Fun with Friends

As most people know, we are lucky enough to have family (Steph's parents) with a lake house just a few hours away that we can use during the summer. Twice this summer we have had groups of our friends down to enjoy the water and sunshine. This last group of friends was very adventurous and we spent a lot of time on the tube and teaching people to water ski. While everyone that had never skied before tried many, many times to get up, only the girls were successful! We got lots of pictures of people crashing into the water and only a few of people actually skiing...but we had a blast the whole time. We were out on the water on Saturday from 10:00 am to about 5:00 pm and most of us had the sunburn to prove it!! It is so nice to be able spend such a fun weekend away. We are blessed with really great friends and we also love all of their kids. We hope these weekends at the lake will become an annual tradition and soon their kids (and ours) will be the ones that are trying out the water sports!

Immigration Approval!

We just received our final document in the mail...our pre-approval from the US government to adopt an international child and bring them back to the United States to live. This is the last document needed in our dossier!! We just have to get it notarized, apostilled (a fancy word for an official state seal) and send it on to catch up with our other documents already being translated in Colombia. This approval expires on October 3, 2009...so lets hope and pray we have a child by then so we don't have to go through the hassle of getting a one-time extension:)

Check back soon for some pictures of our fun weekend at the lake with our friends!

Mission to New Jersey

Shawn and I spent July 3-7 on a mission trip to the suburbs of New York City helping out with a church trying to get rooted in the community. We went with a team of 7 from our church and had a great time getting to know the others and helping the church make a difference in the small communities they are trying to impact. We started out by going to 3 different July 4th festivals giving out water bottles and sunscreen (a grand total of 1200 contacts that day!). On Saturday, we were supposed to do a gas giveaway at a local gas station. Totally foreign to us, though, was all the rules and regulations regarding gas in New Jersey, not the least of which is that it is illegal to pump your own gas. After about an hour of trying to find a way to do our event and still follow the rules, we ended up calling it a day and we all headed to NYC to be tourists for the afternoon. Shawn and I kept busy at The Bodies...a really cool exhibition showing dissected human bodies, as well as trips to Rockefeller Center, Times Square, and just people-watching in the city. Our ride back on the New Jersey Transit was very interesting...it involved a slightly "off" older man and a drunk couple. I thought there were going to be punches thrown...but fortunately they all calmed down before it came to that. Sunday we spent the morning prayer-walking around the different communities and then helped set up/participated in church that evening. One cool thing...a woman that received a water bottle and information about the church on July 4th ended up visiting on Sunday night with her 4 kids! It was great to see some of the fruit of our labor. Monday we got up at the crack of dawn and handed out 800 breakfast bars to commuters at the train stations. Then, to make up for the gas giveaway problems...we got $1250 in gas cards ($25 increments) and gave them out in a local grocery store parking lot. It was very neat to see the reactions of people when they believed us that there were really getting $25 in free gas and didn't have to do a thing to get it!! We had a great time and would go back to help the church again if the opportunity presents itself. While it sometimes seems intimidating to sign up for mission trips, it is always a blessing and a way to really grow and mature in your faith.

Dossier on the way to Colombia!!

We just found out that our dossier is on the way to Colombia, courtesy of DHL shipping. It will be given to the translator and she is expected to take about a month to finish the translation. This will give us time to get the rest of our paperwork from United States Immigration Services done and sent to Colombia. Once both of these steps are done, everything will be submitted to the orphanage. It won't be long until we are officially waiting!