Thank-you!!!

My Sister in law just hosted a jewelry party to raise money for Hope For the Children of Haiti. She was focusing specifically on raising money to help defray the costs of the medical care the children often need. Through donations and sales she made over $250!!!

But that's not all. Along the way she gave knowledge and understanding to many folks who responded with love and compassion. That is amazing to me, with all the disasters we hear about people still are able to respond in a compassionate and giving way.. WOW!

But that's not all.. she played our videos and photo slide shows through the party.. so many people got to see how truly adorable my babies are ... if they can't be right here with me I love that they are loved from afar :0)

But that's not all.. her husband was the one who opened this adoption door for us. it's been a long walk since but we will be forever grateful to him for introducing us to the great love we have found in and for Haiti!

But that's not all... my fabulous sis-in-law and her wonderful husband have donated to help us with our adoption journey.. to bring THEIR nephews home. I am so blessed that I have two sets of sisters in laws and brothers in laws that feel the love for their nephews even though they haven't met them yet. They support us in so many ways, emotionally, financially and spiritually.

I am blessed beyond measure by being part of this family and HAD to give them a shout out!

THANK-YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for everything..and for not giving up on us in this journey.. because it has been a LONG haul of "that's not all.."

It ain't over til it's over and then it will be just beginning!!!

Just realised...

That IF we come out of IBESR with Peter THIS week.
And IF the process to bring Wadley and Peter home takes the longer expected time...
(31 weeks)
THEN they would be home one week before Christmas...

Of course the time could go faster.. and they could be home sooner... but first they have to get OUT of IBESR.

It is a little frustrating that our dossier is still in IBESR as the new adoption laws dont put family size as a restriction on adopting thus releasing us from needing a Presidential pardon and we already have presidential permission to adopt two children from Haiti.  At teh same time I understand that every t has to be crossed and every i dotted and every thing has to be in good order. The folks in Haiti work hard in difficult conditions to get the job done.

SO I'm praying tonight to hear THIS week that we have recieved the letter of permissin we need and can procedd to bringing our babies home BEFORE Christmas! wadley will be one in July and Peter will be one in December.

Wendy

Water, Water everywhere...

Back on the road again heading towards Mississippi... we decided to stay in a motel this night due to the rain, storms, damage from tornado's and danger of flooding.. see we aren't as odd as we are crazy looking!

"Did you see that?"

It's hard to process this tornado damage.. A whole neighborhood gone...

A little further down the road we are glad to be on the HIGH highway!

Lakes where fields once were..

The water level is reaching over half way up this telegraph pole!

The road has become a boat ramp... we are glad we have decided NOT to camp in this area. We take a moment to pray for the folks who have been affected and those who are helping to clean up.

Steve and the children eat lunch at a restaurant.. I'm not hungry having munched on Melinda's Trail mix.. so I am out by the van's with our menagerie.

First night ..camping...

We head Westward, first day is about 5-6 hours of driving..
First of many gas fill ups.. Steve is doing push ups because he is feeling a little sleepy!

Yes he is doing push ups in front of the pumps! LOL Push ups and a coke a cola! We should be set now.

We arrive at the camp site.. it has a tire swing!!!!

A river...

and a tent... Actually this was back in the woods..

here is our family tent going up... 

The family did a great job working together to get camp set up, food cooked, dogs walked, guinea pigs watered and fed..

Time for bed.. B trying out the boys tent.. Who will win the battle of the bed... boy or dog?

Katie settles on the end of J's bed.

And so ends the first day of travel.. peace finally reigned.. giggles were heard from the large tent but I can neither confirm nor deny that it was due to the fact that Steve took a running jump onto the blow up bed, shooting me half way across the tent!

Nighty, night....

From there to here...again...

I have been married 17 years this year. I just moved in to my tenth house since getting married. For my 9 year old daughter this is her 7th home! It is always an adventure to move, to discover, to pack, unpack and see what you have left after the process. This time moving with six children, two large dogs and four guinea pigs (one died before we left S.C) was definitely going to be an adventure!

We camped in our old house for a week before moving to TLF's.. that was a GREAT idea and I might do that from here on in. We packed out before a huge exercise that took Steve out of the home for a week. When that was over it was time to farewell us and leave for OK.

Several "last days" of play with our great friends! We have been so blessed with good friends here..

and I am really going to miss my "girl" friends and their crazy kids!

Time to pull away.. We look like a carnival float because we are exercising "No plant left behind"..

and no bit of precious stuff left behind..

  not to forget no guinea pig left behind (although one did die just before we left.. we buried her with much ceremony..(no pics of that though..)

oh yes..and no dog left behind! Here is Jack wondering what is going on... Katie is already loaded up and ready to go..

