One Year Anniversary

This year has FLOWN!!! Without a doubt... this has been the most amazing year of our lives! I had NO IDEA how great life could be with your best friend by your side. Since Tim had a 3-day weekend available... we decided to celebrate our "Almost One Year Anniversary!"

On Friday, May 28th, My little bubba graduated high school!! I can't believe it! Words cannot describe how proud I am of him.

On Saturday morning we woke up and headed to Fredericksburg! We walked around a shopped the stores and stopped for lunch at The Auslander Beirgarten and Restaurant. It was a German experience... but we don't think we'll ever eat it again!








After Fredericksburg, we headed out to San Antonio! We stayed at the Historic Menger Hotel. When we were checking in they told us that there was a slight problem with our room. We had reserved a king size bed and they said that all they had was "a bed slightly smaller than a queen." I said, "you mean a full?" Hahaha... slightly smaller than a queen would be a full, you fool! :) No pun intended! I through a small fit... and we ended up in the $700/night General William T. Sherman Suite... and no extra charge to us! :)



We ate dinner at the Tower of Americas and really enjoyed our really expensive dinner! It was beautiful up there... eating steak and lobster 800 feet above ground! The restaurant section of the tower rotates one full turn every hour, so we got to see the entire city of San Antonio during our meal!







The next day we slept late, enjoyed a traditional Mexican breakfast on the Riverwalk, did the Riverwalk boat tour, shopped the Rivercenter Mall, visited the Alamo, and then at dinner at Hard Rock Cafe.... on the Riverwalk, of course! :)









We headed home the next day and enjoyed every second of our ride home together! :) Happy Anniversary, Timothy!!! You are my life and my love!!!!

Adoption

Well... we have officially started the adoption process! Whoop! Thursday night, we met with our social worker and got the ball rolling! We are adopting from the state/Child Protective Services. The meeting went really great! I was shaking like a leaf the whole time... Tim just held my hand and kept me calm. However... the second we left the CPS building... we both lost it... I mean LOST IT! :) In a good way, of course!

We will be certified Foster Parents by September. We have a LOT of work ahead of us. There are sooooooooo many things that we have to do, but we are ready and willing to do them. Among those things are fire inspections, physical exams, Tuberculosis tests, parenting tests, CPR certifications, First Aide certifications, etc. We also have to take 25 hours of PRIDE training courses. I can't remember what PRIDE stands for... but we will learn about the children that come through CPS and how to help these precious children who have fallen victim to emotional, sexual, mental, physical abuse and neglect.

There is a 2-year marriage requirement for adoption... and we've only been married 1 year. There is another law that says that any family who is adopting from the state has to wait 6 months from the day of placement to be able to adopt. Basically, after we get a child or children, we have to wait 6 months before we can legally adopt them (If parental rights have already been terminated). What this means for us:

*We will be certified Foster Parents by September.
*Hopefully we will be able to foster children who we would consider adopting. Our social worker said that it could be October or November before we get a placement.
*By the time June 13th, 2011 rolls around... we will have been married for 2 years and we will have had them in our home for 6 months and we will be able to adopt him/her/them! :)

At first, the "2 year marriage" was devastating and we cried!! But... it's not as bad as we thought!

So..... stay tuned!!

Fluvanna

Okay... I promise that I will get better at this blogging thing now that summer is here!! My last post was about Tim being laid-off. After six weeks of being laid-off and job hunting, Tim got a call from his former boss' in Sweetwater. They got a new contract and wanted him to come work... in Fluvanna. If you don't know where that is... it's 2 1/2 hours from Tuscola! So... my poor honey woke up at 3:50 every morning to make it to work every day... 6 days a week. It is usually 9 or 10 before he gets home every night. This has been going on for nearly 3 months.

Lesson we learned: Be careful what you pray for!!!! We prayed for employement... and boy howdy did we get it!!!! The overtime money was great... but absolutely torture for us... the couple that is joined at the hip and heart!!

This past Friday, Tim was told that he doesn't have to go to Fluvanna anymore!! He will not be doing 4 10-hour shifts... which means he will have 3-day weekends! I am teaching summer school and I also have 3-day weekends! Talk about a blessing! God is good!

He Provides

So I was on quite a blogging role there for a little bit... and it looks like I got a little behind. I laughed when I re-read my last post about Tim's job security.... because things have changed a little bit!

