HOME for GOOD

What a whirl wind everything has been! I am glad to be home after 3 weeks of traveling, but I wouldn't have wanted to spend those 3 weeks any other way!

This past week Ryan and I took his parents to the beach. We went to Granddaddy's beach house in Duck, NC. This is probably one of my favorite places ever... We ate great, I know I slept in quite a bit, and of course, the beach was awesome! We only had one rainy day and that was a nice lazy day to stay in and play yahtzee :0) Thanks again Granddaddy, we had a great time!!!

While we were in NC, Ryan and his step dad, Paul, drove to FL to pick up a boat that Ryan has researched and looked for for the past 4 years. We sold the other boat this summer, so Ryan had the freedom to finally make the big move. This boat has everything he wanted, so hopefully it will be great! We are hoping to take it out today to learn all the new features. It is a wake boarding boat so I am sure we will be doing some of that today, too. I cant wait!

Then, I have tomorrow and back to work on Monday! I can not believe that summer is now really really over! I'm praying for a good class this year!

Quick adoption update... We are now in a data base of searching parents... I do not know why it took them so long to get us in there, but now we are accessible to other counties in the state and maybe even the country??? Say a prayer that things start falling in place!

Hope everyone is having a great summer!!!

FIVE whole years!!!

Ryan and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary August 9th. I really REALLY cant believe how fast time has flown. I take it that is a good thing! We celebrated our special day at Ryan's cousins' wedding in Pennsylvania. Dustin and Alison got married in Warrington, PA so we decided it would be a great way to remember our special day! We drove through the night Wed after church and got to Ryan's dad and Pat's house in the middle of the night. We spent a few days by the pool with nieces and nephews and then Saturday we went to the wedding. It was so much fun. we got to really hang out with Ryan's family, which happens VERY rarely. it was so nice. The wedding was beautiful and the reception was hoppin! We got Ryan's dad to do the lawnmower... hilarious!!! I hope that the first 5 years for Dustin and Ali go as wonderfully as Ryan and my first 5 years!

Little Rock, AR

I finally made it back to Little Rock, Arkansas to visit Katie! It only took a year to get there, but Mom and I flew out together July 31. We ate lots, yum yum, but mostly stayed inside in different places because that place is BLAZIN hot in mid summer. Great Day was it hot! We walked the dam one day. We also painted pottery! What fun! Mom painted a striped bowl. Katie painted a tea pot and I, of course, had to paint a pig shaped piggy bank. I also painted a fancy plate to put up in my kitchen. It was so much fun! Katie went to pick them up yesterday and she is going to fly them home Labor Day weekend when she comes back for a wedding. I cant wait to get my pottery, but I am also hoping to spend more time with her since I probably wont see her again until Christmas...wow... thats a long time away!

More later!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Today is Mom's birthday! She came today to visit, let me treat her to lunch, and to bring Jackson. Ryan and I get to keep Jack since Mom and Dad are leaving tomorrow morning for Cancun, Mexico. They are going to Michael and Rachael's wedding! What fun! I know they will have a blast with them. I hope everything turns out great!!!

This morning we had ANOTHER stinkin home study. I say stinkin because I am so tired of being interviewed and having my home inspected. Even though they really do not look at much, it is still nerve racking trying to clean and prepare for everything to be ready. I am learning a whole lot more about the laws and process on how things work. That part has been really helpful! Social Services has been so easy to work with. They have such a hard job and I just can not imagine trying to do what they do! They deal with SO much.

We are grateful for the great people we have been working with. Both from Bethany And from Social Services. We have been blessed, that's for sure!

Have a Blessed day!

Video is here!

I think I did it! Yeah! I hope you enjoy it. Again, this is a first attempt at the whole video thing, so hopefully the next one will be alittle more "together."

Adoption Update...

Well, there isnt really much to update you on. We are done with our homestudy with Bethany and we are having our final homestudy with Social Services on Monday at 9am. I just want something to play out. I am starting to get frustrated. We emptied a room to be able to to put a child in, but now we do not know if we get baby furniture, or just regular furniture. It is hard to know what to do. I really do not do well without planning. I guess it is just one of those things! I am definitely learning the true definition of patience. I do not like the word...

Camp

We survived Centrifuge 2008! We took 18 kids to Centrifuge camp in Ridgecrest, NC last week. We had a BLAST! It was so much fun and the kids were great. What an awesome experience for everyone! I am going to attempt to insert a video we made (1st try at this) and show you some of our experience. It was excellent!

