Pictures from our trip west

The truck packed to the gills. It was a fun time packing it. ugh

 My girl Grace :)

 Grace with Sean's back brace on.

 I tried to get pictures of all the state signs. I missed a few.

 Eeyore is always a good travel companion

 One of these trips I WILL stop at this museum. We decided we really couldn't stop since we had the cats in the car.

 Home Sweet Home.

 Our nasty carpets. Thank goodness we have a carpet cleaner.

Some fun stuff we've been doing

An October trip to the cabin in Idaho. We had fun, the nights were cold, but still fun!

 Blue Lake in Idaho

 Hiking in Green Canyon before Thanksgiving. It snowed, was beautiful then it all melted. The awesome part is, we live super close to the canyon so we can go wear out the dog before church so she doesn't tear up her crate.

 Snowshoeing in Logan Canyon. We got gift cards & Christmas money so we each got a pair. We've used them several times since then. I love it here.

Semester one

I forgot to talk about the other PhD student that I helped this summer. When we arrived, I went to talk to my professor & he said if I wanted to work, he could find me something to do. So I helped one of the other students by watering plants, taking soil samples, taking plant samples. Fun stuff. Not really, but it was worth the money :) And it allowed me to spend most of the day outside!
Classes started at the end of August. I've never felt so stupid in my LIFE! ugh. It was crazy. It's been at least 5 years since I took calculus, so my brain was not in the mood for math. Not only that, I've been sitting in front of a computer cutting & pasting for the last 4 years, not exactly the most mind taxing job in the world. My classes were open channel hydraulics, process dynamics, and environmental quality analysis. The analysis class was pretty good, since I have forgotten all chemical analysis that may need to be done on water or soil, all of which I will need to do for my project. The process dynamic class was a COMPLETE waste of my time.  It was stuff I've already covered in my other classes when I got my master's degree and I didn't learn anything new. nothing. hated it. My hydraulic class was the hardest one and I spent every week talking to the professor trying to understand what the heck was going on. But I did well in the class, so it ended okay. The entire time that I was in class I was also starting to work on some of the things for my project. I was buried in work. Luckily I wasn't doing anything with LTI, the company I worked for in Pittsburgh. I kept the job for a while to work "part time as needed" but have decided that I didn't need it anymore. Sean struggled to find a job and finally found one at the beginning of December. He took and passed the CNA exam and is now looking for a job in that field. The job he is working at now is a cooking job for people with eating disorders. He enjoys it but the pay isn't very much and it's only part time. but it's a job for now. So that catches me up for the last 6 months. life is busy but we love be out west. We are having so much fun!

it's been a while so I'll start with the trip West

I've been meaning to update this for MONTHS! ha, as you can see, it's been months and I'm just now getting around to it. So we left Pittsburgh the 1st of July. Or somewhere close to that. I have pictures somewhere. I'll have to add them later. We used ABC trucking to move our stuff which means we had to load it up ourselves. When the guy dropped the truck off he backed into the wires attached to our house and the truck was charged and I got seriously shocked. OUCH! anyway. he moved the trailer and we got to loading. I wasn't about to have issues stacking boxes to I went to Home Depot and we bought all the boxes. I wanted them to all fit together nicely, which they did when stacaked in our garage. I had all the books in small boxes and all the fluffy big stuff in the big boxes. Next time, I'm loading the damn trailer myself. I had boxes marked HEAVY for a reason, that meant they went on the bottom. The people that packed the truck didn't seem to realize that and just stacked stuff willy nilly. So when we got here stuff was smashed. I don't think anything was broken, but I think we were just lucky. We thought we had everything loaded in the truck and what was left would easily fit into our Pilot with the 2 cats. I was wrong. ugh. it was so frustrating. we had to go get another car carrier to go on top of the truck because we hadn't put enough stuff into the big truck. So instead of getting to Akron at noon like we wanted it was more like 5pm. o well. we got there eventually. We stayed over there then headed to Iowa to stay with DeAnn It took 2 days and the back of the truck was a disaster and stuff we really needed we couldn't get to because of the way I loaded it. We got to DeAnn's on the 3rd and stayed for the 4th and left on the 5th.

