#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

on deck!!

so life has been pretty crazy... well i should clarify WORK has been really crazy.  but monday i came in from recess to see this in my inbox!!

i think i squealed and held my breath and was confused all at the same moment!!  i scanned through the e.mail to pick us much information as i could, as quickly as i could, and then called evan.  :)
so, on deck confirms that we are approximately 1-3 months away from getting our referral.  when we submitted our dossier we were told that we wouldn't hear anything about our referral for about six months, so to think that it could be sooner is REALLY crazy!!  of course there is a very real chance that it will be december or later that we receive our referral... which i am working on keeping as my focus.  there were a lot of referrals and court dates given this week, i'm sure most of the movement is from the courts reopening from being closed during the rainy season.
walking through this process of adoption has been very.... unique...  i think it is hard to put into words.  as excited as evan and i are about meeting and bringing our son home, i often feel so disconnected.  it is weird and scary and exciting to think how different our family will be eight months from now.  i have been praying a lot about this.  I have been praying for him, for his family, and this enormous decision they have or are soon going to make to place their son into the hands of someone else to raise.  thinking about this makes me pray for evan and i a lot!  i pray for wisdom and patience, for compassion, grace, and mercy.  i pray for questions that will come up and tensions that will arise in two years, seven years, and thirteen years from now...really for every year!  instead of letting my heart get anxious, i just pray about everything i can think of and every once in a while i cry.  :)  (maybe more than once in a while  :) )
thank you again for your prayers, support, encouragement, and excitement.  it all is so precious to us!!

it has been too long...

so school started back up and life has been crazy!  i definitely have things i need to catch up on and i'll get to it.  :)  first things first.  there is really no update on the adoption.  we are just waiting.  work, being as crazy as it has been, has really helped the time fly.  if i am completely hone  st sometimes it is hard to make the connection that we will have a son at this time next year.  i am sure when we get to see that face we have been praying for, for so long, it will all change!  :)

in august we met up with come couples from AWAA that live in the dc metro area and are also adopting form ethiopia.  it was great to meet these families and hear alll about where they are in their own adoption story!!  

 we met up at Meskerem, an ethiopian restaurant, in dc. evan really liked the food, but the jury is still out with me.  i think i am more of a texture person than i thought.

overall it was a wonderful evening!  we are excited to continue to get to know these great couples and their forever families!!

last weekend one of evan's sisters and his folks were in town.  we thought it would be fun to take our family and some friends to meskerem and introduce them to ethiopian food!!  we started off with appetizers
and they didn't stick around long enough for me to take a pictures.... they were really good!! 

then came the food and the eating.... :)

matthew was not interseted in even trying the food.... ha ha ha

 everyone enjoyed their dinner!  the injera, which is what you use to "scoop" up the food has a funny texture to me.  i ate most the food with a fork which was much better.  evan loves it all!!  :)

we are enjoying learning about ethiopian culutre!  one day we'll go there with our little hun-nee!

just small potatoes

today some anna, katie, and i headed out to winchester to see our friend jill.  on august 7th i got an e.mail, which, to be honest, i thought was about to share that she and chuck were expecting... unfortunately it was quite the opposite.  jill shared that she had been diagnosed with Stage 2 Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, which is a form of breast cancer.  we all know people who have or have had cancer.  evan's dad is a cancer survivor!!  but i haven't known anyone so young to get cancer.  jill is recovering from a double mastectomy and will begin chemo in the next couple weeks.  she has an amazing attitude.


you know those conversations you have that you never forget?  i had one of those the first time i got to talk to jill after her diagnosis.  i shared how blessed evan and i have been to see God's tangible faithfulness over and over again, but i admitted it was hard to see his faithfulness in this situation.  without hesitation jill responded that she has seen God's faithfulness in so many ways.  
i was immediately humbled and speechless.
she shared how she saw God's faithfulness in discovering the lump the day before a doctor's appt., how it was the first time she had ever done an exam, how the doctor's took care of it right away, and how early they had caught it...
my eyes were filled with tears as she shared her view of God's faithfulness.


jill's prognosis looks good, she has great support, and a great attitude!  she provided a precious reminder that God is faithful no matter our circumstances.  you can follow jill's blog at http://justsmallpotatoes.blogspot.com/