Great visits...

We've taken our official third road trip since coming home with the new additions. We went and visited some lovely friends that we hadn't seen in awhile and got to meet their two new additions. We had a wonderful time with them, Thank you Scoda's for your warm hospitality and of course, your friendship. I got to meet a new cyber friend as well. It was nice to "meet" you Holly and see your lovely family in real life. :)

We "camped" out in our travel trailer at a lake there. Our trailer was made to sleep 10, and we have filled that capacity. Okay, sleep 10 it can. (Dr. Seuss there) But what about those times when it is not time to sleep yet and you have 10 people (four of which are 5 yrs old and under) just hanging out. They don't put that in the fancy colored brochure. Notice that there are only about four people in the nice brochure. There's a reason for that. I'm starting to rethink this camping idea. :)

While there the three oldest and I also got to go to a small Toby Mac concert. It was really cool and affordable. I really like him. I was the mom in the balcony dancing and singing all the while her kids are shrinking away. Except for Lee, she stayed and sang with me. :) Love that girl!

On the way back home we got to do something else that was really cool. We had arranged to meet up with some new friends. Julia advocated for Vitaly that helped raise his grant money to the $5,000 that we needed in order to adopt him. It was wonderful to meet with her, her husband and their youngest boy who also was recently adopted from Ukraine. How nice it was to thank them in person. And they got to meet the little man for whom they were shouting from the rooftops for. Good deal all around.

Aaron, Julia, and Vitaly. Thanks Julia!

Oh, and she loved on Alina too. :)

If Julia wouldn't have advocated for Vitaly, he might still be over there. Alone. Since we are Christians, we know that she did not act of her own accord, but that she was following the leading of the Holy Spirit, so we give our ultimate thanks to God. Thanks to her obedience though, we were ready to obey when called to bring Tolly home too. God has awesome plans! He is the Master Weaver of intricate details. WOW, just thinking about how things transpired still shocks me, for lack of a better word.

Short story: We were hoping to go and get Alina in Feb 2011 but the process took longer than I had expected and things seemed to be dragging. ( We had known some adoptions to go thru in just a few months) Until we got the call that we were to be there in late May. Looking back I can see now that Vitaly's grant fund would not have been there had we gone in Feb like I wanted. Or even in March, etc. God placed His hand on everything at the right time so that the money was THERE when we needed it. Thank you Lord!