 I unloaded everything and repacked it. We also had our bikes on the back so we had to have everything available through the side doors. The cats traveled ok. They didn't like being shut up in the rooms while we were with family and in the hotels. Sean had to travel the entire time with his back in the brace. He had been semi-released from the Dr. so we could travel. Once we left DeAnn's it took us 2 days to get to Utah. There were 2 huge accidents on the way that slowed us down. One was a totally smashed RV. I hope they were okay. Sean was actually able to help drive the second part of the trip, so it seemed to go a lot faster. Once we got to Utah we stayed with a friend and on Tuesday morning went and got the keys for the apartment. We had the truck delivered and started unloading. With no help at all. No one from our church came except for 1 guy. thanks people. A friend of mine sent her husband over after she brought us dinner. And then our friends we stayed with brought some of their guys over. The first guy, Scott had a meeting to go to but before he left we managed to get the couch stuck in the hall. I do have pics of that to share, I'll post them later.

Then my friends husband and I were able to unstick it and get it into the living room where it belonged. We were actually contemplating chopping it in half. We were able to get all the furniture off the truck the first day & into the apartment. We got the bed set up and went to sleep. The second day our friends Audre & Jerry sent some of their guys over again to help us with the rest of the boxes. Then we realized that we didn't even have enough room in our place for everything. We had moved from a 1000 sq ft house with a shed & garage to 900 sq ft. Yeah, not gonna happen. So we need to get a storage shed, but that took about a week. So we lived with boxes piled all over the place until we could get them out. In the meantime we realized that the carpet was gross and the kitchen cabinets were not the best and the toilet was falling through the floor and we didn't have a shower head. sigh. so much for looking online & having friends look at a place for us while we are 3000 miles away. Luckily we have a Bissell and can clean the carpets once a week. they will probably be cleaner when we leave. The cats got settled and so did we. The ward (our church) is great (even if their skills for helping to unload a truck are suspect), and I've actually met several friends that are friends with people I know back east. Small world. Classes started at the end of August. And I'll have to write more about that later.

Roof project

We needed to fix the attic/roof vents for our buyers. As you can see the edges have broken off due to the heating and cooling. It was cheaper and quicker to do it ourselves. So I got all the stuff from the big box store and took it up to the roof. 

First I used the crowbar and pulled all the shingles and existing plastic vents off. The hardest part was getting the first shingles off, once I got them off it went pretty fast. Except for the whole rain thing. It started raining after I got the first 2 vents off. In order to make it so the water didn't get inside I had to put the new ones on right after I took the old ones off. 
 Here's what it looked like after I got all the pieces on.

I then had to cut the shingles into singles. 

Then  put them on the vents. 

Finished product. Not quite the right color. But I really don't care. Since Sean is still injured and not allowed to do anything I had to do this all by myself. It didn't take too long. Only about 4 hours. Probably would have been less if I would have had help. I probably could have waited until later in the week to get some help, but my anxiety was out of control wanting to get this done. So I just did it. One less thing to worry about. It was actually the last thing on the list that needed to be done for the buyers. whew. 

Anticipation and anxiety, all rolled into one

We sold our house!
The inspection went ok. The report came to us at 10pm, after I was asleep, but Sean woke me up anyway. So after I heard what they wanted fixed I freaked out and couldn't get back to sleep until 3am. And really, they only wanted some minor things fixed. Well, minor except for having the roof vents replaced. grrr. So I'll be working on those tomorrow. Everyone thinks I'm crazy because I plan on doing them myself, unless someone comes over to help. Which is really dumb because I've put on a few roofs before. Not the vents themselves, but it's not like they are hard. seriously easiest job I'll have to do. eh, whatever. I just need it to not rain while I have it torn apart before I put the new ones on. The appraiser was there today, hopefully he will allow us to sell it for the price we want and not knock it down a few thousand. We can't afford that. Either way, we'll be selling it, so I guess it really doesn't matter.

