Go West!

Where does the time go! Nothing new to report on our adoption. We are currently exploring other options, but we haven't committed to any direction yet. While we have been waiting we have put our time to good use. The last week of May we loaded up the car and grab my 10 year old niece and headed west...well actually north and west. We took a ten day vacation up through South Dakota where we went through the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Custer State Park, Minuteman Missile NP and then we continued west to Yellowstone. It was an extraordinary trip. We also stopped off at Devils Tower, the Corn Palace and Sioux Falls Park. I could babble all day about the trip, but I will just let some pictures tell the story! Jeff is already planning our return trip when we get our own kids, hopefully that happens soon because I am ready to go back!

Grizzly Bear and cub at Yellowstone NP

Jeff and Tori hiking in the Badlands
Jeff and Tori at Norris in Yellowstone, Tori was catching snowflakes. Snow in May is a novelty for us Missourians!

Tori and Me at Mt. Rushmore

Still hanging on

Well, here it is the middle of May and no word on the adoption. Jeff has asked me if maybe we are just supposed to be dog parents...and after all things considered I have to wonder. I realize that anyone reading this is looking to hear about our adoption journey and not everything we do to fill our waiting period, but it seems so sad to just let the blog sit here and go un-updated month after month! So...

In April we took a camping trip to Southeast Missouri and visited Elephant Rock SP, Ft. Davidson SH, and Johnson's Shut-ins. It was a really great trip. It was really amazing to see in person the devastation that occurred when the Taum Sauk Reservoir broke and flooded Johnson's Shut-Ins SP. It happened about 4-5 years ago and they are still working to restore the area.

Jeff standing in front of a boulder that was carried over a mile by the water that rushed out of the Reservoir breach.

Me about midway up the scour channel beneath the repaired reservoir.

Now we are preparing to take a trip west to visit Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore and anyplace else along the way. My niece is going with us as we plan to use her as bear bait ;O)! We should have a great time and hopefully some really awesome pictures and maybe when we get back we will know what our next step or direction or plan is for building our family.

Where does the time go!

Well, as is apparent by our lack of blogging nothing is happening on the adoption front. I knew it had been awhile since I had last posted, but I didn't know it had been that long. We still have an empty room and many days fighting off the despair is difficult. We question our path, our motives, ourselves... I have been doing a study on the book of Esther and of course the most famous passage from it is, "Who knows, maybe for such a time as this you have been placed upon this earth." It serves to remind that I do not control the time God does. However, my argument to Him is that He is eternal and to him an hour is like a day and a day is like an hour. Being human a day is just that, a day and they keep passing by unmarked. The author of the study also pointed out though, "God never takes His eyes off us or off the wrist watch" and the same eye that is on the sparrow is also on the wrist watch. But is it His or mine! I can just imagine God's wrist watch and the many hands and faces it must have! Well, we still hold on to our hope (some days better than others). Until such a time!