Updates

Okay, so I have been a little delinquent updating my blog. My hope is that things will change now -- hahahahhaaa you laugh, those who know me.

A very quick update is this: Garrett (Dany) and I arrived home on the 13th of April. We had company visit us, Chris's parents and my sorority sisters, the Big Freaks. While Chris's parents were visiting they placed an order for a granddaughter (none yet in the family). Wouldn't you know three days after they left I received a phone call from our adoption agency asking if we wanted to adopt Garrett's biological cousin, a beautiful baby girl! Of course we said yes, so I rapidly got our dossier together and had our homestudy done -- all while Garrett had only been home THREE weeks! Fast forward to the summer, and Garrett and I spent the month of July in Maine visiting my folks and friends. When I returned to North Carolina, Chris and I started to realize how much house a baby takes up. We started to discuss moving, but didn't think it was possible with all our adoption debt. Again, God must have intervened because the PERFECT house was for sale down the street from some friends, and another friend of mine signed on to be our realtor. While I prepared the house to sell, I also had to get ready for Chris's return. He came home from Iraq the beginning of September, and we started to finally spend some time as a family. Garrett started to walk a week after Chris came home (had to be shown up by a little girl his age running around before he started, but we all need motivation from somewhere). Just when we started to wonder if our old house would ever sell, a family from Hawaii signed a contract and we rapidly moved into our new home. Since then my mom has come to visit for a week, as did Chris's parents over Thanksgiving (and thankfully helped out with the move). We hosted our first party this past weekend, with our friends Becky and Scott coming into town.

Now we head to Guatemala to visit our soon-to-be daughter, since she can't be home with us for Christmas. I'm starting to think that visiting Guatemala at Christmas is going to be our family tradition. While we are in country I'm going to post our thoughts and awe daily so that our friends and family can stay in touch with all that is going on. Once we come home, I plan (that's right, I intend it this time) to keep up the blog as we finish the process of bringing home Elena and completing our family. Please check back often, as I'll also be attaching photos of our darling bundles of joy.