As for Sean, he's getting better. The bad part is, he feels he's getting better and is now seriously bored and itching to do stuff. And he's driving me crazy! We see the orthopedic doctor on July 1 and hopefully he will tell Sean he can start doing physical therapy and other stuff so he can stop going nuts.
We have a place to live in Logan finally. We were going to head to Idaho, then come back & find a place to live and leave our stuff in storage for a little while. But then we decided that might not work. So we looked at finding a place on line from 3000 miles away. It sucks! The good part is that I have friends in Logan that are willing to look at places for us so we didn't get sold a box of rocks :) Our biggest problems were that A) we currently have 2 cats and B) we want to get a dog once we are there. We didn't need a big place, 2 bedrooms would have been fine, but the whole animal thing took it to a whole other level. And my animals are cleaner than some peoples kids!! Anyway. We thought we had a line on a place and had a friends check it out, her first words were, "It's gross" lol, guess we aren't getting that house. And for $800 a month I would expect central air, there wasn't any. And then someone tried to scam us using a legit house from another website. some people. So finally we found a decent place fairly close to campus that doesn't mind pets. We have to pay extra for the pets but we'll survive. And we will be able to get a dog once we are there. The only down side was we had to pay for an extra 2 weeks rent because they couldn't legally "hold" the property for us. Which is weird because another property I talked to said if we paid $100 toward the deposit it would hold the place for us... hmmmm

We are leaving in 10 days. It's crazy. We need to get all of our stuff out of our storage place, and put it somewhere in the house. Luckily most of the stuff in the house now is in boxes. We also gave a bunch of stuff away, so we no longer have enough furniture to fill a 4 bedroom, it's only 2 now. Which is good, cause that means the truck will be cheaper.

My anxiety was on overdrive because of the fixes we needed to make before we leave and finding a place to live and now making sure everything gets packed in the right place, and, and , and, and. Can't wait to get to Logan and unpack!!

I'll post some pics of the move once it happens. Then I get to post all kinds of pics of fun things we will be doing once we get to Logan. I am so excited to get out there.

