And our new lives begin!

The flight is booked, the hotel is (finally!) booked, and the bags are packed, ready to go!!  We will meet Baby J at 10am on Monday in Seoul, which is 8pm Sunday night back here.  It's really here, we're really going, and he's really going to be ours!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I probably won't be on the computer much while we're there, but I will try to give a couple of updates throughout our stay.  My heart is pounding...I think it's finally sinking in.  :-)

TRAVEL CALL!!!!

We are going to Korea!!!  We will be back home next week with our baby J!!!  I don't know what else to write, other than that we are deliriously happy, excited, and, oh yeah, nervous.  We're gonna be parents!!  Wow, we're gonna be parents.  Ho-ly cow.

Could it really be?!?!

So I broke down and called the State Department today, even though I wasn't going to, since last Friday they had no news for me.  The reason I decided to call was because someone from our agency who has a referral at the end of October (ours was October 2) had called and received some good news, so I thought, what the heck, the worst I could get would be another negative.  Anyway, I called and waited 24 minutes listening to that ringing phone (nope, they don't even play elevator music!).  Finally, a woman with a very heavy accent answered the phone and looked up our paperwork and informed me that our son would have his interview on May 18 at 1pm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  So that actually took place May 17 and 11pm our time!!!  I had to ask her to repeat herself because I wasn't sure what I was hearing; I was thinking she had to be wrong, but she said it again for me and mentioned how cute my baby is...as if I didn't know that already!!!!!!!  So we could be traveling soon, soon, soon!  I am totally freaking out and need to make sure I have everything packed.  I will probably go through it all again, knowing me.  I. cannot. wait. to finally get on that plane...it's about dang time!!!  YIPPEE!!

Ugh...another weekend

Call me naive, but I really thought we were going to receive our travel call today.  And now that we haven't, I feel completely depressed.  We have to wait through another weekend before anything can happen...who knew I would come to absolutely hate weekends!?  Because there's no possibility of news on the weekend.  I have actually come to anticipate Mondays because the agency is open and it's the beginning of another week where we could hear something.  This weekend is also because it feels like we are starting to wait longer than a few others before us and people after us seem to be catching up; not that I wouldn't love to meet them on our trip over there, but why isn't J's paperwork going through?  Why haven't we gotten the call yet?  I am starting to get nervous that something's wrong; logically, I know I should not think this way, but I can't help it.  I was also hoping we would get some birthday pictures, but after receiving pictures for a few months in a row (which was great!), we didn't get anything from his big day.  :(  I know we'll probably get them when we travel to get him, but I feel like I'm floating down a stream without anything to anchor me or steer with.  I have no control over any of this, which I hate, and what if we get lost in the system?  I'm a hands-on person and like to be able to stay on top of things, but with this, I have to trust others to do everything for me.  And I've heard enough stories that that trust is not quite there 100%.  I know these people do this all the time, but mistakes can be made...I mean, they're only human, right?  This weekend I am going to try to let go of all of it and have a good time with Chris; maybe it will be our last weekend together at home with just the two of us?  Here's hoping...

13 months old

Our son is 13 months old today.  Wouldn't it be a great gift to get that coveted travel call to celebrate?!?!  Keep praying!!

An aunt once again!

My newest nephew was born this morning!!  Yes, my parent's three girls have now given them four grandsons within a 2 1/2 year span...we're going for a basketball team!  ha!!  New mama and baby are doing well.  Congratulations, big sis.  Happy belated Mother's Day!

Trees, trees, and more trees!

Chris and I spent this past weekend up at our land and, as the title of this post suggest, we had a lot going on with our trees. We Chris cut down a large tree at the edge of our clearing so that we can now get the truck and pop-up circled around without having to do a lot of back and forth maneuvering to get the camper straightened out. We're so excited about this because it's going to make getting the camper set up that much easier!! And as he was getting the tree chopped up into pieces, I was hauling it into the woods and dumping it away from our campsite. Talk about a workout!

this is the tree we had to cut down. It was tall!  Chris is there at the base, getting ready to make his first cut.

That sucker was supposed to fall completely the other way, but it was so windy this day that it was just going to go whichever way it wanted...and it came straight at me!!! I was hoping to get video of it falling, but as soon as I saw the top coming my way, I stopped looking and ran!! It ended up falling across our driveway. Good thing we'd moved the truck before cutting the tree. :)

Chris got it cut up and I had it cleared away so we could get the truck back up to the clearing.

Chris got to use a "toy", this bobcat, to move some gravel we had delivered. We used the gravel to expand the clearing and shore up thin spots along the drive. You can't tell from this picture, but he had a huge grin on his face the whole time he was using this.

This is a picture of 100 white pine trees that we bought from the DNR to plant on our land. We actually got about 50 of them planted. The sun was out both days and really fried me...no, I have no pictures and even if I did, would not show them, but believe me, I'm red!!

This is Jason's tree, that we planted in a perfect spot and marked with pink marking tape on a tent stake, so that we can show him in the years to come that this one was planted just for him. Grow, baby, grow!

Finally, one more tree story...this one includes a black bear. Yep, Chris (and I) finally got to see a bear up near our land. He has wanted to see one since we bought the property a few years ago. This guy was trying to get across a road about a mile from our place and we couldn't believe what we were seeing. I'm so glad I had the camera in the front of the truck and could get to it in time before we passed him. He had run back to the edge of the woods when the car ahead of us passed him and we were able to slow down enough to get a good picture of him standing by the tree at the side of the road.

He was so cute, but I'm also saying that from the relative safety of the confines of the truck! I think I would have very different thoughts if he had come walking up to our campsite!!!