her unfortunately.
Anyway, here goes:
Picture 1) is the "momma" who was her primary caregiver at EN. She rode is with them to bring her to me and to meet us. She asked that we please send pictures of her back to them, she loved her so. It was translated to me that she was expressing how much she loved her and caring for her and that the pictures help to "keep them going", it's a reminder of why they do what they do.
Picture 2) is obvious! We love our new little addition, and we think she's just the greatest!
Picture 3) is of my sweet girls in front of the enormous Christmas tree in the Marriott lobby. This hotel is quite large, and that was some tree! One of the best parts about Guatemala is that you always heard "Merry Christmas" or "Feliz Navidad", none of this "Happy Holidays" crap - (pardon my language - Anna puts me in a one minute talking time out when I use that word)!
Picture 4) is of myself, and Sarah B with a lady named Ruth who hounded us like crazy to buy her authentic Mayan wears. She told us all about how they hand make the items, described how many hours they put into it, and Jose' our guide backed up everything she said. We purchased this wrap for carrying babies. She literally had the thing tide up and on me in less than a minute. She showed me twice how to do it to carry her on my hip, or my back. I don't know if I'll ever be able to figure it out again, but I had to have one. :O) I also purchased a beautiful brightly colored piece that can be used as a wall hanging in the baby's room. I'll try to get a pic and post that later. I laughed because when I asked her if I could get a picture with her, she then added the scarf to her head.
Picture 5) lastly is a picture of us with our guide Jose' without whom we would have been in BIG trouble. He helped clear up the fiasco mentioned in the last post, took us to our Embassy appointment and to get picture for her Visa. Then had someone else go back to the Embassy to pick-up our documents while he took us on a tour of Antigua. Can't beat that!
If someone can tell me how to do a slide show, I'll add those pictures too.
Oh, and one more thing... I have passed by the baby's room a hundred times since we got it ready for her. And tonight, I rocked her in her own rocking chair, sang to her the lullibies my other girls were rocked by and placed her in the same bed they slept in as babies. I walked by the room moments before I sat down here and just sighed with relief and amazing contentment. Those of you who are waiting, just keep holding on, they will come home soon.
Blessings,
Lori
Thursday, December 20, 2007
We´re Here and the Lord´s Given us an Angel!
Hello everyone!
I´ve had trouble posting to my blog. The keyboard is all different with lots of accent marks and punctuation for Spanish that are in all the wrong places.... But, finally, here I am...
Things started out VERY rough. Our flight was delayed in Houston and we were over 2 hours later arriving yesterday than we´d anticipated. I was very concerned that we would get to the hotel to find that they had been and left with the baby after waiting for us for so long. When we arrived, I was watching the lobby frantically looking for our little one, but hoping she wasn´t here yet so that we would have time to put away our luggage and prepare for her arrival.
Around five oclock, the phone rang, and we prepared ourselves for the trip to the Lobby. On the other end of the line was Jose´, who would be taking us to the embassy today. He was scheduled to meet with us lastnight to complete our final documents and make sure that we had everything in order.
We went to the lobby to meet with him and told him that the baby had not yet arrived. After making a phone call for us to the director of the orphanage, he learned that there had been a miscommunication¨and the baby would not be coming tonight¨. WHAT!!!???!!!! I was devestated. You´ve got to be kidding me. We are scheduled to be at the US Embassy in the morning (today) at 7:15 a.m. The orphanage is a good 3 hours away. When, how, will they get her here on time?? I was just about to have a complete melt down.
I had played over and over in my mind what our first meeting would be like, Nana was going to video tape our first meeting, I was sure I would ball my eyes out, etc... etc... etc... And now, I have no idea what this is going to look like. I am reassured that things will work out fine, but I´m thinking, ¨Things don´t seem to be working out too fine if you ask me!¨ Another couple, who checked in at the same time we did had their little one waiting here with it´s foster family in the lobby when they arrived. Overwhelming for them, and for me. Where´s my little one?