You would think we like to complicate things

Over Memorial Day weekend we headed to visit my sister in Akron. 2 hours away, no big deal, we'd be back before dark and Sean could go to work on Monday. It was not meant to be. After enjoying a beautiful day with the family, we played catch with the baseball and frisbee, even roasted some marshmallows. Then we decided to head over to this place called Virginia Kendall Ledges. Really cool, even has a bat cave. There is an easy trail down to the bottom, which is about 40 feet straight down if you are standing on the top ledge. There are also big rocks in the middle that could conceivably be used to jump on and make it to the bottom...."the easy way." Sean decided he wanted to take the easy way. It didn't end well. He got about half way down, went to jump onto a lower rock and slid off. Hit his head, may or may not have flipped (I say he didn't, but my sister says he did. Weird that we were standing right next to each other when we saw him fall). He managed to fall the last 10 feet in a sitting position, landing on his butt. And that's where things got really fun. My sister, along with at least 2 other people, called 911, and I took off down the trail to find him. When I got there he was in some serious pain and there was blood all over his head. We got the bleeding stopped and he was flat on his back and no one would let him move. Luckily he could feel and move his legs and arms. Then the park rangers came and the fire and rescue squad, he was carried out on a backboard. The trip up was not as quick as the one down. The rescue people were worried about his head and breathing. He was holding his breath because of the pain but they kept peppering him with questions. He said he really wanted to tell them to shut up :) Because he kept holding his breath to fight the pain they thought he was having trouble breathing and decided to med-evac him out of there. We gave everyone a Memorial Day to remember. I wasn't allowed on the helicopter so Candy drove me over to the hospital, then took Gregg and the kids home. By the time I got to him they had taken several x-rays and a CAT scan. He only had a minor concussion but did have a burst compression fracture in the L2 vertebra. They were going to admit him for observation for at least the night to make sure no pieces had broken off or anything else crazy was going on. Then they also told us that he couldn't leave without a fancy new back brace. Because of the holiday they could measure him for the brace on Monday, but wouldn't be able to make it until Tuesday. Sigh. So we got to spend 2 days in the hospital. I had been trying to figure out what to do since we were 2 hours from home but my sister only lives 5 minutes from the hospital. Then we found out that we would be there for 2 days, so I decided to drive home. Oh, yeah, and they cut all Sean's clothes off, so he needed some new ones to put on before he could even leave the hospital. He would have fit in Gregg's (brother in law) things, if I had decided to just stay, but now we didn't need to do that. So on my way home in the dark the bugs were awful! I haven't had to deal with bugs on the windshield like that in a long time. but that's beside the point. When I was about 5 miles from home the check engine light came on along with the 4wd light. Awww CRAP!!! I was hoping it was nothing. I got home safely and then the next morning I packed what we needed and headed out. And the check engine light was still on. sigh. I stopped and put some coolant in it, hoping the light would go off. no such luck. So then I turned around and went back home and switched cars. The other car is not nearly as comfortable for Sean, but it was all I had. I finally got back to Akron and went to see Sean. We were able to get in touch with a Bishop in Akron so the Elders in the area where able to come give him a blessing. Not sure how much he remembers, he was pretty out of it. I was actually there for about 4 hours and he slept the entire time. They gave him some serious drugs. He was flat on his back and they weren't giving him any solid food, he was on liquids for 2 days. On Tuesday he seemed a little more aware and they were telling us we would be out sometime in the afternoon. One of the gazillion doctors that came in decided that he could have his bed raised to 30 degrees and he could have some solid food for lunch. Then the guy with the brace came and the PT people wanted to make sure he could walk with it on. Once he did that we were allowed to go. He was detached from all the tubes, given a prescription for some more pain meds and wheeled out the door. Sean was able to get in the car, the truck would have been easier, but eh, we got home. Sean actually slept the majority of the trip since he took some pain pills before we left. I don't even want to think about the bills for this one. I was able to take the truck to the shop and they found out that one of the valves is leaking and it's going to be a major project to fix. sigh, just what we need. On a good note, we have another buyer that gave us a solid offer, so we should be able to leave by the end of the month. We should know for sure in 2 weeks how the wind is blowing on this one. Something has to go right for once!!

Twists and turns

It's so crazy how life takes you in certain directions, ones that you never saw coming. When I was a freshman at University of Maine, I started in the Civil Engineering department. Took calculus, got a D, took a materials class, couldn't stay awake...pretty much hated every minute of it. Didn't help that I was on my own for the first time in my life and the basketball team liked to party. So guess what I spent a lot of time doing. oh, yeah, party girl!! Ha, so we get new coaches, I think about coaching eventually, then one of the assistant coaches tell me I should look into teaching, since it would lead to coaching. Eh, okay, since I have no clue what I really want to do. I transfer, continue in the education curriculum, am bored outta my ever lovin' mind, but continue since I want to coach. At least I think I do. Then I get my first job, ugh, awful. But the coaching is awesome. Then I get my second job, better but not great, but the coaching is awesome. Then I get my third job, eh, not awful, but not what I really want to do, but the coaching is awesome. Then I decide to get my Master's degree, the first one. I get it in Ecology. I love the environment and I think this degree is going to help me get a job working in that area. it doesn't. It just gets me in debt with school loans. But eh, can't say I didn't try. So then I look to go back to teaching, gotta pay the bills. But as luck would have it, I get a coaching job. It was not all I thought it was going to be. I loved the players and the on court coaching, but when you don't have a good head coach, life is very difficult. And I met Sean when I was looking to leave and Division 1 coaching is NOT family friendly. It can be done but I wasn't willing to make that sacrifice, especially since I couldn't leave Pittsburgh. So I looked into teaching again. Can't say I didn't try to make it work. We moved to Virginia. Oh man, it was awesome. Living in Virginia, that is, not the teaching. It was the usual. I'm good at it, the administration love me, but oh man, I dreaded every day of it. I loved the coaching, but hated the day to day drudgery. My hat is off to all my teacher friends that love their job. It's definitely not for me. So while we were in Va, it finally clicked what I wanted to do. And wouldn't you know it, back to Civil Engineering. The crappy part was, I got my degree and couldn't find a job doing what I really wanted, which is working with storm water runoff, wetlands, stream restoration....any or all of the above. So I've been working at a job that does not take advantage of my brain and I'm bored. So now, I am going to be working on my PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Which I can now tailor to research what I want. So now I'm working with storm water runoff and looking at ways to fix the huge problem we have created because we pave over everything. It's funny how things come back around.

