What's Happening In Beachyville?

Auction Week

2011-03-22T13:58:00.006-04:00

It's auction week in Beachyville. This auction is for Daudy and Grandma Beachy's personal items. Come on out this Saturday at 9:30...and bring your checkbook.

Christmas Letter

2011-01-16T14:28:00.005-05:00

Obviously this is a few weeks late, but here is the Christmas letter that I typed up last month...

Dear Family & Friends,

I (Matt) will attempt to give you a brief glimpse into what we have been up to this past year. Once again it has been a busy year and to mix it up we decided to add another boy to the house…

In January of this year my nephew Isaiah moved in with us and began attending Westview Jr. High. Isaiah turned 13 in May and is currently in the 8th grade at Westview. He is a great student and is enjoying going to Westview (who wouldn’t?). Having him living here has been an adjustment for all of us. Isaiah doesn’t have any siblings so having three “little brothers” was a whole new experience, and for us we made the leap from kindergartener to teenager almost overnight. You can definitely see a difference in how Isaiah interacts with the boys now versus when he first moved here. Of course, he and Brennan can fight like brothers too.

Brennan turned six this past June and is in the 1st grade at Meadowview Elementary. He is currently obsessed with all things Star Wars and spends a lot of time playing with anything that remotely resembles a light saber. This fall he played soccer in the West End league in Shipshewana. Despite the fact that his coach (me) didn’t know what he was doing, he really enjoyed playing. Recently he lost his first two teeth.

Sawyer turned three in October. He likes to make us work for his happiness. He’s got a heavy dose of stubborn in him. I’m told it is revenge for how I was as a child (my apologies to my parents). Recently we seem to be seeing more frequent signs of hope with him. He can be so cute and funny during those times. Now if we can just get him convinced to go pee and poop in the potty. We did manage to get rid of his pacifiers when they magically “broke” on his third birthday. He recovered from that loss pretty quickly.

Jeremiah turned two this month. He’s talking quite a bit and has developed a bit of his own stubborn streak. He’s still cute and cuddly though! Of our three boys, he is the closest I’ve gotten to having a daddy’s boy. He can often be seen carrying his blanky around and/or sticking his thumb in his mouth. That thumb habit will probably be a bit harder to break than Sawyer’s pacifier addiction.

Monica is still teaching Title 1 (working with groups of kids on reading) at York Elementary. This is her 3rd year at York. She teaches in the morning and gets home around noon each day. I’m still working as the controller at Honeyville Metal. I’ve been there over six years now. When Monica and I are at work, Sawyer and Jeremiah are with their babysitter Linda. This is Linda’s 7th school year taking care of our boys. We’re very fortunate to have her taking care of the boys!

There have been some pretty big changes in the Beachyville subdivision this past year. In June my Dawdy Beachy passed away. It was pretty sudden so it has been an adjustment not having him around. After that, my mom and dad decided to move Grandma Beachy from the nursing home into their house. We get over there quite a bit to see Grandma. Jeremiah loves to give Grandma her water cup and tell her to drink. Grandma’s health has declined quite a bit. Because I work so close to home, I’m on call when mom or whoever else is staying with Grandma needs some extra help moving her around.

At the end of June, Monica and I went on an amazing vacation to San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua with our friends JB & Carla and Ben & Jen. It was great! We stayed in a house right on the Pacific Ocean. We did a lot of relaxing, sitting and staring at the ocean, reading, lounging in the pool, and eating. Sign me up for that vacation again!

We hope all of you are doing well. Merry Christmas!

Matt, Monica, Isaiah, Brennan, Sawyer, and Jeremiah

As I mentioned in the letter, Grandma's health was deteriorating and after Christmas she declined rapidly and passed away on 12/31/2010. It's an adjustment not having her around but she was ready to go and lived a long life. My mom posted a great tribute to Grandma on her blog.

Our family with Grandma on Christmas Eve

Jeremiah watching Grandma Barbara's video with her. They had a special bond.

Happy Birthday Isaiah!

