Beep Beep... Snake!

First, great new song on my playlist... Check it out. Tenth Avenue North. They rock. Really, they do.

Uncle Chuck, Auntie Jenn, Chase and Evan, recently passed on their Little Tikes car to Ava, and every morning she starts her day by taking it for a ride. Thanks, you guys! She loves it! This first picture really shows her excitement. :)







Also pictured is our wild visitor of two years, a black snake. Last year, he lived in the wood pile, and this year, he's somewhere under the porch! Ugh. Ava looked out the front window one day, and said, "What's that?" over and over again. I saw a bird flying, so I said, "Honey, it's a bird." Then, I realized where she was pointing! To the porch floor!



Finally, Ben was mowing after dark one night this week, and he came running to the house and asked me to follow him somewhere. The property by the ponds and our back wooded area were aglow with hundreds of fireflies! We see fireflies every year, but we've never seen anything like this so close. He took some photos with a tripod to try to capture the beauty of them. They weren't syncronized like they are at Tremont every year, but it was really something to see so many fireflies together. Again, I believe it's just a glimpse of the splendor of the Lord. His beauty is all around us. Can you imagine what Heaven will be like with foretastes here? I can! :) If you click on this photo, you can see the fireflies a bit better.





I'll be away from the blog for a few days but will be back soon with some Dollywood photos from last week.

Happy Memorial Day to everyone! Have a fun weekend!

ps- Also, I have to tell you that I began my morning by mailing every last bit of China/US paperwork to USCIS Memphis for the LAST TIME! The fourth time, but who's counting, right? I stress last time! Red tape - big scissors - C U T!

Something Beautiful

On any ordinary day, I love to look for beauty in the world. It reminds me that God is still on the throne looking down on his creation and longing to redeem it. The other day, we had a gentle rain, not much to soak the ground, and Ava and I discovered this beautiful rainbow in the backyard. I've seen many rainbows, but I've never seen one quite like this one. We could see the entire rainbow and one end of it going through the trees and hitting the ground. We looked at it for a few minutes until it faded out of sight.

Thank you, God, for rainbows and for your faithful promises to your children.

Congratulations, Wesley!

These last few weeks have been very busy for our little family but fun! Recently, we traveled to West Va. to see my "little" cousin, Wes, graduate from Bluefield where he played baseball. West Virginia is a very beautiful state with large rolling hills, and the most special part for Ava was that she got to go through two mile-long tunnels on the way through. She loved it and kept saying, "More, more!" We'll have to find some tunnels a little closer to home. We had a great weekend with family and are so happy for Wes! We love you, cous!

Aunt Judy and Aunt Syd hug.



Uncle Rick, Aunt Jill and Wes



Love you, Kiwi-head. :)



Our family minus my cousin, Lacy, who wasn't able to be there.



Ava's first experience at a Japanese steak house. I thought she'd be scared of the fire part, but it didn't phase her. When I was little, I got up and hid behind my Dad's chair.



One thing I'm learning as a parent is flexibility! There was no such thing as a schedule for Ava that weekend, and when we finally laid her down for a nap that day, she was limp!





Getting ready to leave was really fun for Ava. She was all about the luggage cart!









We drove the six hours home and got to celebrate Ava's buddy, Sera's, 4th birthday!





Happy Birthday, sweet princess!

One Enchanted Evening

A couple of Saturdays ago, we joined other adoptive families at the zoo for "One Enchanted Evening." Each year, our local adoption agency, Harmony, who has completed all of our home studies for us, hosts an evening at the zoo. This year's theme was based on Alice in Wonderland, and families are invited to wear costumes, eat, play and tour the zoo. We met our new friends, the Butterworths and Jones, for a really fun evening. The Butterworths adopted Grace from China, and she's now 2 1/2. The Jones adopted Caden domestically, and he's now almost 4. They're also adopting from China and their log-in date is June of '06. Ava had a lot of fun with her new little buddies! It's been so great to connect with other adoptive families who can share this journey with us.

I'll start by showing you this funny video of Ava riding the carousel. This was her first time, and I chose an elephant that went up and down. By the end of it, she had her arms wrapped around my neck, and everytime the elephant went up, so did my head! That's in pictures below the video. This is when it first started. You'll see Shannon and little Grace, and Amy and Caden riding, too. They were "experienced" riders! :) Enjoy! Don't forget to pause the playlist music so you can hear her!










Grace, Caden and Ava



The Butterworth Family



The gibbons were our favorite animal to watch. This guy put on quite a show and then plastered himself on the glass right in front of Ava. So cool!