At least one answer

I know there is at least one person that isn't on facebook that reads this so, just an FYI.... Yesterday I got the official acceptance letter from Utah State University. We will be heading to Logan so I can work on my PhD in Civil/Environmental Engineering. They have a huge storm water project that I'm so excited to be working on. We have to be there by August 1, and still have to sell our house. This could get interesting. Now we at least have a destination, other than somewhere out west :) Sean is planning on working at a hospital or nursing home, we'll have to see what is available for him. He is still up in the air about school, but has plans to finish, we're just not sure when. We've had to postpone our departure date again, since the sale of the house fell through once already. We suspect that the guy was just looking for a reason to bail and when the inspection came back with an "old" air conditioner he took it and ran. jerk. So, we're still waiting. Hopefully the third time is the charm!! I'm really hoping we won't have to move before we sell it. We can't afford it. We've been looking at homes in Logan, kind of concentrating on townhomes, since we've jumped off the adoption boat. But since we want some more fur babies, we may have to look into something bigger. Who would have thought that townhome owners association would limit your pets. It's worse than a rental. oy. anyway. We'll see what we can find. In the meantime we'll be praying that we can find someone to buy our house in the burgh so we can leave!!

Holding Pattern

Once again we are in a holding pattern. I haven't written anything for a while because I was hoping to have something exciting to write. Nothing on all kinds of fronts. We put the house on the market in February and still haven't sold it. We have a buyer but he wants to wait until July to close. Uh, no thanks, we want to be able to buy a house where ever we end up before then. So we dropped the price, won't get our down payment back, but we'll be outta Pittsburgh. So, if anyone knows anyone moving here, wanting to buy a house, let me know! A few other things are in the works but won't find out anything solid until next week. This whole life in limbo thing is for the birds! I'm ready to move on....NOW! So that is the update, there isn't one :) 'Cause nothing is happening. Hopefully the next post will be pictures of the moving truck and us leaving! I can't wait.

Movin' on up.....in elevation, that is

Sean and I have decided to leave the sea level elevation for the mountains! FINALLY! ha. Things just seem to be going that way. We've decided to put any adoption plans on hold until we get to Idaho. Who knows maybe being out there will be a benefit. I've thought that one of the draw backs of us living in the burgh is that we were sooo far from all the kids we are interested in. So maybe if they don't have to travel 2000 miles we'll be higher up on the list for consideration. We can hope. So our plan is to be out of here by the end of April. Sooner if we can swing it, it'll depend on selling the house and maybe a new job. As of now I'll be able to continue working for the company I currently work for, since I can do my work on line. But I'm not sure how the distance will really impact what I do. So, we'll see on that. But we are moving and I am excited and can't wait to get outta here. It's been time to go for a long time!

Changes

After the complete disappointment over the kids in Oregon, we may be changing direction. We've continued to put our profile out there but there is no guarantee that we will get any children in the next 6 months or even year. Our original plan was to get kids, Sean to finish school, then move out west. Plans change. We'll let you know when we finally make up our mind :) Although things may change again when they call us about some kids....but I'm not holding my breath.