The Monday after Valentine's, Tim came home from work early... like 6 hours early. It turns out that Tim's company held onto him as long as they could. They offered to pay him one extra week and keep his insurance until the end of the month. In light of everything, these were both great blessings.

On Tuesday morning, Tim started the job search. I am so blessed to be married to a man who likes to work. It was VERRRRY unlike me to not freak out. We were both very at peace with what the Lord was doing with us, and we still are.

It's been three weeks and Tim is still searching. And we are still full of peace. We are AMAZED at how the Lord has provided. I know we really shouldn't be "amazed," after all, He is the LORD! But... it has been "amazing" to see the ways He has provided and the people He has used in our lives. Our Church family has been the biggest blessing of them all.

Also, JORDAN'S MECHANIC SHOP/FIELD SERVICES has been open for business. Since Tim knows EVERYONE in Tuscola and Buffalo Gap... all of his old farmer friends have been putting him to work! He's working on trucks and tractors! HE LOVES IT!! Eventually... this is what he wants to do... have his own shop.




All in all... God is good all the time. All the time, God is good!!

Wind Turbines

Well... we had a great answer to prayer this week. Tim is a wind turbine technician in Sweetwater. He wakes up at 4am every morning to make it to Sweetwater by 6am. He is a working fool. He works for a small contractor company, which has it's ups and it's downs. THE UPS: he has 4 bosses whom he likes and gets along with very much. There are only about 40 employees. If he needs off a day all he does is ask. They are very flexible. THE DOWNS: The company relies on contracts for work. If they don't have contracts, Tim doesn't have work.

Unfortunately... there are too many turbines producing too much energy... and the grids are maxed out. When you are driving down I-20 and some turbines are turning and some are not, it's because they are curtailed. They shut them off when the grids max out. The new grids won't be completed until 2011 or 2012.


After 2 months of his company only having 1 contract... and only 2-3 crews (which means only 8-10 workers needed), Tim has finally has an official spot on a crew!! This means that he has a job security for a while longer!! We don't know how long it will last... but it's a GREAT blessing for now. His company has been gracious to keep the employees around even though there has been no work for them. They have been cleaning the shop, detailing trucks, building fences at the boss' house... random non-turbine stuff! But now he actually gets to work on turbines!! :)

I just wanted to share this PRAISE with you!!!

Mixed Emotions

Happy Monday, everyone! Today was a wonderful day!!!! I had a little breakthrough today.. thanks to an email from my friend, Sunny. Let me tell you about it.

The day before Thanksgiving my brother and sister-in-law, Matt and Holly, came to Tuscola to spend the night with us before heading to Levelland for the Copeland Thanksgiving weekend. With in a few moments of being in our home, they announced that they will be expecting a little one in July. As you can imagine, I began to shake and cry hysterically... I had the feeling you get right before you hyperventilate. I was either going to run out the door screaming or jump up and down and hug Matt and Holly. Of course, I did the right thing and jumped up and down and hugged them both. I have never felt such mixed emotions. Soooo happy for them... but soooo scared for us. I fought my way through smiles and baby talk. But what I really wanted to do was crawl into Tim's arms and cry.

My little bubba and his sweet, little wife...

Welp... I slapped myself on the face a couple of times... it was time for the pity party to end. The last thing I want is for anyone to feel like they are walking on eggshells around me... or for them to hold back their excitement because of my sadness. The Thanksgiving weekend that followed was equally as hard. Sharing in the family's excitement was difficult... but definitely good practice... for this wouldn't be the first experience of this kind.





Kristal and Daryl
Only one week later my best friend, Kristal, called me crying. She said, "I don't want to tell you." And I said, "You are pregnant aren't you?" We both started crying and I tried to comfort her. This time I was crying because I felt soooo guilty that my best friend would be sad/scared crying when she made the call! "What the heck?," I thought... "this is the day she has dreamed of her whole life... and she's scared to tell me.?



So I found myself being taught the same lesson -- being genuinely happy FOR and rejoicing WITH those who are are experiencing something great -- Instead of feeling sorry for myself. These are the other times in my life when the Lord has tried to teach me this lesson:

1. When everyone else got their Aggie Rings on time and I didn't it.
2. When everyone else graduated on time and I didn't.
3. When Matt and Holly got engaged and I didn't.
4. When Matt and Holly got married and I didn't.
5. When Matt and Holly got pregnant and we didn't.
6. When Kristal and Daryl got pregnant and we didn't.

