Isabella November 2008

Merry Christmas! It's hard to believe another year is over and the holidays are among us. This Christmas will be the first Christmas since John and I met, that we have not traveled to Kentucky for the holidays. Actually, this will be my first Christmas ever not being at "home". I'm so sad to not be able to be with my family (six brothers, all their kids and of course my Mommy) but because I'm not having to plan for the 9 hour drive, Christmas is taking on a whole new kind of magic this year. John and I decided that this is the year will Isabella will really start to remember the traditions we make and we want to make sure that she has wonderful Christmas memories of her childhood, just like our parents did for us. We can't wait to wake up at home on Christmas morning and watch our daughter take in all the magic of the day.

We hope that 2009 will bring another new addition to our family. I've been surprised to see how many people have requested we start a blog for our second adoption so even though I don't have the time to blog as well as this one, I am going to start one for our second child. I will email the link to everyone in my contacts list.

Isabella is doing wonderfully and she is such a joy to be around. She has quiet the sense of humor on her and it's amazing to watch her imagination take off. She has mastered potty training now and we are so glad to be done with diaper duty, at least until #2 comes along. Bella loves to dance, climb, and play any game you can dream up. She's a very tuff and physical girl and I'm thinking she will probably be very good at sports. She still loves animals in any shape or form and she has been begging us for many months now for a pet chameleon of all things. I think she changed to that when I explained to her why we can't have a pet alligator, but she is very persistent about the chameleon. We are not getting one! But it is funny how fixed on it she is. LOL She is super excited about getting a sibling so hopefully that will distract from the whole tropical lizard issue. :-)

Well, that's my little update for now. It's sad how infrequent my post are but you know how motherhood goes. No free time :-) I love you all!

All the "NEW"s- We have survived! What a whirlwind of a year this has been for us. In June 07 we sold our house in Charleston..moved into a hotel for a month...then moved from the hotel to my temp apartment in Kentucky near my family. John left for a five month deployment to the middle east and I'm proud to say that Isabella and I survived the seperation, though it was much harder than I had anticipated. We did get five wonderful months with my family in Kentucky though which kept me from feeling so lonley like I have in past deployments. We welcomed John home on Dec 19th and then spent our Christmas moving into a condo we've rented in Chesapeake, Virginia. We got to spend Christmas morning with my family as we normally do, but I really missed putting up my tree this year and enjoying the memories associated with each of the holiday ornaments that John and I have collected from our travels over the years. We're not sure when our next move will be but we know that we'll be here for at least a year so we're going to enjoy every day of it.

Isabella continues to be the center of our universe and we're still amazed every day by how much love and happiness she brings into our lives. We have always been such a strong and happy couple that we never thought it could get much better than what we already had...but we were wrong about that. Isabella has doubled our joy in life 1000 times over and we are so VERY thankful to God for blessing us so greatly.

Bella is growing so fast and she is currently embarking on the quest to get rid of her diaper! John and I are considering when to move her out of a crib. She is so fearless and we know that she will be a "midnight explorer" once she can get out of bed on her own so we're trying to keep her crib bound until she at least figures out that she can crawl out of it. Her vocabulary is amazing for a 2 year old (don't all parents think this?) and she is obsessed with reading books. She has a great imagination too and makes up elaborate stories to tell John and I about animals, and swimming, and the squirrels she sees in the trees outside her window. It's quite funny to hear how detailed she gets and we really enjoy seeing her imagination grow.

We do music classes and an imaginative play class once a week now because it's right up her alley. She enjoys the social interaction and so do I since I'm starting all over making new friends again. Most of our friends that were here before have already transferred to other bases. We are very happy being back in Virginia though and we're looking forward to some "cooler" summers than what we've had in Charleston the past few years.

Pehaps the most exciting news that we have is that we have decided that we want to adopt from Guatemala again. Right now Guatemalas adoption system is undergoing great changes and our adoption agency seems to think that once things stabilize there the cost of adoptions will be cheaper. We're not sure what "cheaper" means since right now the cost is nothing near what could be considered "cheap" or even affordable, but John and I are praying that we can somehow find a financial path that will allow us to adopt from there again. We would really love for Isabella to have a sibling that she can share her culture with. We're keeping our hearts open to other roads to adoption as well , and we know that the correct road will be made clear to us when the time is right. We are going to start some fundraising very soon though and we will be able to pay off the last of Bella's adoption cost in the next month or so. Please pray that God will open doors for us so we can experience the wonderful blessing of adoption again.

Okay...I know one day soon she will want to kill me for posting this...but it's so darn cute I have to share. We had just shared some frozen strawberries so please excuse the evidence :-) Bella is doing pretty good with her potty training but she is still sleeping in her crib at night so we're not all the way there yet.

While we were cleaning up after the party Bella and her cousin Brennen decided to sneak off and steal some left-over cake :-)

Dancing at The Wiggles Show

A small part of our Group at the Farewell Dinner.

Forever Families Retreat 2007 St.Petersburg, Florida- As most of you know, last year I took on the huge task of planning the First Annual Forever Families Retreat for adoptive families all across the nation. We had over 45 adopted kids and their families this year and there were kids from the USA as well as all corners of the globe. It was such a magical week and we formed friendships that I know will last forever. It was a lot of work for something I'm not getting paid to do but seeing all the children together having so much fun made it worth every moment of my time. We loved the Tradewinds Sandpiper Resort so much that we've decided to go back next year for the 2nd Annual Forever Families Retreat. I know I have a lot of other adoptive families that read my blog so I wanted to post these photos for your enjoyment. If you want to attend next year please join our yahoo group at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/adoptioncruise/. The rates and booking contract are in the files section and the dates are July 20-25, 2008. You can also email me at adoptioncruise@yahoo.com but I'm fielding a lot of emails there so my response time may be a little slow. Enjoy the photos!!!!!

Starbuck and a surf board..what more could you need for the beach?
The girls chatting by the pool.
Perfect size waves for kids to play in.
Some of our new friends!
What a beautiful sunset!

A game of ball in the courtyard.
Bella found her new passion for the waves!
Mackenzie teaching her new friend Daniel to jump.
Best Buds
Can we swim now?

We made sure to schedule plenty of downtime for just relaxing. The Tradewinds has everything we needed for a perfect group vacation.

We wanted the kids to experience something relating to their homelands and since we had a lot of Russian adoptees this year we decided to go to a Russian Restaurant called St.Petersburg Nights. The owner Ilona was wonderful and opened the restaurant 2 hours early for us and they had great entertainment for the kids. It was nice for the parents too because we actually got to enjoy our meals while the kids blew off some stream. I love the musical chairs pic!

Here are some action shots from our Pirate Cruise on the Forever Families Retreat. We made so many new friends and planning is already in progress for next year. As you can see we had a LOT of fun!

The kids had a blast hunting for buried treasures on the beach!

This is right before we got soaked to the bone in terrential downpours.

The only way I make it into family photos these days is if I take one of myself. hahaha Couldn't resist posting one of just us :-)

It was SO HOT!