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)