Fast forward to this morning......
Our meeting came just outside a photo shop beside the US Embassy where we were to take her to have 2 photos made for her passport. Here we stand on the side of an alley type street in Guatemala City when a large van pulls up. I see her, in the arms of the nanny (known as the ¨mommas¨) who has cared for her all these days. She works to make her laugh and smile for us. She is beautiful, amazing, indescribable. I would never have dreamed this type of meeting up ever, but it was beautiful, awkward, surreal. The ¨Momma¨tells her bye, asks us to send pictures back to them at EN often, lets us know how much she´s loved her and caring for her. They have lovingly packed a bag for clothing, food, diapers, wipes, toys, things to make her feel safe.
Immediately, she took to me, she has loved on me, and laughed for me, giggled and stopped crying immediately when she is my arms. She watches Todd cautiously, gives him an occasional smile, but does NOT want him holding her PERIOD! She laughs at Anna, who is in HEAVEN, entertaining this wee one. She finally has someone to watch all of her crazy antics and who thinks they are hysterical, when the rest of us think she´s being ridiculous.
Ah, I know it isn´t theologically sound, but Guatemala sure feels an awful lot like heaven right now!
Our embassy appointment went off without a hitch. Everything went very smoothly, took several hours and is all over. We will have her Visa tomorrow. Jose´will be taking us on a tour of Antigua tomorrow and we are thrilled about this. He is an absolute life saver! Can´t say enough about how great his help has been.
Currently, she is sleeping, in the room with her Daddy and Nana. Anna and I slipped off to the Executive Lounge where we have free internet access to email you all and let you know how things are going. She had her bottle, and lunch, and went to sleep in her stroller before we got back to our room after lunch. I even woke her a little to give her some tylenol because she felt a little warm (She has a horrible cough - I started her on the antibiotic that the pediatrician sent down with us. Please pray that this clears up soon.). She went right back to sleep when I layed her in her bed. She´s been down well over an hour. I´ll be interested to see if she is as pleasant when she wakes back up and realizes she still has us around. :O) I have noticed already that if my mother or Todd has her, she looks for me, that is a great sign. She also spent a lot of time studying my face when she took her bottle which is great for bonding. I am so thankful.
Hope she sleeps well tonight so that we all have a great trip into Antigua tomorrow.
For those of you planning to come to the airport on Saturday, be sure to check on the Continental website to make sure that our flight is on time. Hopefully things are not likely to get delayed on a Saturday. We are taking a smaller ¨lear¨ jet (not sure thats how it´s spelled) back from Houston to Birmingham, so I doubt it will have any sort of delays. Again, we are scheduled to arrive at 3:09 p.m. Hope to see some of you there.
God bless, keep praying! Gotta go check on Sleeping Beauty!
Lori
I´ve had trouble posting to my blog. The keyboard is all different with lots of accent marks and punctuation for Spanish that are in all the wrong places.... But, finally, here I am...
Things started out VERY rough. Our flight was delayed in Houston and we were over 2 hours later arriving yesterday than we´d anticipated. I was very concerned that we would get to the hotel to find that they had been and left with the baby after waiting for us for so long. When we arrived, I was watching the lobby frantically looking for our little one, but hoping she wasn´t here yet so that we would have time to put away our luggage and prepare for her arrival.
Around five oclock, the phone rang, and we prepared ourselves for the trip to the Lobby. On the other end of the line was Jose´, who would be taking us to the embassy today. He was scheduled to meet with us lastnight to complete our final documents and make sure that we had everything in order.
We went to the lobby to meet with him and told him that the baby had not yet arrived. After making a phone call for us to the director of the orphanage, he learned that there had been a miscommunication¨and the baby would not be coming tonight¨. WHAT!!!???!!!! I was devestated. You´ve got to be kidding me. We are scheduled to be at the US Embassy in the morning (today) at 7:15 a.m. The orphanage is a good 3 hours away. When, how, will they get her here on time?? I was just about to have a complete melt down.