Update....1 step forward. 3 steps back

Tuesday was supposed to be the day we found out if we were going to get the kids.....we didn't find out. Last week we had talked to the case worker, which I wrote about. We found out that the hearing to terminate parental rights had been pushed back until April because the bio-dad was going to trial on related charges. His lawyer managed to motion the court to push back the hearing, even though all the other stuff that has happened to these kids is enough to terminate rights on their own. Yeah, some people are real pieces of work. The case worker, last week, said that they were going to move forward with the committee meeting and with placement since the risk was really low for the bio-parents to get these kids back. So we did our interview, answered all their questions and waited. Then we get an email on Tuesday, about noon, (9am Oregon time) that they had cancelled the meeting. LAST MINUTE! The case worker has decided to wait, and move a little slower since the rights won't be terminated right away. great, thanks for getting our hopes up. I could have waited to bring the kids home, it would not have been a big deal. just GIVE ME A F$&%#&#G ANSWER!!!! So, we move on. We'll keep them on our radar, but if something else comes up before they get their act together, well, we tried. 

Frustration

We talked to the case worker in Oregon last week. She asked a bazillion questions. Most of them pretty hard. For example: What will you do when all 4 of the kids melt down at once, and what about their special needs, how will you address each individually, and why do you want THESE kids specifically? ugh! we thought we had answered pretty well. Sean said a prayer before we even started and answers from us seemed to flow. thennnnn.......I got an email on saturday. Actually I read it on Sunday cause I always forget to read my email on the weekend, but something (someOne) told me to check. So I did. grrr, what the hell?! Now they want to know how far in debt we are and what we are doing about it and do we have money in savings for emergencies. And what are we planning on doing to attach with these kids. And how exactly am I going to be able to work from home and take care of the youngest child. And you were in therapy at one type, can you tell me why and if it helped...... The "what the hell" is because people can have biological kids everyday and no one asks them these questions. If they did I guess there wouldn't be any kids for us to adopt, but STILL!!!!! What parent knows when they have a kid how things are going to go? not a single damn one of them. They have ideas, just like we do, but I can pretty much guaran-damn-tee half or more won't work, and then we'll be back to square one and need to reassess the situation and try something else. Either way, we find out tomorrow. We'll see what happens. On another note, the courts out there were supposed to terminate parental rights last week but the bio-dad's lawyer motioned the court to wait until after his trial for sexual abuse was completed. Not that the kids haven't had to deal with all kinds of other stuff and that's low on the totem pole as to why the kids were pulled from the home, but anyway. The court granted the motion, so now the rights won't be terminated until April. We don't really know how this will impact us because we don't know where the other family that we are "competing" with is from. If they are from Oregon, it might tip things in their favor. sigh. tomorrow is going to be a long day!

Decision date

The date has been set. We talk to the independent council (lawyer??) tomorrow and then the decision will be made on Tuesday December 17th. So we will know in less than a week if we are getting our kids. Here's hoping.

Update

The latest on the kids we hope are our kids is that their case worker really likes us. We were supposed to find out right before Thanksgiving if we get them or not, but now that decision has been pushed back 2 weeks. :( The good part is, they really like us on their end. The caseworkers, that is. We are waiting from a call from the independent party that represents the family. I guess they want someone who will objective when they convene for their committee meeting to decide if the kids can be placed with us. Supposedly the call was to be done before the end of the month, but I'm not holding out much hope for that, since the end of the month is next Friday and Thanksgiving is in the middle of that. So, we wait. Our caseworker is trying to get a more definite time frame for when they will be contacting us, but she hasn't heard yet. The caseworker for the kids is hoping that a decision will be made mid-December. I'll believe it when I see/hear it. Once we get approval from their "committee" and then from each state, we will be able to contact the foster parents and the kids. Won't be able to bring them home until the end of January, but we will be able to contact them. I've stopped looking for new kids, I hope I'm not jinxing myself.