Whew...

HOMESTUDY IS COMPLETED!!!

Well, it was supposed to last an hour.... hmmm.... 2 1/2 hours later she left! We are talkers though! Everything went well. Our house complied with everything, thank goodness and we talked forever about expectations and trainings etc.

Now that that stage is over with, we can finalize this homestudy and get ready for the trainings in July. These will teach us about the complete process of a Domestic adoption. Its completely overwhelming but thankfully we have great people to work with to help us along!

Now we have to plan for camp... we leave June 30th!
Have a great weekend!!!

whirlwind of a day...

What a day...

Today started off in Richmond with our last home study interview for Bethany Christian Services. We are finalizing it so we have it... just in case... The home visit will be first thing tomorrow morning at 9:30. We have been cleaning the house for a week trying to prepare! We have baby locks on the cabinets and we now have an empty room for a child whenever we should get the phone call. All we have to do is throw some furniture in the room and we are good to go!

The Call...
In the midst of all this craziness today, we got a call from Social Services for two children that needed a home. I, of course, freaked out. We were sitting in The Cheesecake Factory when they called, so needless to say, I did not enjoy my meal. My stomach was in knots! The call taught us that you really have to be ready to take someone in within a few hours. We could not believe how fast it all happened. It did not end up working out for us to take the children, but we learned a lot about the experience... we learned we have amazing family and friends who are willing to drop anything at anytime to bring up supplies and needs. We are so thankful to be so blessed with those relationships!

Ill keep you posted on any new excitement!
Thanks for your prayers as we seek the completely UNKNOWN!!!

-Ashley

lots of phone calls

I know it has taken a month to get back on here...but school is now out so hopefully I can be better about keeping you updated!

adoption craziness...
well, obviously we are not going to Russia. Although I was a bit let down by the news, at least we still have options. A lot of people have asked what we will do next, and the truth is, we do not really know, but Ill fill you in on where we are now.

Just today I had 2 very good phone calls. The first one was from Bethany Christian Services. This is the agency that we have been working with to go to Russia. This time, though, I talked to the lady who is a domestic case worker. She was great. I talked to her for an entire hour! We have the option of rolling over our paperwork into an infant adoption program. We are going to finish the home study with them so we have it done, we only have one meeting left from before that was not completed, then we will decide if we want to pursue the rest of the program. For now though, the home study is our main focus, with them. If we do not get it done soon, stuff will start to expire, like our medical evaluations, and we do not want to have to complete those things again!

phone call #2 was from Social Services...Its amazing, they called me back! Haha ... for those of you who know, they are hard to get a hold of! Anyways, the lady I talked to was WONDERFUL. She was super sweet and really answered alot of questions. See, ideally, Ryan and I would really like to adopt someone from our area who is already in need of a home. In order for us to do that, we have to, most likely, Foster to Adopt. This really frightened us at the beginning, but the more we find out, the more I think it might be for us. What better way to help out children than to give them a home. And hopefully, someone will need one permanently. For this process, we have to complete a separate home study for "foster-to adopt" parents. I was told by the worker this is "cake." We are hoping to get some paper work done tomorrow so that we can get the ball rolling. Why not?!

So there we are...after several months of waiting, now we have two directions to pursue at one time. I am just appreciative of the nice people who I talked to today. They make things like this so much easier!

Say a prayer for us... something will work out one day! For the time being, we are gearing up for the beach. CANT WAIT...

More later!

Now we know...

Well, for at least the next 10 years, we know that Ryan and I will not be adopting a child internationally! Our social worker called us Thursday and told Ryan that there was absolutely no reason for us to proceed in the Russian adoption. The man in Russia who oversees the adoptions and basically runs the show, said he has seen too many people get shut down by the judicial system once they are in Russia. (Those other people have the same kind of file we have) He advised us to stop the process for our own protection. For that, we are thankful to get the "NO" now instead of after we have met the child and spent weeks in Russia. As a rule of thumb, if one country says NO, all the others will most likely too.

So moving on to plan B. We don't really know what plan B is yet, but we will fill you in when we know! I have actually spoken to Social Services here in our area and we have applications to go through them, so we may just put our names in the system in case someone comes up that needs a home. We will see!