I had played over and over in my mind what our first meeting would be like, Nana was going to video tape our first meeting, I was sure I would ball my eyes out, etc... etc... etc... And now, I have no idea what this is going to look like. I am reassured that things will work out fine, but I´m thinking, ¨Things don´t seem to be working out too fine if you ask me!¨ Another couple, who checked in at the same time we did had their little one waiting here with it´s foster family in the lobby when they arrived. Overwhelming for them, and for me. Where´s my little one?
Fast forward to this morning......
Our meeting came just outside a photo shop beside the US Embassy where we were to take her to have 2 photos made for her passport. Here we stand on the side of an alley type street in Guatemala City when a large van pulls up. I see her, in the arms of the nanny (known as the ¨mommas¨) who has cared for her all these days. She works to make her laugh and smile for us. She is beautiful, amazing, indescribable. I would never have dreamed this type of meeting up ever, but it was beautiful, awkward, surreal. The ¨Momma¨tells her bye, asks us to send pictures back to them at EN often, lets us know how much she´s loved her and caring for her. They have lovingly packed a bag for clothing, food, diapers, wipes, toys, things to make her feel safe.
Immediately, she took to me, she has loved on me, and laughed for me, giggled and stopped crying immediately when she is my arms. She watches Todd cautiously, gives him an occasional smile, but does NOT want him holding her PERIOD! She laughs at Anna, who is in HEAVEN, entertaining this wee one. She finally has someone to watch all of her crazy antics and who thinks they are hysterical, when the rest of us think she´s being ridiculous.
Ah, I know it isn´t theologically sound, but Guatemala sure feels an awful lot like heaven right now!
Our embassy appointment went off without a hitch. Everything went very smoothly, took several hours and is all over. We will have her Visa tomorrow. Jose´will be taking us on a tour of Antigua tomorrow and we are thrilled about this. He is an absolute life saver! Can´t say enough about how great his help has been.
Currently, she is sleeping, in the room with her Daddy and Nana. Anna and I slipped off to the Executive Lounge where we have free internet access to email you all and let you know how things are going. She had her bottle, and lunch, and went to sleep in her stroller before we got back to our room after lunch. I even woke her a little to give her some tylenol because she felt a little warm (She has a horrible cough - I started her on the antibiotic that the pediatrician sent down with us. Please pray that this clears up soon.). She went right back to sleep when I layed her in her bed. She´s been down well over an hour. I´ll be interested to see if she is as pleasant when she wakes back up and realizes she still has us around. :O) I have noticed already that if my mother or Todd has her, she looks for me, that is a great sign. She also spent a lot of time studying my face when she took her bottle which is great for bonding. I am so thankful.
Hope she sleeps well tonight so that we all have a great trip into Antigua tomorrow.
For those of you planning to come to the airport on Saturday, be sure to check on the Continental website to make sure that our flight is on time. Hopefully things are not likely to get delayed on a Saturday. We are taking a smaller ¨lear¨ jet (not sure thats how it´s spelled) back from Houston to Birmingham, so I doubt it will have any sort of delays. Again, we are scheduled to arrive at 3:09 p.m. Hope to see some of you there.
God bless, keep praying! Gotta go check on Sleeping Beauty!
Lori
Monday, December 17, 2007
Big Sister Shirt and Bag
My precious Anna has decided we should wait about posting pics of her with her things, because she is in dire need of a haircut. She's been growing her hair out and is planning to have it cut for "Locks Of Love" (They use donated hair for wigs for children with Cancer, etc...). She can hardly see past her bangs right now. So, you get to see the shirt and bag, but not the model. :O)
We're planning to have it cut tomorrow. So, I'll post some pics of her sporting her new shorter hairdo and her things when we get all of that done.
Hope you all are doing well, less than 48 hours 'til we have our wee one!
Lori
We're planning to have it cut tomorrow. So, I'll post some pics of her sporting her new shorter hairdo and her things when we get all of that done.