Well... here's the lesson learned...
1. I got my Aggie Ring the next semester.
2. I graduated as a BILINGUAL teacher one year later.
3. I got engaged to Tim one year after Matt and Holly.
4. I married Tim one year after Matt and Holly.

5. & 6. Maybe we'll get pregnant one year after Matt and Holly and Kristal and Daryl! :) C'mon, Lord...

So back to the beginning of this post... when I said I got an email today that changed my outlook on things a little bit... here is a part of that email.

"Teacher Debbie Moon's first graders were discussing a picture of a family. One little boy in the picture had a different hair color than the other members. One of her students suggested that he was adopted. A little girl said, ' I know all about adoption, I was adopted.. '

'What does it mean to be adopted?', asked another child..
'It means' , said the girl, 'that you grew in your mommy's heart instead of her tummy!'"

HOLY COW!!!!!!!!!! That's it!!!!!!!!!!!! Holly and Kristal have a baby growing inside their tummies and I have a baby growing inside my heart!!!!! :)

Wow!!! Thank you, LORD, for that amazing perspective. So... now my tummy won't grow, my heart will.

Baby Jordan

Well guys... here's the whole reason I started this blog. I feel like the Lord is going to do some pretty huge things in our lives in the very near future... and I desperately want you to be a part of it!

Tim and I are facing infertility. Plain and simple, it may be close to impossible for us to carry our own child. BUT... we serve a God who is the Miracle Business and if He wants us to get pregnant... we will. However, we cannot ignore the fact that if we wait 5 more years, I will be 31 and Tim will be 32. Not that we'll be old, but definitely older than we like to be having our first child. Therefore, we have recently been brought to our knees with the news that adoption may be our only option. So, why wait?

Up until the week before Christmas I was NOT okay with adoption. For me, accepting that fact looked like failure to me. I desperately want to carry our child. I want to hear the heartbeat. I want to feel a kick. I'd gladly take the morning sickness. Tim has been open to anything all along. "I just want to be a dad and I don't care how that happens" was his response. It wasn't until my mom came to visit me that I had a peace about it. You know... mom's gotta fix things... she's really good at that!

BABY TIMOTHY


The week before Christmas I was down with pneumonia and I needed my mommy. ;) (She's smiling really big right now!) As I was crying in her arms she reminded me of something I had long forgotten about. She said, "Remember when you called me from the parking lot of the movie theater--when you were at A&M? You call me crying after you had seen a movie." I immediately remembered that night. I had gone to see the cartoon movie "The Robinsons" It's a movie about this little guy from the future who lived in an orphanage and he wanted to find his parents. If you haven't seen it, you need to! During the middle of that movie, I felt the Holy Spirit. If you've ever heard the voice of the Lord, you know what I'm talking about. The Lord told me that I would adopt one day. I didn't understand it at the time, but I knew I'd adopt one day.

LIL TIMOTHY -- A MECHANIC EVEN THEN!


Who knows what that means now??? Was I reminded of that because the Lord is definitely telling us to adopt? Or was it because the Lord just wanted me to know that at one point I was okay with the thought of adopting and that maybe I should "get okay with it?"

Looking further into my past, I can see more evidence supporting adoption. I was heavily involved in the 40 Days for Life Campaign, where I prayed in front of Planned Parenthood for days at a time and donated time and money to the cause of LIFE! Was that coincidence that maybe by Tim and I adopting... we are possibly going to receive a child that would have been aborted otherwise? I've made a complete circle.

LITTLE KRISTIN


We have spent the last week or so doing research. Through other friends who have adopted and friends of friends who have adopted, we have learned a lot. Mostly a lot of scary stories... yet, full of hope. Even though we are considering adoption, we are not giving up on having our own. Even if we adopt and then get pregnant... we will be doubly blessed! As soon as school is out for the summer, we will hit the ground running with adoption applications/interviews/home studies/background checks/fund-raising/home preparation/etc. We want the next 5 or 6 months to focus on US and on the LORD and HIS PLAN for us.

I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THE LIL' MOMMY!!!


One thing we know for sure... and we were reminded of this in Church this morning:

"Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord, we will wait upon the Lord, we will wait upon Lord."

We would greatly appreciate your prayers and your support.