Life Unexpected

After long and emotionally draining week, I was thankful to have the weekend. Friday, Nate and I decided to spend the day together after my early morning volleyball practice. I was too emotionally spent to really hold a meaningful conversation about the decisions we have to make in the weeks to come in regards to our adoption. I was encouraged by so many friends and family members who sent us texts, emails, and facebook messages saying they were praying for us. It's always comforting to know that we are not alone in the journey. Nate and I had the opportunity to spend the evening in DC Saturday night with our extended family for my Uncle's 75th birthday. I am always amazed at how quick time flies and just how many memories we have locked inside of our hearts from the years we have spent together as an extended family. We have created so many rich memories over the years, including spending countless summers at my uncle's beach house in Stone Harbor, NJ, driving to Je

It's been an extremely tough 24 hours. The past few weeks, it seems as though we continue to get more and more emails saying that the wait time has been increased for both referrals and travel times. We thought we had gotten the "not so awesome news" last week about the wait time between receiving a referral and bringing children home. And then we were hit with the tougher news yesterday. After talking with our social worker, we found out that basically they haven't seen any referrals (matches of children) that fall into what we are asking for, one under 12 months and one under 4 years of age. She told us that the sibling group referrals that they have seen are falling in the age range of 3-6 years of age. She said that we need to pray together and talk over whether it is more of a priority to adopt a "baby" or a "sibling group." It didn't help that I received the news about 30 minutes before boarding the bus for one of our biggest volle

This past week has been insanely busy. Last Friday I turned 32 and it was somewhat of a big weekend for me. I felt like 32 as somewhat old, even though every one assured me it really wasn't! I started my birthday early in the morning as Nate surprised me with a new Asus Tablet to blog with. I was so surprised and excited! I spent the weekend with 33 teenagers on our Annual Youth Group Fall Retreat. It was a great weekend, but left me exhausted at the end. My parents came up as soon as I got home, and we celebrated my birthday together. Then I went into a crazy week of youth ministry, volleyball, and sermon prep. I had been studying a passage for the sermon I preached today and found it extremely challenging and by the end of the week was spent. And that's when I got the not so great news. I had emailed our social worker, getting some clarification on our wait time again. She had told me earlier in the month that the referral time wait was going to be at least a year f