Good News

I knew it would be this week! I just knew it. ha, hoped is more like it. But it could still all go down the drain quickly. But, we have made the short list for a group of kids. Yes! Now we have to wait until right before Thanksgiving to see if they picked us. If they pick us we will then have to wait until after Christmas to go get them. They've been dealing with some stuff lately and their caseworker doesn't want to create more trauma by pulling them right before the holidays. So, I can get behind that. We are one step closer, and I only have 3 weeks to wait to see if we are closer to that finish line, or we are are back at the beginning. Here's hoping!

quilts

A friend sent me an email the other day and it had an article from the 2013 Ensign   (LDS church magazine) and one of things she pointed out was a way of thinking that I might just have to consider. She said "okay, done with that, what can I do next?" in regards to preparing for our kids to be home. Last Christmas I made quilt for my nieces and nephew. I had lots of flannel left over, not to mention the flannel from the PJ's I had made for the girls and for my nieces & nephews on the other side of the family. Needless to say, I had a LOT left over. So I decided to make some quilts. Right now, I have 2 strip quilts with all the panels done, and one that I have sewn the panels to the borders. My goal is to have them for our kids when they get home. So I guess I started thinking along those lines of "what can I do next?" a while ago, just didn't want to admit it. I'm really screwed if we end up with 4 boys instead of 2 boys & 2 girls. HA. Today is a good day, I'm totally optimistic that we will get an email from our caseworker this week. When Friday rolls around, we'll see how optimistic I am. here's hoping.

Foster kids

I've seen a lot the last week about the Florida boy Davion and his plea for a family. He's 15 and has been in the system for his whole life. And now there are 10,000 families interested in him. I am so happy that he will get his forever family. But I'm also frustrated. There are people like us that want kids, want them out of the foster care system, have our papers completed and our home study done, and are waiting......a long time. We are willing to take boys & girls, up to 6 siblings, and can't find our kids. We feel that we honestly cannot deal with kids that have serious mental and physical handicaps, but we feel we can deal with the PTSD and behavioral issues that these kids some with. There are LOTS of those kind of kids out there in the system and not many families willing to take on more than 1 or 2 kids. Which leads me to my comment that something is wrong with this system. There are over 100,000 kids in the foster care system any given day that are ready for adoption, and 300,000 that are there for a short stay until their parents get their lives back in order. So why can't we find our kids?! I totally understand the need to make sure the parents actually want the kids and aren't planning on abusing them or selling them. I get that, I seriously do.....BUT! I know one of the issues is just the vast number of kids and the "un-vast" number of case workers. They, like teachers, do not get paid enough for what they do, and there aren't enough of them. I also know that some of the problem is the laws in each individual state. For example, in Ohio the state favors bio-parents and they get chance after chance after chance to screw up. Meanwhile the kids are in foster care for 7 or 8 or more years while their parents will never get their act together. Those kids deserve a real, stable, family. One thing I like about PA is that they have a law that bio-parents have a set number of months to show improvement or their rights are terminated. (it's slightly more complicated than that, but that's the just of it) Those kids don't languish in foster care for years, the people in government understand that there are just some times when the parents aren't going to be fixed and the best thing for the kids is to sever ties. And the number of kids in foster care in PA is half what it is in Ohio and there are more people in PA. Kinda backwards, ain't it? I guess all the little issues everywhere combine to make one big cluster storm. (name that movie :) Meanwhile we wait. And our kids wait, cause I know they are out there somewhere, I think we've seen them, we just can't have them yet. sigh.

Same stuff different day

Obviously, since I haven't posted since August, nothing exciting is going on in our lives. The girls started back to school. Abby is in 8th grade and Sabrina is a junior. Yikes!! Totally crazy. And within a month they will each be another year older. I'm feeling old, let me tell ya! On the adoption deal we haven't had much success. Actually 2 weeks ago we got the "thanks for your interest, but your family doesn't fit the needs of these children," email. And we got it 4 times. It's worse than a job rejection email. So we are still waiting. waiting. waiting. Have I ever said I'm not patient? like not at all. moving on. We got another call back from a worker about some kids we were interested in earlier this year. I thought the case worker had found another family for them, since we haven't heard anything since July, maybe August. They called our case worker yesterday. This whole process has really had a negative impact on my excitement response. I'm not excited that they called. I can't seem to work up the energy so that I can get shot down....again. So, we wait. I don't think I'll be getting excited until I'm on the plane or in the car to go pick up my kids. I'll let you know when that happens.