Hope you all are doing well, less than 48 hours 'til we have our wee one!
Lori
Sunday, December 16, 2007
It Won't Be Long Now!
Well, it won't be long now. In less than 72 hours I will holding my little girl in my arms! I am so excited, nervous, overjoyed, overwhelmed and every possible emotion in between!
This weekend has proved to be challenging for our 10 year old who is becoming increasingly more anxious about giving up her status as an only child. The other night, she asked me "What if I want to be an only child again?" I said, "We'll I'm afraid that will just be too bad!" She is very excited, but there is definately some apprehension that has surfaced in the last few days. We've been doing lots of talking, and getting ready for the baby. I've let her help with as much as possible because we definately want her to be a part of all of these new changes. Most of all, it seems she's afraid that the baby will touch her stuffed animals or slobber on them. :O) I guess if that's what the worry all boils down to, we can handle that. (LOL)
If any of you who are adopting also have older siblings, here are some things we've done to try to include our oldest:
1) She will be traveling with us to get the baby. We homeschool, so that will be easy to do, she won't miss any school work, and this will be an exciting field trip. We've been studying volcanoes, and the geography of Guatemala, Spanish, etc... preparing for our trip.
2) I made her a hot pink tote bag (using our computer, printer and iron on sheets) that says in big brown letters, "I'm the BIG sister!" to carry on our trip. Since I gave it to her several weeks ago (at the Baby Shower), she's been carrying it everywhere!
3) I made her a pink shirt that has an airplane on it in green, and has "I'm on the way to get my baby sister!" printed on it, for her to wear the day we travel to Guatemala.
4) I also purchased a shirt that has "Big Sister" on it with a picture from a website. She's got several items like this to take to wear while we're on our trip. She loves anything with words on it!
5) I have been looking at photo style adoption announcements online and have narrowed my search down to http://www.purplestork.com/. I'm going to include in the wording, "Anna McGuire is proud to announce the arrival of her new baby sister, Sarah Beth." The style I've picked out has a total of 6 photos (1 large and 5 small), so I'm going to use the large one for a picture of the girls together, and for the smaller ones - 1 of the whole family, 1- of the girls together, 3 individual pictures of Sarah Beth chosen from our favorites from referral 'til now.
Also, Anna and I are going to make a "LifeBook" for Sarah Beth to tell her about Guatemala and where she lived for the past year until she came home to us. I hope that this will prove to help Sarah Beth see where she came from and not have a lot of wondering and what if's when she gets older. I want to peice together for her as much as we know.
I'll try to get Anna in her shirt and post a picture to the blog later. So you can see it.
Keep praying for us. My packing is all done for the baby, now I've just got to finish up laundry and get things packed for the rest of us.
P.S. Please remember that we welcome any friends and family who wish to "see us home" to join us at the B'ham airport next Saturday, 12/22/07. Our plane is scheduled to land at 3:09 p.m. We would be so happy to see you there. A precious friend of ours (who does professional videography and website design for a living) asked us yesterday if it would be okay if they came and videotaped our arrival. I was stuned! "Well, yeah!" How amazing is that! Todd asked if they could just tag along with us to GC to capture everything there. :O)
Keep us in your prayers, as we are till trying to wrap things up with the company. We close our offices between Christmas Eve and reopen on January 2 each year, and we are really busy right now, so trying to figure out how all of that is going to work out. The great part is that this gives Todd another week once we're home to bond with the baby. We will definately have a lot to do when we get "back at it" on the 2nd of January.
