Summer is a great time for a visit

We love hosting friends and family, so feel free to work our home into your next vacation! Seriously, we live in a 4 bedroom house (parsonage) and have an extra full bath for your using pleasure. I know many of you have said you are interested in visiting, so seize the day and let us know when you want to come. We have a free BIG lake for you to enjoy. We also know lovely places to hike, bike, eat, etc and trust me this is the BEST time of year for a visit! We also know great church you can attend on Sunday ;)

We can't wait for you to be our guest!

Why does this always happen?

I wait so long to update and then I have so many entries buzzing in my head that I don't even know where to start! June has been a busy and wonderful month at our house. We had VBS at church, hosted "2 sweet boys" for the weekend, and I went to CDYC (annual church camp) for one great week.
We have also been praying much about adoption home study changes and we are so excited to have reached some decisions and we feel closer to our baby than ever... even if we still have a long wait! Since we now actually have news of some sort we will be sending out an update letter soon to those of you who have requested it. This specific letter will have news not on the blog so if you want an update please leave a comment with contact info or send an email. I don't publish comments so don't worry!

Hopefully in the days to come I will get some photos together of the events above and fill you in on our June adventures.

I might be biased...

but the sermons at our church the last couple of weeks have be WONDERFUL! This summer our church is going through the Psalms. No, summer here is not 150 weeks long, so we are not going through the whole book, but we are studying each major type of Psalm. Two weeks ago we learned about UNITY through Psalm 133! It was encouraging, challenging, and convicting. Then yesterday we studied a Psalm of Lament, Psalm 13. What a rich and thought provoking message! I think it was one of those messages that every person in the church can identify with, as we all all have times when life is hard... it is so important to go to God and our Christian brothers and sisters with our real emotions rather than a "happy and plastic" church version of ourselves!

Flashback Friday Photos!

Here are some fun photos from this time each year for the past six years! Enjoy!

Spring 2004 Itasca State Park, MN hiking and being silly... falling in love!

Spring 2005 Newlyweds ready for a picnic on Lake Milacs

Spring 2006 Hilde visits and have all sorts of adventures, including high school baseball!

Spring 2007 Brandon is posing for the timer, but I am not successfully on his shoulders!

Spring 2008 Thank you Whole Foods Market for Shelly friendly cake! WOW!

Spring 2009 Senior's Only Retreat! What a special group of students!

Spring 2010 Enjoying our Lake with Brandon's parents! See guys, I told you we live on a big lake!

Adoption shirts... like maternity shirts... only cuter!

I am a mom... almost! I have written much about this, though not in anything I will most likely ever show to others. Being a mom and almost being a mom are two VERY different things. People have assumed I am a mom now for a long time. Being a married nanny I can see where people would think this way. Ring+baby=mom... well, almost! I could blog about this concept all day, but I actually want to share with you some really special and fun shirts I received for Christmas that make me feel sort of closer to the whole mom thing! I am so excited to be a mom through Ethiopian adoption soon! Well, soon in God's eyes :)


This shirt says "Proud Mom" with the heart over the country of Ethiopia which symbolizes that our baby is in my heart and in Ethiopia!



This shirt is harder to read (I think you can click for a bigger photo) but says, "My heart and my baby are in Ethiopia." This photo was taken the night we brought the 144 cupcakes to the youth group at our former church.
These shirts and other great ones I would love can be found at zazzle.com and other websites!

Photos... FINALLY! Part One

I have been promising to add photos to the blog for some time! Well, I am finally making good on that promise from long ago. Here are a few favorites. I think I will have a few photo posts today.


This is a photo of two of the beautiful 30 hour famine cows on our front yard. The youth group students delivered cows each day and I even got to help. You can read about it here.



We were given the great blessing to spend some time with Brandon's best guy friend Luke and his wonderful wife Kristina. We had a great day together followed by a tasty dinner. It is so special to reconnect with friends from the past! What a treasure that time was!




Here is a photo of Brandon and I on Easter Morning! I have to laugh putting up this photo because many of my blogging friends are also lovers of photography. I am a point and shoot sort of girl. I know there are even ways that I could zoom in on this photo to make it more lovely... but that would be out of character :) so you can click on it to make it bigger!

HOPE beyond "Show Hope"

Our God is faithful! Our hope is in Him! The adoption road is long, bumpy, hard etc. We hit a bump last week when we learned we did not receive the Show Hope grant. The grant would have been amazing and we are in no way bitter as we know that Show Hope receives SO MANY applications and can only give out the funds they have! We praise God for the families who will be helped with grants from Show Hope.
We have applied for two others and are praying for God's favor with them, but we know that even if we don't receive them He is our Provider and He will lead us to the little one He has called us to adopt!!! Please join us in praying about these grants as the committees are meeting this month to make decisions!