A lot has been happening lately

I know it's been about three weeks since I last posted, and my apologies for those of you who are following us. Thing have been pretty hectic here.

First, Chris got really sick. We thought at first that it was just a cold turned into a sinus infection. But after a trip to Urgent Care and a trip to our doctor's office a few days later, we found he actually had the respiratory flu and pneumonia. Although it was too late for Tamaflu for Chris, the doctor put me and Nick on it as a preventative meaure. Poor Chris was sick for almost two weeks. He is better, but it will take him some time to not be exhausted at the end of the day.

Then work got really busy for me so that I was working several nights from home. My role is changing at work and there are some growing pains with the changes. One of my new responsibilities is being the proposal manager for our office. At the start of these changes, we had a couple of major proposals that required some long hours on my behalf. However, it felt good to be given this higher responsibility and get these accomplished.

So, because of the long hours and flu being in our house, I am now sick. I'm no where near as bad as Chris, but still feeling quite blah!.

Between all this, a few exciting things have happened. Chris got nominated for employee of the year at the hospital. Thursday night was the dinner to recognize the nominees, and Chris was one of 25 people who got employee of the year! I'm so proud of him.

On Monday, we finally hit the "Order" button for our portfolios. We kept reviewing the portfolio over and over, and we were so nervous as this book is basically showing us, our life, and how we will raise a child should we be selected by birth parents. We ordered five of them, as the adoption agency needs four, and we wanted an extra one of us and our family.  They should arrive sometime this week.

On Thursday, we had our final meeting with the adoption agency, and we signed our home study. The home study is done, and we are officially approved to be adoptive parents!!! Yea and whew! What a process, but we are done. Once we turn in our portfolio, we will be available for selection by birth parents. It is so exciting!

So now the hard part... the wait. Unforunately, we have no idea when we will be selected.  Although it will be difficult, one thing we will keep in our minds and hearts is that it is all in God's timing. That being said, there may be extended periods of time when we are not posting anything on the blog or site. One of things that our case workers emphasize is to maintain our normal lifes. Go on vacations, go camping, continue doing the things we normally would. So we will. If we didn't, we would go crazy during the wait.

In the meantime, we ask all our friends and family to continue to pray for patience and hope for us.

We've also updated our "For Birth Parents" link on the site. Here we posted our letter that is in our portfolio.

A Few Good Things for the Week

A few good things happened this week that I just have to proclaim. First, I won an iPad 2 from the cleaning company we use! Woo hoo! I was so excited because I've been wanting a tablet for quite a while. I originally asked for one for Christmas, but had decided that I'd really like a new digital camera (which my wonderful hubby got me). I'm enjoying my tablet and finding all sorts of uses for it!

Second, we found out that Chris got nominated for employee of the year at the hospital! Another woo hoo! I'm so proud of him. I don't think he realizes how great he is at his job and so many people benefit from what he does.  The hospital is hosting an appreciation / award dinner for the nominees later this month, so it's time for me to get a new dress, right? ;)

Third, Chris finished our "Dear Birth Parents" letter for our adoption portfolio. He did an awesome job portraying us so realistically. I was so moved reading it. We will now take a final look at the portfolio and letter, have our caseworkers review it, then submit everything for printing. It feels so good to be finishing these steps toward our adoption.

Fourth, I was given the opportunity this past week to manage the efforts for a $150K proposal effort at work. We turned it in this afternoon on time and I had such a sense of accomplishment being able to fully manage the effort. I felt I gained some trust from some of the engineers as I was even asked to contact subcontractors and get quotes from them for their services on the contract. It felt good to get "Thank yous" from the engineers who were on the proposal team.

I hope you were able to have some good experiences this week. We started a "Good Things" jar. Every time something good happens, we write it down on a slip of paper and put it in the jar. On New Year's eve, we'll go through the slips of paper and remember everything good that happened during the past year. Maybe that's something you can try, too.