God's richest blessings to you,
Lori
This weekend has proved to be challenging for our 10 year old who is becoming increasingly more anxious about giving up her status as an only child. The other night, she asked me "What if I want to be an only child again?" I said, "We'll I'm afraid that will just be too bad!" She is very excited, but there is definately some apprehension that has surfaced in the last few days. We've been doing lots of talking, and getting ready for the baby. I've let her help with as much as possible because we definately want her to be a part of all of these new changes. Most of all, it seems she's afraid that the baby will touch her stuffed animals or slobber on them. :O) I guess if that's what the worry all boils down to, we can handle that. (LOL)
If any of you who are adopting also have older siblings, here are some things we've done to try to include our oldest:
1) She will be traveling with us to get the baby. We homeschool, so that will be easy to do, she won't miss any school work, and this will be an exciting field trip. We've been studying volcanoes, and the geography of Guatemala, Spanish, etc... preparing for our trip.
2) I made her a hot pink tote bag (using our computer, printer and iron on sheets) that says in big brown letters, "I'm the BIG sister!" to carry on our trip. Since I gave it to her several weeks ago (at the Baby Shower), she's been carrying it everywhere!
3) I made her a pink shirt that has an airplane on it in green, and has "I'm on the way to get my baby sister!" printed on it, for her to wear the day we travel to Guatemala.
4) I also purchased a shirt that has "Big Sister" on it with a picture from a website. She's got several items like this to take to wear while we're on our trip. She loves anything with words on it!
5) I have been looking at photo style adoption announcements online and have narrowed my search down to http://www.purplestork.com/. I'm going to include in the wording, "Anna McGuire is proud to announce the arrival of her new baby sister, Sarah Beth." The style I've picked out has a total of 6 photos (1 large and 5 small), so I'm going to use the large one for a picture of the girls together, and for the smaller ones - 1 of the whole family, 1- of the girls together, 3 individual pictures of Sarah Beth chosen from our favorites from referral 'til now.
Also, Anna and I are going to make a "LifeBook" for Sarah Beth to tell her about Guatemala and where she lived for the past year until she came home to us. I hope that this will prove to help Sarah Beth see where she came from and not have a lot of wondering and what if's when she gets older. I want to peice together for her as much as we know.
I'll try to get Anna in her shirt and post a picture to the blog later. So you can see it.
Keep praying for us. My packing is all done for the baby, now I've just got to finish up laundry and get things packed for the rest of us.
P.S. Please remember that we welcome any friends and family who wish to "see us home" to join us at the B'ham airport next Saturday, 12/22/07. Our plane is scheduled to land at 3:09 p.m. We would be so happy to see you there. A precious friend of ours (who does professional videography and website design for a living) asked us yesterday if it would be okay if they came and videotaped our arrival. I was stuned! "Well, yeah!" How amazing is that! Todd asked if they could just tag along with us to GC to capture everything there. :O)
Keep us in your prayers, as we are till trying to wrap things up with the company. We close our offices between Christmas Eve and reopen on January 2 each year, and we are really busy right now, so trying to figure out how all of that is going to work out. The great part is that this gives Todd another week once we're home to bond with the baby. We will definately have a lot to do when we get "back at it" on the 2nd of January.
God's richest blessings to you,
Lori
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
AAAAHHHH !! WE'RE PINK !!!!!
Merry Christmas BABY!!!
Our pink slip has arrived this afternoon via email. We will arrive in Guatemala on Wednesday, Dec. 19th, our appointment with the US Embassy is on Thursday, the 20th (She'll be 13 months old exactly!), we will obtain her visa on Friday, the 21st, and fly back to Birmingham on Saturday the 22nd - just in time for Christmas!!!
We are so excited, shocked, and I am physically ill. Please pray for me. My nerves and my stomach are in knots!!!
I have so much to do, packing, and praying, and preparing, and praying, and celebrating and praying some more!!! Praise be to our God who can get babies home for Christmas!!!
We would like to invite our friends and family who desire to "see us home" to join us at the Birmingham airport when we land on Saturday. We are scheduled to arrive in Birmingham via Continental Airlines at 3:09 p.m.
God's richest blessings to you and your's,
Lori - a very happy, but nervous Momma - I sure hope she likes us! :O)
Our pink slip has arrived this afternoon via email. We will arrive in Guatemala on Wednesday, Dec. 19th, our appointment with the US Embassy is on Thursday, the 20th (She'll be 13 months old exactly!), we will obtain her visa on Friday, the 21st, and fly back to Birmingham on Saturday the 22nd - just in time for Christmas!!!
