Fun Weekend at Camp Barakel!

I had a great weekend at Camp Barakel this past weekend.  Went with two great friends, Jamie and Vicki, for our 3rd annual yearly getaway.  Our previous getaway that we've gone to was not scheduled in Michigan this year, so we regrouped and did a Barakel ladies retreat instead.  A few pictures...

If you look very closely in that last picture, Jamie and Vicki are coming down those crazy zip-lines!  I was safely on the ground that time around.  It wasn't until later in the day that, sanity temporarily laid aside, I also braved the tower!


It was some very fun girl time and Barakel, as usual, was a place to be blessed!  I think our most unexpected blessing was a surprise friendship with another lady in our cabin who took us all on as adopted daughters!  Her name was Mary and she was so sweet and caring toward all of us.  It think she blessed us as much as we did her when we welcomed her into our group on and off through the weekend.  I'll post a picture with her if I can get it off of Jamie's phone.

Waiting Room

I'm back finally!  It's been forever since I've posted anything, so we'll see if I can catch up with some things in the next few days.  First off, I thought I'd share this song called "Waiting Room" by Jonny Diaz.  The video below shows the lyrics as the song plays.  We found this song last month just days after we decided it was best not to accept our first match off of the waiting children list.  A new list came out last week....no match for us this month.  So we are, as the song says, still in the waiting room.  If obsessing could make it happen faster, we'd have had our little girl years ago.  ;)

"though I'm convinced that a yes would be best, this time you're telling me no...."

Welcome to Toadtown!!

The girls and I got this great idea recently to put a Frog Village in our landscaping.  What started as a simple idea for a few flower pots turned sideways and a couple of froggy decorations quickly turned into an entire town of froggy fun! 


From the pots turned sideways (Toad Cottages of course) to the swimming pool in the middle, to the bridge that takes you over to "Camp-phibian" for all those "Hoppy Campers" - it's a complete Toad Town!  We just keep getting more and more ideas of things we could add.  Unfortunately by the time we actually got the thing set up, fall is upon us!  So it won't be long and we'll have to bring it in for the winter and then pull it back out come spring.  But we certainly tested our amphibious creativity coming up with funny additions to our town! 

And yes, that is a clothesline you see in the back right! That is of course the froggy laundry at Camp-phibian.  Grace is responsible for that.  It's complete with clothing that she cut out of fabric scraps!  (Humorous also that the clothing was made stiff when I sprayed it with the clear coat laquer!)

As our froggy flag says - Peace Out Frogs....

Welcome!

As my picture above says, Welcome! I'm glad you've visited my blog!  This is a little project I finished today.  Call it Anti-Procrastination Day I guess!  Or perhaps it's Anti-Procrastination Week as I try very hard to tie up loose ends before school starts for the year.  This was one loose end.  I had some things I had gotten through Upper Case Living that I needed to make into finished projects.  This is my simple welcome sign that I started and completed within 30 minutes, and happily hung above our back sliding door.  Thought it would be good to post it here to say Welcome!

The beginning of a blog...

Everything new has to start somewhere, so I'm starting!  I decided to start a blog after seeing so many others that journal the lives of families and their changes along the way.  So I'm giving this a go to give myself a place to journal, to give family and friends a place to stay up on what's new with us, and to try this out as a way to document our long, long adoption journey. 

Currently we stay busy with life at home and we wait for daughter number three - hence the "china caboose" name on the blog.  We have been waiting for three and a half years for our China adoption.  For three years and five months we were waiting only through the non-special needs China program.  We have now been on the list for a "Waiting Child" for one month.  We received a match on July 20, but chose not to move forward with that particular file.  We trust God has just the right one for us in just the right timing.  So we wait.