This past weekend our family was together for 3 full days celebrating my parent's 50 years together. They rented a wonderful retreat place in their town. We had 56 acres and the lake to ourselves. My brother Jim (the one in yellow), his wife and grandson flew in from Alabama for this occasion. It isn't very often that the four siblings and my parents are together at the same time. We were missing one granddaughter who stayed behind in Alabama and a great grandson that living in Germany. This retreat place used to belong to the bishop of St. Cloud. The place was so cool and old. The three women who brought the place after the bishop died, did a wonderful job in restoring it. Each of the rooms had special arifacts in it. There was so many nooks and crannies and plenty big for all of us to stay in and have plently of room and space. My parents actually anniversery was on the 2nd of July and their party was the 3rd of July. Some of the highlights (and there are many), my parents saw a wedding party member for the first time since the wedding, what a surprise that was. Jade painted a portait of my parents (see picture below), Jade sang my parents during the party. She sang the Star Spangled, a song from Phantom and Opera and her state winning song "Angels in the city", the kids (5 kids ranging 5-7 years old) did wonderful. The big long slip and slide and it keeps going. My parents have always worked on showing us how to have a successful marriage, that it is a tag team, it takes work, and it can be very rewarding. I truly believe that because of their wonderful morals and values and belief in God has made me the person I am today and for that I am grateful for. It was very peaceful there and even had a chapel there that you could kneel and pray to along with stations of the cross on a path way.
The "big" kids (cousins Stephanie and Cassie) painted my girls faces. Jenny wanted to be a cat
Katie has a butterfly
Monika also a butterfly
Jade's painting she made for my parents.
Saturday as we are setting up for the party, a beautiful multiple spotted ladybug landed on my sisters shoulder. My sister is traveling with us, so she got my attention and showed it to me. The last couple of times that there was a ladybug siting, we got good news and this time it didn't fail us. God has been working hard with us with bringing Erin home. He has shown us signs over and over again and this time was no different. Today I received an email and also got a letter in the mail stating our NVC notification was completed on July 1, 2010 3 days after the Provisional Approval. It usually takes a week to do. This now means that on US side we are good and that it being sent to China on Thursday. So we are still on the track to traveling around the first week in August. We have been praying hard on the funding issue, we believe that God will provide for us, we just don't know how yet and we are looking at different ways. As I was composing a letter to the grant organizations tonight to let them know about our circumstances and the speed we are traveling, I get an email that we got a 1000 dollar donation on our chip in. This was such a wonderful surprise. This person is someone I have met thru internet, we are both in the process of adopting our children from China. We are running on the same pace so we will probably travel together. This donation meant a lot to us (all donations do), because this family is also adopting and having to have the funds, so for them to donate that large amount of money meant a lot to us. Like I said earlier, God will provide us as he has the magic plan for us. We continue to be a ways away from all the funds, but not as far behind as we were when we woke up this morning. We are pretty much done with fund raising events before going to get Erin, I don't know if we have enough time to try to do a fundraiser and get ready for Erin. God continues to surprise us daily whether it is a big noticable thing or a quiet subtle ways.
This past weekend our family was together for 3 full days celebrating my parent's 50 years together. They rented a wonderful retreat place in their town. We had 56 acres and the lake to ourselves. My brother Jim (the one in yellow), his wife and grandson flew in from Alabama for this occasion. It isn't very often that the four siblings and my parents are together at the same time. We were missing one granddaughter who stayed behind in Alabama and a great grandson that living in Germany. This retreat place used to belong to the bishop of St. Cloud. The place was so cool and old. The three women who brought the place after the bishop died, did a wonderful job in restoring it. Each of the rooms had special arifacts in it. There was so many nooks and crannies and plenty big for all of us to stay in and have plently of room and space. My parents actually anniversery was on the 2nd of July and their party was the 3rd of July. Some of the highlights (and there are many), my parents saw a wedding party member for the first time since the wedding, what a surprise that was. Jade painted a portait of my parents (see picture below), Jade sang my parents during the party. She sang the Star Spangled, a song from Phantom and Opera and her state winning song "Angels in the city", the kids (5 kids ranging 5-7 years old) did wonderful. The big long slip and slide and it keeps going. My parents have always worked on showing us how to have a successful marriage, that it is a tag team, it takes work, and it can be very rewarding. I truly believe that because of their wonderful morals and values and belief in God has made me the person I am today and for that I am grateful for. It was very peaceful there and even had a chapel there that you could kneel and pray to along with stations of the cross on a path way.
The "big" kids (cousins Stephanie and Cassie) painted my girls faces. Jenny wanted to be a cat
Katie has a butterfly
Monika also a butterfly
Jade's painting she made for my parents.
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