not by sight

anyone who has gone through and adoption or walked closely with a familiy that had adopted knows that there are LOTS of ups and downs.  we have grown close relationships with two families that are also adopting... one from korea and the other familiy from africa.  

evan and i have been unbelievably blessed through this process.  i have grown speechless as God has answered  my prayer from his word...

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 

He has undoubtedly provided more than we imagined in every area of this adoption.

recently, i have wondered/thought out loud to God... why things have been so smooth for us and so difficult for others.  i fully believe in God's faithfulness... but it is so hard to see such difficult times in our friends' adoption journeys.  sometimes it just seems impossible to wrap my heart around what my head knows... that God is sovereign in every situation.

heavy

over the weekend i went to the funeral of a co-worker's daughter who was killed in a fatal car accident on november 19th. 

when we got the e.mail from our principal on thursday i couldn't help but think of this verse...

I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him.  I Saumuel 1:27

(i LOVE that verse!!  i pray A LOT for our little hun-nee and that verse is forever on my mind as i think about him.  i am finding myself to be a little disappointed at the end of each day, because i keeping hoping that TODAY will be the day we get to see the sweet face of our son.  i fully trust in God's perfect timing and i'm ok waiting...  i am just so ready to see what the God has for us!! )

and then i thought about the next verse...

So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD.” And he worshiped the LORD there. 

this verse hit hard this week.  i pray and pray and pray for our little hun-nee... for him, his family, for peace for his family-that they will somehow "know" he is loved and well cared for, for his transition to our family, for wisdom for evan and me...i pray for so much, everything i can think of except for this.

i know ezekiel is God's but in light of this recent tragedy, it is hard to think that we are not guaranteed anything.

wines family you all are in our thoughts and prayers!

this afternoon we found out that another staff member's dad died of a heart attack.  she found out while getting a cautionary check up after being in a car accident this morning.  she is due with her first baby very soon...

stefanie, you are also in our thoughts and prayers

 this school year has been a hard year...if i am completely honest there haven't been a lot of great days. situations like these cause you to put things into perspective.  though it has been a stinky year, i am very blessed to work with great people at fairhill.

girl's weekend

evan's sisters and i met up at tech this weekend for a girl's weekend...


we started off with a great dinner at macado's!!  when i worked in wva this was one of my favorite places to go... what a happy dinner!

we met some of lesley's friends that night and then hung around and chatted... way later than i would have expected.  friday nights are the hardest nights to stay up late.


the next morning steph joined us and we headed to Gillie's for a yummy vegetarian breakfast.  my banana walnut waffles were DELICIOUS, but a little bacon on the side would have made the meal perfect!!  he he he...

the weather was absolutely beautiful that weekend!  we helped laurie cross an item off her bucket list (i think) by going to ...

 if you are not familiar with kellerman's mountain house (because i wasn't until this weekend)  it is the place where dirty dancing was filmed, well come parts.  those of you that know that movie will probably recognize some of these landmarks.

the "lake" used to be right behind laurie and steph.... but it's not a lake anymore, it's more like a swamp

but that didn't keep us from having a little fun!

don't worry about how many pictures we took trying to get this... thank goodness for digital cameras!

we had an ongoing debate on whether it was ok to be listening to christmas music yet... obviously stephanie was for

apparently this pictured out conversations about christmas music alot that weekend

a tribute to napoleon dynamite

 we had a wonderful weekend...lots of laughs and obvious silliness!  i am so blessed to have three great sister-in-laws.  can't wait for the next girl's weekend.

em (ethiopian moms) dinner

tonight i got together with some girlfriends... i always think of them as my em's  (ethiopian moms)...  we met for dinner in georgetown 

and then headed over to..

... for some yummy treats.  it pretty funny at dinner when the waiter asked if we wanted dessert and we unanimously said "no'.  :) 

to be honest i have never seen dc cupcakes, but one of the girls pointed out the owners of the shop, who apparently are not there very often.  of course we snapped some picts!  

my brother also walked down and met us there too!  

it is sweet to be able to meet with these ladies who know right away how you are feeling and you can just be honest about it all.  as soon as i saw them they asked how i was feeling about being the (unofficial) #1!!  it warmed my heart how excited they were, REALLY knowing what it means to be soo close!  
we talked nonstop for three hours about all things adoption!!  i was also able to see pictures of a precious little girl and an older boy that will meet their parents in less than a month!  i heard about a project one of the families has been working on with a ministry called both hands, and we talked and shared and squealed and laughed about what is currently going on, about what our next steps will be like and what we are nervous about... and we all just got so excited thinking about what our families will look like next year!!
there is a sweet bond we all have because we are adopting... these ladies are such a blessing!

#4

On October 15th Evan and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary!  The weekend before we went to a b&b in west virginia.  i spent the summers after my sophomore and junior year in college working as an "adventure facilitator" for alpine ministries.  they were two of the best summers ever!  i learned how to guide white water trips, rappel, and cave a.k.a. spelunking.  we also did a lot of hiking, biking, and team building activities...and of course we had some fun along the way.

i'm the one guiding the boat.  matthew is on the opposite side in the back

i'm the only one without a paddle

spelunking with dad, anna, and matthew

a collage i made after my first year... i'll have to add more from my second year sometime

so i really wanted to take evan to some of my favorite hiking spots out there.  the gorge is beautiful in the fall and it turned out to be a great weekend.

i love the drive out to the gorge!  it is beautiful!! i thought it would be fun to stop at an orchard and pick some apples on our way out there.  that didn't quite turn out like i had hoped...

the people at the orchard said they had already picked the apples.  if we found any apples we could have them for FREE... we were sure we could find some!! 

there were NO apples on the trees!!!  well, we found two but we needed a fire truck ladder to get to them.

oh well.... 

what they did have PLENTY of stink bugs... gross!!

we headed on to wva... of course with a pit stop at...  mmmmm....

we made it to bluefield around 7:30 and EVERYTHING was shut down.  i was starting to regret my decision about wva... no offense to any wvaers.  we ate some horrible fast food and head to the dian-lee house

it was great!  we stayed in the murphy brown room.  there was cheese, wine, and roses to greet us. (thanks mom and dad). 

the next morning we had a delicious breakfast and headed out to the gorge to do some hiking!  first stop was fern creek!

Evan was wearing his anniversary gift, new chacos!

evan carefully looking over the edge

showing off my knowledge of the new river rapids... or what i remember of them  

double z is the top rapid and bus stopper is the lower rapid

after a couple hour hike we headed into fayetville for lunch at the cathedral cafe

the milkshake was really this good!

we were super hungry, but i think this was one of the top sandwiches i have ever eaten

then we were off to our last hike, long point.

new river gorge bridge

when we were in car i got a message that we had a surprise when got back...

if you ever pass through bluefield, wva and need a place to stay, dian-lee house is really nice, just don't expect to do much in bluefield.  :)

on our way home we stopped mr. j's bagels!!!!  one of my favorite places while i was at jmu!!

evan's chocolate chip muffin was huge

looooove orange juice muffins!

a great way to end a great weekend