You can tell she's getting more upset in this picture.



This is the picture of her holding onto my neck for dear life!





Amy and Caden



Wheeeee, Daddy!

Jose G.

First off, I'm aware that there is someone precious following my blog that I don't know, and I am aware of tremendous suffering in your life and anger in your heart. I'm writing this trusting and hoping that you'll read this. I want you to know that God does care about you and your suffering, and no, He doesn't cause it. It's the result of us living in a fallen world that is very broken and where bad things happen to us for reasons we can't understand. Reasons that have nothing to do with people but more with the evil and the brokeness in this world. Before you write this post off, I want you to know that I know about suffering that is great and heavy, the bring you to your knees kind, the I can spit nails kind, the questioning of my life and my purpose here kind. Hear this. This journey through life, no matter how broken and hard and unfair and confusing ends well, but you don't have to wait for Heaven to have joy in the midst of your circumstances that are overwhelming. There is hope. This is what my next post is about. I'm reaching out to you, and I hope you'll give hope a chance, Jose. You are loved more than you can possibly imagine and the God who created you, special, unique you, has His eye on you. I believe He has something to say to you. Add the ability to comment on your blog, and I'll write you a more thoughtful post.

Back to my post update on Miss Ava...

Hey, everyone,

We're home from West Virginia which in my mind is always followed by "mountain momma" from that John Denver song. We had a great time with family, and I'll post pictures from our weekend after several posts I'm behind on!

Ava and I decided to bake some muffins the other day, and she loves to be my helper now in the kitchen. If I'm doing anything at all on the counter that she can't see, she'll say, "Watch!" So, I'm looking into those little kitchen helper ladders that are sturdy. After making muffins, I got out several different kitchen tools for her to play with and a leftover bag of barley from 2006 that I had long forgotten about. Guess I was going to put it in soup or something! I have loads of pictures coming up that you'll enjoy, and I hope to post something very thoughtful in the next few days. I feel a post brewing, and I'm waiting for inspiration to write it. Stay tuned! :)

Amy! Miss you, too. For some reason, your comment disappeared! I'm looking forward to getting together soon. Off to see my "little" cousin graduate from college. I'm getting old! :)

China Update

Well, after stalking the rumor queen China site for two weeks now, it's looking like China has processed through April 21, 2006 for this month. We're the 28th and are now 7 days away. It's unusual that China would process 7 days at one time. At most, they've done 6, so we're estimating July!!! Whoah, did I just write July?? Waiting for updated home study to be completed, and then I can mail every last bit of paperwork for USCIS to USCIS forever!!! Boy, we will be so glad when that part of this paperwork journey is over.

Maia Grace is on the way!

UT Vet Fair Fun

I heard a story about a hairless cat that won first place in a contest at the UT vet school, and when I found out that there would be a free open house for the public, I knew we had to go!

Here she is!



We spent most of the morning and afternoon at the UT Veterinary School last Saturday and saw so many animals, especially unusual ones. Ava just loved it and got to interact with a lot of them. She adores cats, and you'll see the hairless one at the end of these pics. We had a really fun day and are going to hopefully check this out every year!

Our first stop was to seeing different breeds of dogs. This English Mastiff met us as we went through the line. This picture really does NOT do justice to the size of this dog!



Miss persistent. Ava was surrounded by big kids at this next stop but found a way to wiggle her way in to pet this golden retriever. This particualar dog is used in a lower elementary classroom to help children read. What is so cool about this is that he is used to help children who are nervous reading in front of an adult. This dog just lies patiently in the reading corner as child after child reads to him. As a former teacher, I just loved this!



Daddy and Ava visted the big bunnies exhibit.



Ava chose a pink balloon animal and had the whole thing undone so that it looked like a snake 5 minutes later! I then accidentally rolled over it with the stroller and it
popped. Thanks, Daddy, for getting me another one later, which also turned into a snake.



This was really awesome! This was the anatomy lab for vet students, and they had all kinds of crazy animal parts to look at. We especially like the tiger paw and head.



Lots of bones! Ava found one her size to touch.




Yes, this is for real and definitely the strangest specimen we saw that day!



Ava's face while watching the horses parade by us.



This is one of five horses we saw up close. Ava would wave to them as they walked by her.



A Tennessee Walking horse foal. He was very curious about Ava.



This is a hairy Scottish cow that a women allowed UT to display for the public. He/she is beautiful and is her pet. I couldn't believe how pretty its fur was.



Ava's first experience with real piglets.




Hmmm...



May the force be with you!