On a completely different note, there are only 8 more days of school left! I can't believe this year has come and gone so SO quickly! Jeremy graduates from VMI on Friday and Mom, Katie and i get to go see Tim McGraw on Saturday in Raleigh! I can not wait for this upcoming weekend!

Have a great Saturday!

Confused...?!

Waiting is no fun. I am NOT a good waiter in any sense of the word!

We heard this past Friday that we will not know if Russia accepts us until May. Apparently the main head hauncho is out of his country until April 30th. Till then we are just holding tight trying to figure out what we are supposed to do!

In the meantime... our house has come so far. We got all the new furniture in...wowee! Its so nice to have alittle space now!

The garage is also now functional. Im so thankful for a husband who works so hard. He has done a wonderful job.

We will keep you posted on any news we get, until then, keep praying for us!

side note: 22 days of school left :0)

learning a little patience

I keep hearing people say, if you pray for patience, you will really learn a lesson... They weren't lying!

We are STILL waiting to hear back to see if we will even be allowed to proceed with the adoption. I am really REALLY hoping that it will be this week. This is the start to week 4 in the hold up! I will hopefully be able to tell you something about what is going on soon.

Meanwhile, our house is going great now that the hospital days are hopefully over. Our carpet will be put in this week, hardwood in the existing family room next week, and then we should be good to go! We also got to order our furniture this past weekend which really got me excited. I can't wait until it all comes together. I think this is better than moving into a new house. I don't have to pack anything up!

I hope everyone is doing well!

disaster...

Tuesday, was a true disaster! We were all excited because the trusses were put up on the garage Tuesday morning. After several hours of hard work, we all sat down to eat lunch. Mom and I painted all morning so we took a break to rest with the guys. After lunch, the guys went out to sheet in all 22 trusses. Mom and I got cleaned up to go furniture shopping at Green Front. As we stepped onto our new stairs by the new garage, a huge gust of wind blew through and blew over the trusses with all 3 guys trapped inside! We literally watched Ryan and the other two fall 20 feet to the ground with thousands of pounds of wood falling on top of them! Mom and I immediately ran to them, called 911 and stood in disbelief of what had just happened right in front of our eyes. Ryan had literally gotten knocked off the back, jumped 20 feet and landed on his feet... Amazing... Burke fell among the trusses to the ground and was completely caught by the wood, and God's mercy. Scott was hurt the most with a back injury and laceration/14 stitches to the eye... but again protected by God. They should have been broken or killed! What a crazy, crazy day!

So now it is time to rebuild.... it will all get done eventually!!!

Still Truckin...

Well, we still wont know for a week or more whether Russia will accept us into their program. We are praying a miracle happens! Meanwhile... at the Frey's residence, alot of construction is going on. Ryan has fully closed in the future big hang out room, and the new garage has three walls! It is all coming together so quickly! As of tomorrow I am on spring break so I plan on painting the walls of the bonus room. I cant wait for it to be finished. It will be so nice to have the extra space. We'll keep you posted!

ROAD BLOCKS STINK...

So everyone tells us that with adoptions, there are ALWAYS frustrating road blocks. I am hoping this is a road block and not a dead end... Apparently some flaws have come back with our paperwork leaving us wondering if we can proceed or not. I guess we will know in 2 weeks when we hear back! They are supposed to tell us if Russia will even accept us. PRAY THEY WILL!!!! We haven't given up hope yet!

On a much more pleasant note, I pulled in my driveway from work today and the footers have been dug out and the foundation has been poured for our massive garage! Yeah! Once we can get that done, we can begin the process of finishing our current garage so it can be a big bonus room. This should give us the space we need/want to have. Focusing on the positive...

Our True Craziness

So we decided to remodel... what are we thinking? We are going to close in the garage and make it a big bonus room/playroom/office. Then we are going to build a big 3 car garage/workshop so Ryan can have HIS playroom! This all has to be done in 3 weeks to get our paper work done so it can be sent to Russia. No Pressure! Nothing like trying to press things to the limit.

Craziness x10... Today was the first upset with this process. We got a call from Kristin, our amazing social worker that there are some issues with some paper work. We dont want any delays! Pray these kinks will work out and QUICKLY! We are ready to get rollin :0)

Can't Believe We have a Blog!

Well, here we are! Im not quite sure how we ended up with this blog, but I thought it would be a great way to keep track of our adoption journey! What an adventure we are traveling on. However hard it gets, we know moy shin (my son in Russian) will be worth the wait!