Vibram Five Fingers

For those who have been hiding under a rock... just kidding

Here is a link for Men's VFF Bikila

http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/products/Five-Fingers-Bikila-Mens.htm

Here is a link for Women's VFF Bikila

http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/products/Five-Fingers-Bikila-Womens.htm

Balance In All Things

I must apologize for my long absence and complete lack of updates over the past 1 1/2 months. My focus has been on supporting my husband in Ranger School, caring for our busy boys, and getting myself and my son ready for school to start. I know the importance of maintaining balance in all areas of my life and I admit, I have done far from that!

We have officially been on the waiting list for almost 2 months now and we have not as of yet heard anything. Our agency case worker, Patty, estimated our wait to receive a referral for a child could be anywhere from 3 to 9 months. While that sounds like a reasonable amount of time, it feels like years to me! We have been working on our adoption since January 2010 so we have already been over 1 1/2 years in the process. That being said, I firmly believe that God will bring us to our precious daughter when the time is right. He guided us to search for her in Ethiopia and now we must wait with faith and patience.

In the mean time, we must endeavor to raise the remaining money we need to fund our adoption to bring our daughter home! Remember, it costs almost $30,000 and we are $12,000 short. Hopefully by now most of our friends and family know, I am running in the Rock 'n' Roll Savannah marathon in November. As uncomfortable as it is for me to do this, I am asking friends and family to pledge a set dollar amount (or cents - whatever you can afford in this fantastic economy) for every mile that I complete of the marathon.

As a little incentive, for every $20 that you pledge and eventually donate when I dominate the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon, I will enter your name into the raffle for a brand new pair of Vibram Five Finger Bikilas! The only question now is... can I pledge money and enter myself to win the shoes?? No? Are you sure?? ... Oh shucks, those are some awesome shoes! Guess you had better make a pledge if you want a shot at them for yourself!

As Time Passes...

Hours melt into days ... days puddle into weeks ... weeks turn into blurry months. Now I have a small glimpse of how my husband must have felt while I was gone for a year on deployment. Has it really been a year that I have been back now? Yet I find myself without my husband again as he conquers school after school of good 'ole Army training. First it was Infantry Basic Officer Leader Course or IBOLC. Now, he drudges through the swamps of Florida in the third and final phase of Ranger School.

He began Ranger School on June 26th and he successfully passed both the Darby Phase and Mountain Phase the first go-around. I am infinitely proud of him as he has endured the unimaginable strain of Ranger training with little to no sleep and the delicious feel of MREs in his stomach. After tearing something in his shoulder during Darby phase he decided to keep it hidden and drive on so that he would not be kicked out. He also had a massive abscess on his arm which he poked with a needle to drain the festering cream-cheesy puss while he was on an Field Training Exercise in the mountains of northern Georgia. I consider myself to be pretty tough as a Non Commissioned Officer in the Army and a certified Modern Army Combatives Instructor, but there is no way I would ever be able to do the things he is doing in Ranger School. I salute you, 1LT Kohler, not because I have to but because you deserve it, you have earned it.

If he continues to do well and be blessed by God in his efforts to pass Swamp Phase the first time he will be graduating on August 26th. Hooah!!

Adoption T-Shirts

For anyone looking for the adoption t-shirts... they are cataloged under the month of May in a post entitled: Fundraiser T-Shirts. I will try and make it easier to find tomorrow, but right now it is midnight and my bed is calling me. Have a great night!

Little Updates

Our dossier has officially arrived to its destination in Ethiopia. It will now undergo the process of translation to Amharic, which my case worker tells me can take up to 3 weeks. This is not a big deal because she does not suspect that we will receive a referral for at least 3 months. I have seen some wait periods of other families from other agencies as long as 13 months! We have been assured that a wait period of that length for our agency would be unusual because they don't have the massive numbers of waiting families that larger agencies do. I sincerely hope and pray that our waiting period will be nowhere near that long as we have already been working on this for 16 1/2 months. For those who are willing, we would love if you would keep our family and our future Ethiopian children in your prayers as we wait to be united with them.

On a bright note, some of the amazing and wonderful women of the Army FRG (Family Readiness Group) for Alpha Co. IBOLC have been so kind and supportive of us and our adoption. They purchased a number of adoption fundraiser shirts today, which more than doubled our t-shirt sales. Thank you, Ladies!!

Men's Shirts and a View of Amharic

This is a picture of the receipt we received from the Embassy of Ethiopia. I just thought it was neat because it has both English and Amharic - the most commonly used language in Ethiopia.

I made this shirt for my brother, Austin.

This shirt belongs to Matt. He preferred the white over the gold spray. The shirts I have access to for men are either white, gray, or black with either white, gold, or blue spray. I realize there isn't a huge demand for men's shirts but I thought I would post these in the event that someone wants one. Just let me know! Thanks again to all those who have shown us support by purchasing one of our adoption t-shirts.

Dossier Arrived - sort of

Well, friends and family, our dossier has arrived to the FedEx location at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia but it says that there is a "delivery exception" with details stating a future delivery date was requested. I have no idea what that means but I am hoping it won't effect the safe arrival of our dossier at its destination. It does say that it has an estimated delivery date of tomorrow by 6pm. I suppose I will just have to wait until tomorrow to see how things turned out.