And yes.. we DID remember all the children too....

Westward Ho!

Next post will show some of our "sights" along the way... please take a moment to pray for Mississippi and the other areas of the US which have been hit so hard by storms, floods and tornadoes.

Saturday 14th May

We are surviving our trek West with dogs, Guinea pigs and plants... oh yes and our six children!

So far we haven't lost anything or anyone and are actually enjoying the travel time.

Thursday night we camped at a beautiful camp site in Georgia. I made camp fire stew, Steve got the tents up, girl's got the screen tent up and boys looked after the animals... smooth!

Heading out Friday morning both vans presented us with check engine lights. The green van had thrown a little protest Thursday and wouldn't shift gears.. so fun on the interstate! I pulled over and turned the engine off.. started up again and it behaved the rest of the trip. We pulled through Chick-Fil-A and filled the children up then headed to a Chevy dealership for an engine check. Miraculously they were able to see us straight away, diagnosed the problems and air filter issue in the grey van and a computer glitch in the green van. A quick fix later and having found and killed a scorpion!! and we were back on the road.

Friday night we chose to camp at the Days Inn, Tupelo MS. A good choice as the severe thunderstorm warnings produced massive rain and small hail. There were tornado's North of us but we had pressed far enough South to miss them!

Today we head into Arkansas to a campsite about five hours away. We may end up staying there two days as we will only be three hours from our final destination by then. Weather forecast is for sunny skies and clear travel. We will cross the Mississippi today, despite pleas from the children for us to caulk the wagons and float across, we WILL be finding an open bridge!

Next time I check in we should be at our destination! I keep checking for emails letting us know the baby's are out of IBESR but no such luck. We continue to wait patiently for our whole family to be together again!

And we're off!

The farewell party and the change of command went smoothly. Lot's of laughter and fun times. Pizza in the park last night, watching our children play together one last time was bitter sweet. I have to keep reminding myself of the Busch's and the King's and how we have been blessed beyond measure in each location with good friends we are still in touch with... however it was hard to see them saying goodbye last night.

I am going to miss my "girl" friends enourmously!! Their friendship, laughter, listening ears, arms of comfort, prayers of hope and example of love has touched me, taught me and made me a better person! Thank-you!!!!

And so on to Oklahoma, storms moving in from the West is forcing us South through Georgia today. What with dodging tornado damaged areas and now flooded plains, it once again makes me respect the pioneers of long ago!

Tonight we will be camping, tomorrow night we will be in a hotel because of the storm line so I'll try to update the blog tomorrow night.

Wendy

News on adoption..

Not ours.. but several people in the yahoo group I am in! All of us are adopting from New Life Link and in the past few days five families have found out that they are out of IBESR and can head to Haiti ASAP to go to the higher court!

What does it mean to go to higher court I hear you ask?

Well..

After the documents are released from IBESR then they are all authenticated in Parquet.

Once they have been approved to go to the higher court the parents are told to come to Haiti. They will then appear before the judge and, after some questioning, the adoption will be declared legal. The documents are all signed and then sent to MOI for authentication.

Steve and I went to the lower court while we were in Haiti. That was to confirm that we did indeed desire to adopt Peter and Wadley. We are looking forward to hearing that we have to go back to hear the judge tell us we are legally their parents!!! That is a while off for us though because we are still waiting on Peter's IBESR clearance.

Meanwhile we can rejoice for the parents who have heard they are one huge step closer to brining their children home! It's a day of rejoicing in our home today for these prescious gifts of God, many of whom we fell in love with while we were there a few weeks ago.

Wendy

You are going to be doing what?

Taking a brief break from coverage of our Haitian adventures to let you in on our newest plan for family building and togeherness. In a little over a week we will be moving to Oklahoma. Rand Mcnally says the trip is 1170.8 miles and will take 18 hrs 41 min.

Obviously it will take us longer as we are hauling a trailer with our pull along on it. (we only have one hitch so the tag along rides on the pull along.. it makes sense to us.. that will make sense to you all in just a brief moment.

Obviously it will take longer as we are hauling our six children with us.. none of whom have been able to co-ordinate their bladders as of yet so potty breaks are fairly frequent events.

Obviously it will take longer as we are hauling our two dogs.. neither of whom enjoy long periods of time confined to a moving vechicle.

and finally obviously it will take longer as we are hauling 5 guinea pigs and camping along the way, further more proving that we might very well be certifiable! And when I say camping I mean tent camping...

So.. I'm not promising that we will be able to fill you in on our trip every day.. BUT as soon as we can I will. It is going to be QUITE the adventure!

Wendy