Adoption Update

For the past month my life has been consumed with adoption paperwork!  I have been putting off writing a new blog post because I was hoping to be able to share the announcement of our paperwork being finished.   Well, it isn’t.   We are waiting for one more important document to be processed to complete our home study.

It is our FBI individual record check.  According to our adoption agency the average processing time is 2 1/2 weeks and it has been three weeks.  I had hoped to have it by now, but we are still waiting.  When I called the FBI office this past week they said the processing time is actually 8-10 weeks!  We are going to keep pestering them this week and see if we can speed up the process since it is the only document needed to complete our home study.

Here are a few fun adoption pics for you:

Making an Ethiopian cabbage dish as part of our adoption education requirements

In go the potatoes

We both liked it and even ate up the leftovers

Derek signing one of the many documents we needed to prepare

Hopefully we will have an update soon sharing that our paperwork phase of the adoption is complete!    We would appreciate prayer for a miracle that our FBI record check will be processed ASAP.

 

Let it Snow!

A view of the pond, creek, and bridge behind our building

The snow has been falling for the past four days in Louisville and the temperature has not risen above 30 degrees (mostly hovering around 20).  BRRR!  Schools were canceled on Friday and we have only been using the Jeep to drive around town.  Usually in Louisville the snow melts quickly, so this has been a special treat.

Derek takes his January term class this next week, which means class every day from 8am-5pm.  Hopefully I will get some calls to substitute teach, too.

So far our new year has been gotten off to a cold, but good start!

 

A White Christmas

Snow in Montana

As we flew into Billings, MT for Christmas, the city was in total white-out!  It was snowing and we had a beautiful white Christmas!  We were blessed to spend six days with Derek’s family.  We celebrated “our Christmas morning” on the 22nd here in Louisville before we headed to Montana on the 23rd.  You can see some pictures from our trip by viewing our web album.

 

A California Cousin Wedding

This past week took us to California for my cousin’s wedding.  Aaron and Amanda got married on December 12th.  With Derek being on break from school we were blessed to be able to spend a week in California for the wedding, meals with friends, serving at our old church and enjoying some Christmas activities.

You can see some highlights of our trip through pictures in our web album.

 

Thanksgiving Week

This year we stayed in Louisville for Thanksgiving.  We had a full week of fun!  Derek spent all the in-between time finishing up his papers and studying for his finals, which are next week.  I was able to work the first two days of the week while the schools were still in session.

Tuesday Night: We attended our church’s annual Thanksgiving dinner.  We were happy to go this year as we have missed it in years past due to being out of town.

Wednesday Night: We had our friends Raymond and Meghan over to play cards.   We always have fun with these dear friends and we are thankful for them.

Thursday: We spent Thanksgiving day with our friends the Sultzes at their house.  We arrived early and stayed late as we ate breakfast, lunch (snacks), and dinner with them.

Friday Night: Derek worked at California Pizza Kitchen while I went with some girlfriends to see Light Up Louisville downtown.

Our Christmas decorations are now up and we are looking forward to what the month of December will bring!

You can see pictures from some of our Thanksgiving Week activities by clicking on this link to our web album.

 

Pictureless Post

This past month our life has consisted of the weekly and daily regular activities.  We have been busy with the normality of life, hence the reason for lack in posts.  Here is what we have been up to the last month…

DEREK:

-Persevering through his 11 units of seminary work and loving every minute of it.

- Doing 2-3 jobs a week cleaning windows along with estimates and paperwork

- Working 3 shifts a week at California Pizza Kitchen

-Director of our Sunday School class which  included a last minute, unexpected teaching opportunity

-Serving in our church’s Men’s Ministry which included running the annual bonfire (also a last minute, unexpected responsibility)

-Last week he played drums in the worship band on Sunday night, which he loved.

AMY:

-Substitute teaching 3 days per week

-Taking a Seminary Wives Institute class at the seminary on Thursday nights

-Playing volleyball in a local women’s league on Monday nights

-Singing in the church choir

- Doing all my “wifie” activities of meal planning, cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc.

TOGETHER:

- We work in the one-year olds room in the nursery at church every Wednesday night

-About once a month, we visit a man in our church who is homebound and will turn 95 in December.

-We enjoy our Friday night pizza tradition and sometimes a movie along with it or we have friends over instead.

-We never miss watching “The Biggest Loser” each week, although sometimes we have to tape it and watch it later.

-We also enjoy our Sunday night tradition of making nachos when we get home from church and watching “The Amazing Race”

 

New England in the Fall

With my parents outside the front door of the house where we stayed

We just returned from spending 5 days in southern New England with my parents.  They had planned a trip to Rhode Island and invited us to join them over Derek’s fall break.  Our home base was in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.  We did a lot of driving to see as much as we could see in the short time we were there: Connecticut, Boston, Cape Cod, Newport, Concord, Lexington, and Block Island.  As always we wish we could have had more time there, but we are thankful we were able to spend the time that we did.

Click here to see the web album of our trip.

 

100th Post and halfway there…

This week marks the half-way point of Derek’s most challenging and busiest semester yet.  Derek is taking 11 graduate units at the seminary while also working two part time jobs.  He is involved in four regular ministries at our church, two of which he is in leadership.  He has definitely earned his Fall Break this week!

The following picture is of the books he has been assigned to read this semester.  He has already read 11 of them and has 8 more to go.  Not to mention all the tests and papers he has in addition to this unbelievable amount of reading.    He is still loving seminary and enjoys all of his reading; it is hard to believe he will be finished with his MDiv degree this coming May.

The following are some pictures from the BBQ Derek organized for our Church Fellowship Class this past Sunday afternoon:

Derek (the class' director) and Russ (the class' teacher)

16 families were able to come for the event

We were thankful for the beautiful Fall weather so we could BBQ outside at the park

 

Coach Brown

This past summer I had the opportunity to put on a volleyball camp for a local private school who was just starting a volleyball program for their middle schoolers.  The volleyball camp turned into my first official coaching position!  I have always wanted to coach volleyball ever since I finished college, but never had the time.  The season just finished and it was a lot of fun.  We did not get many wins, but the girls improved much over the season and all of the parents were very supportive.  I co-coached two 5th/6th grade teams and one 7th/8th grade team.  I enjoyed coaching even more than I thought I would.  I hope to have more opportunities to coach volleyball in the future.

Here are some pictures of the teams:

5th/6th grade Gold Team

5th/6th grade Blue Team

7th/8th grade team

 

Braden and Kayla are Married!

We recently returned from an extended weekend in Billings.  Our nephew Braden got married!  It was a joy to make the trip and partake in all the festivities.  Derek was one of the best men and he had a blast on the bachelor overnight camping trip.  We always have a wonderful time with our family in Montana, but there was a special sweetness to this trip which made it more difficult to return home this time around.  We are looking forward to seeing everyone again over Christmas!

Check out our web album!