OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED: Getting Ready

OUR PLANS MULTIPLIED

In the beginning, JD adamantly only wanted two children. I thought that four would be perfect. Once we caught God's vision of putting orphans into families, our plan was multiplied by God. We are currently blessed with 12 children; five biological, six adopted and one more waiting in Ethiopia. Our first adoption was from the U.S., the next three were from Liberia, West Africa, and our last two were from Ethiopia. We are supporting our 12th child in Ethiopia after her adoption could not pass court.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Getting Ready

I have every day before we leave for Ethiopia, next Friday, chalked full. Most of it is just life related, more than Africa related, but it is a rather demanding schedule. Strangely, I am home alone this morning because JD took all the boys to a museum that they have been wanting to visit before Gabriel's departure and Alyssa went to another museum the opposite direction with her Classical Conversations class. To spice things up, JD's nephew is coming into town tonight and my brother is arriving at my sister's tomorrow and our house on Sunday. Beyond that, Monday is Moriah's birthday and Gabriel's LAST night at home. He leaves for Boot Camp on Tuesday!! Other than all that, traveling for an adoption absolutely requires me to deep clean the house before I leave; I have always taken that nesting idea very seriously. Yesterday, my friend's daughter came and helped for the day and we got the majority of the basement done. Today I am moving upstairs and trying to conquer most of it. In reality, the cleaning isn't going to be nearly as deep as I hoped, but it will be to a level that I can cope with.

JD is busy building the chimney that is for the wood stove in the basement. We may actually be able to use it this year, although the stone looks like a big job! He has to complete the chimney coming through the porch before the flooring and ceiling of the porch can be completed. We also have a friend's son finishing the barn painting that we did about five years ago and never completed.

JD brought home two little love-seats for our future seating area around the wood stove that I had to work into the down-stairs yesterday. Someday the pool table will move to the game-room, but I'm afraid that that may still be a few years away.

In addition to my cleaning, organizing and packing, I still have about 65 pounds of apples that have to be turned into applesauce. I have only done one double session resulting in eight quart jars. I also have to tighten Julia's locs, which is probably a good four hour job.

It is all good and I am so excited that we are barely a week away from bringing our little girls home. We have gotten approval to make the trip out to see Brooke also, so that is extra exciting. It will be so fun to see Brooke's reaction to meeting two of her three big sisters!