We are so excited, shocked, and I am physically ill. Please pray for me. My nerves and my stomach are in knots!!!
I have so much to do, packing, and praying, and preparing, and praying, and celebrating and praying some more!!! Praise be to our God who can get babies home for Christmas!!!
We would like to invite our friends and family who desire to "see us home" to join us at the Birmingham airport when we land on Saturday. We are scheduled to arrive in Birmingham via Continental Airlines at 3:09 p.m.
God's richest blessings to you and your's,
Lori - a very happy, but nervous Momma - I sure hope she likes us! :O)
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Still nothing
I know there are many of you who watch our blog faithfully - you bunch of stalkers (Just kidding! :O) I'm so glad you do!) I just wanted to let you know what was going on. NOTHING!! Zip, zilch, nada!
We still don't have any news. The only thing "pink" around here are the words on this blog and lots of clothes waiting for Sarah Beth to wear!
Keep praying for me, my nerves are shot!
Lori
We still don't have any news. The only thing "pink" around here are the words on this blog and lots of clothes waiting for Sarah Beth to wear!
Keep praying for me, my nerves are shot!
Lori
Saturday, December 8, 2007
What a Roller Coaster Ride!
Well, Friday was a complete roller coaster ride, from the very depths of a valley, back to the top of the "mountain". As most of you know, we anticipated we would have our pink slip by the end of the week. Unfortunately that didn't happen.
On Friday, I spoke with our Social Worker who then called the DNA lab here in the States to find out about when the DNA results would be sent back to the Embassy. She was told that the 2nd DNA test was received on 11/30, but had not yet been processed due to "delays" because of the Thanksgiving holidays. She was told it would be next week before it was processed, that they would then overnight it to the US Embassy in Guatemala and they would then send her the information by email that it had been done. We were hopeful that would all occur before the end of next week but understood that this meant the likelihood of our traveling before Christmas was now looking quite dismal. I was distraught.
Then, I get home yesterday afternoon, to an email that said, "You won't believe this!" She had received the information back from them later Friday afternoon that the test had been processed and was being overnighted to the Embassy and should arrive there on Monday of next week. All of that said, we should have our pink slip by the middle of next week, but we will really be pushing it to get the appointments done and get back home for Christmas. We still don't know that we will even be scheduled an appointment prior to the holidays.
Please continue to pray that this all works out smoothly and that we are able to travel and get home before Christmas.
Needless to say, my emotional state is a bit "fragile", I feel like my emotions are all over the map. Up and down, back and forth. For "Pete's Sake" let's get this done and get home, I'm a basket case! For those of you who know me well, I plan EVERYTHING, so this is seriously about to drive me insane! :O)
Keep a watch out for the first updated news next week. We'll let you all know as soon as we know anything. Anna (our almost 11 year old) told me lastnight, "See I told you it could still happen." I thanked her for having big faith when mine was so small. I feel like the poor father in Mark 9:23-24. "And Jesus said to him, ... 'all things are possible to him who believes.' Immediately the boy's father cried out and began saying, 'I do believe; help me in my unbelief.'" Yes Lord, help ME in my unbelief too!
God's blessings to you, we love you all very much!
Lori
On Friday, I spoke with our Social Worker who then called the DNA lab here in the States to find out about when the DNA results would be sent back to the Embassy. She was told that the 2nd DNA test was received on 11/30, but had not yet been processed due to "delays" because of the Thanksgiving holidays. She was told it would be next week before it was processed, that they would then overnight it to the US Embassy in Guatemala and they would then send her the information by email that it had been done. We were hopeful that would all occur before the end of next week but understood that this meant the likelihood of our traveling before Christmas was now looking quite dismal. I was distraught.
