Back from Blogging Hiatus!

We are officially back from our blogging hiatus. After Big Bad Wednesday, we pretty much dropped off the radar for a spell. We realized we just needed to get out of town for a change of scenery. We needed get away from being in our home over Christmas with no girlies with whom to share it. Very last minute, we decided to load up the car (including the dog!) and drive 17 hours to Colorado for Christmas with Davis' family. We ended up having an absolutely great time. It was so fun to share a white Christmas holiday with the whole clan. The girls were even lucky enough to have presents under the family Christmas tree! We got to spend lots of time with our niece and nephew who are way too cute. They have tons of energy so this was good "parent practice". Davis did LOTS of building with Legos (he successfully helped put together the Star Wars X Wing Fighter) and I did lots of coloring! We also got to experience how fast germs spread within a family (also good parenting prep!) when almost the entire family got the flu - starting on Christmas day of course. Good times were had by all. I somehow managed to escape the Christmas barf-o-rama but picked up some nasty bug a few days later after a day of skiing in minus 6 degree weather. Let me just say that there is NOTHING fun about doing ANYTHING in minus 6 degrees. I made it a half day on the slopes and then chose hot cocoa in the lodge over frostbite. I still walked away with the quite the cold though. Hence, my lack of blogging lately. I am only now able to actually breathe through my nostrils. Once again - good times. Other highlights from our Rocky Mountain holiday adventure included some killer after-Christmas shopping. It's a great time to be adopting because everything seems to be on sale right now. Check out the princess dresses and the rainbow rocker jeans from Lucky. I never realized how much fun shopping for girls' clothes (x2) was going to be! I also love not paying full price. We ended our Colorado trip with a family dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant. This was the first time eating Ethiopian food for many in the family. It was a really fun night. Davis tried Ethiopian beer and we all tried some really spicy cottage cheese that was very different from anything I had ever tasted. Our four year old niece declared that she "loved it all" when asked which type of food she liked best. She must be Ethiopian at heart!

On our drive home we detoured through Death Valley National Park. Death Valley was unexpectedly lovely and we really enjoyed our time in the Badlands even if National Parks are ridiculously unfriendly to canine citizens. A few other highlights from the last few weeks included getting another Gladney update with some cute pics and some pics/video from Rebecca and Ben who just returned with their son, Eli. They delivered our first care package. The video of Little Miss J that they sent was precious. She was sleeping when they arrived so they covered her with the blanket we had sent and put our little gifts next to her. She looked like Sleeping Beauty. It was neat to see her touching something I had touched (and prayed over). It made her seem more real to me for some reason. Our other blog friends Christina and Jeremy are in Ethiopia now and they too were kind enough to take some goodies to the ladies for us. We look forward to a few more pics from them in the next few weeks.

We are now less than a month from court date # 2. We are feeling really good about this one and can already see how God is working. We've also had some encouraging news from Gladney that sounds like the necessary pieces are all coming together. To bide my time, I have become way too excited about finding kids' stuff on Craigslist. There is SO MUCH STUFF on there for SO CHEAP. My "Mother Lode Score" this week was BAGS of Melissa and Doug wooden food (including a sushi set!) for a fraction of what just one or two sets would have cost full price. That was cool. The food will help to stock the big pink kitchen in the playroom. I also scored a Fisher Price grocery store. It has a talking cash register that I will probably want to take a hammer to a some point but the girls will love it.

So - we are surviving this season of waiting - again. We are learning to trust God more and thank Him for His faithfulness even in the midst of trials. I feel like I have learned a lot. More on that in my next post.