Then, I get home yesterday afternoon, to an email that said, "You won't believe this!" She had received the information back from them later Friday afternoon that the test had been processed and was being overnighted to the Embassy and should arrive there on Monday of next week. All of that said, we should have our pink slip by the middle of next week, but we will really be pushing it to get the appointments done and get back home for Christmas. We still don't know that we will even be scheduled an appointment prior to the holidays.
Please continue to pray that this all works out smoothly and that we are able to travel and get home before Christmas.
Needless to say, my emotional state is a bit "fragile", I feel like my emotions are all over the map. Up and down, back and forth. For "Pete's Sake" let's get this done and get home, I'm a basket case! For those of you who know me well, I plan EVERYTHING, so this is seriously about to drive me insane! :O)
Keep a watch out for the first updated news next week. We'll let you all know as soon as we know anything. Anna (our almost 11 year old) told me lastnight, "See I told you it could still happen." I thanked her for having big faith when mine was so small. I feel like the poor father in Mark 9:23-24. "And Jesus said to him, ... 'all things are possible to him who believes.' Immediately the boy's father cried out and began saying, 'I do believe; help me in my unbelief.'" Yes Lord, help ME in my unbelief too!
God's blessings to you, we love you all very much!
Lori
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Still no news!
Well, we still don't have any news about our pink slip.
Pray for me, I'm beginning to get really anxious!!
Lori
Pray for me, I'm beginning to get really anxious!!
Lori
Monday, December 3, 2007
Baby Stuff! It's everywhere!
Hello all,
Yesterday we had a baby shower for Sarah Beth. It was fun and exciting to see our friends and family who wanted to "shower" us with goodies for our new little one. We've got lots of baby stuff around here now!
I haven't heard a peep from the Embassy today, and I am guessing I've checked my email about a bagillion times - that's my own personal made up number :O) Obviously, it means ALOT!
Hopefully I will hear something before the end of the week.
I've been checking airline prices to see what we might expect for our trip. OUCH! Lots of money! Looks like the quickest flight travels through Houston, TX, and gets us into Guatemala around lunchtime. They are central time zone as well, so that will be nice. That means whatever day we fly in, we should have a baby in our arms by mid-afternoon!
I posted recently to the Lifeline board about pictures of Eagle's Nest, but I know some of you who visit here are also adopting from EN, but not using the same agency, so you may not have seen it. We are not going to visit the children's home when we travel, and I am trying to find some people who've been who would be willing to share some photos with me. If any of you have photos you'd like to share, please let me know.
Hope you all are enjoying the Christmas season with your families. We are enjoying a nice fire this evening, and will be doing our Jesse Tree devotion soon. Learn more about Jesse Trees at http://www.jesse-trees.com/
Blessings to you and your families,
Lori
Yesterday we had a baby shower for Sarah Beth. It was fun and exciting to see our friends and family who wanted to "shower" us with goodies for our new little one. We've got lots of baby stuff around here now!
I haven't heard a peep from the Embassy today, and I am guessing I've checked my email about a bagillion times - that's my own personal made up number :O) Obviously, it means ALOT!
Hopefully I will hear something before the end of the week.
I've been checking airline prices to see what we might expect for our trip. OUCH! Lots of money! Looks like the quickest flight travels through Houston, TX, and gets us into Guatemala around lunchtime. They are central time zone as well, so that will be nice. That means whatever day we fly in, we should have a baby in our arms by mid-afternoon!
I posted recently to the Lifeline board about pictures of Eagle's Nest, but I know some of you who visit here are also adopting from EN, but not using the same agency, so you may not have seen it. We are not going to visit the children's home when we travel, and I am trying to find some people who've been who would be willing to share some photos with me. If any of you have photos you'd like to share, please let me know.
Hope you all are enjoying the Christmas season with your families. We are enjoying a nice fire this evening, and will be doing our Jesse Tree devotion soon. Learn more about Jesse Trees at http://www.jesse-trees.com/
Blessings to you and your families,
Lori
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