2010-05-11T10:53:00.005-04:00

As of today, we have a teenager in the house. Isaiah is now 13 years old. I got up this morning and surprised him with bacon, eggs, sourdough toast, and one of the world's best donuts from Rise 'n Roll for breakfast. I think he was pretty pleased. Now I need the rain to stop so I can grill pork burgers tonight.

Sawyer had to get in on the donut action this morning too.

Geothermal & Ice Cream

2010-04-29T21:51:00.007-04:00

OK so I've been doing a poor job of actually documenting what is happening in Beachyville. This having 4 boys thing is keeping us busy. Here's a little update of a few things going on.

Geothermal

Two years ago I had looked into converting my heating system to geothermal but the payoff just seemed to take to long. Thanks the the federal tax credits for energy efficiency and the energy efficiency rebates available through the state of Indiana, the payback on a system conversion is much more appealing so I'm "going green". We're going to have a closed loop system with the ClimateMaster TMW Water-to-Water geothermal unit.

For the closed loop, we're having a horizontal loop put in, which means they'll be burying pipes in the ground between 3' and 6' below the surface in about 350' of trench. Since we're in the woods, that means we need to clear some space so that they can put the loop in. This actually works in our favor because we've been wanting to add onto the yard so we can move the swing set over closer to the deck. The last couple days have been spent cutting trees down and burning brush. Sawyer and Brennan really got in to working out there with us.

Here's a few shots of the action...

Ice Cream Run

Did anybody else see that Dairy Queen commercial with the family who ran through the car wash to get in their car and chase down the DQ truck? Well, we saw it Sunday night around 7:00 and saw that Sunday was the last day you could buy one blizzard and get the 2nd one for $0.25. Being the spontaneous folks that we are (speaking sarcastically), we threw the kids in the van and headed for DQ. We went through the drive through, ate in the van, and then drove back home. It was a good time and the boys loved it.

Funny Brennan Story

2010-03-10T11:05:00.002-05:00

Brennan has been wanting to act "older" lately and last night he told me that he wanted to wake up and get ready for school by himself. I didn't think much about it at the time. Well this morning all of a sudden Brennan was standing beside our bed and he proudly told us that he was ready for school. He had gone potty, brushed teeth, ate his breakfast, and put on the clothes we had laid out for school today. There was only 1 minor problem....it was 4:00 AM! After we told him that he still needed to sleep for a few more hours, he hopped into bed with us. Just as he was drifting off to sleep he pointed at the ceiling and frantically said "there are bugs in the house, there are bugs in the house". Either he has amazing night vision or he was just pointing at the green light on the smoke detector.

For a little further explanation, Brennan's desire to act "older" is because he wants to be like his older cousin Isaiah who is 12. For those who don't know, Isaiah (my sister's son) moved in with us in the middle of January and is in the 7th grade. Since then Brennan has tried to grow up quickly so he can do things like Isaiah does. Thus, he woke up this morning to get himself ready for school all by himself. If only he could tell time like Isaiah can.

Oh Christmas Tree

2009-12-09T23:54:00.006-05:00

First of all, sorry for the no posting slump I've been in lately. It's too the point where I feel like I need a home run post to break out of the slump, but I've given up on that and I'm hoping a bloop single over the second baseman's head can help me end the slump. OK, on to the actual post...

The last few years we've been putting up my parents "fake" Christmas tree. This year I was dreading the process because it turns me into a scrooge every time. You have to take every piece and spread apart the branches and I was sick of it. I decided it may be time to venture out and go get a real, live Christmas tree.

So, last Saturday we bundled up and headed to Wilfong's to find and cut down our own tree. It went pretty well. We may have started a tradition. We walked around a bit trying to find the "perfect" tree but at some point you just get really cold, the kids start fussing, and you need to cut down a tree and get out of there. I'm not sure we found the perfect tree but it looks pretty good. We got an 8' tall Douglas Fir. The other kinds had looked pretty good but they were twice as much money.

Here are a few pictures of the adventure.

Jeremiah turns 1 on Friday so that should give me enough motivation to put together another post. Maybe it will be a double in the gap. Jeremiah isn't walking yet but he's likes to stand up beside anything he can grab ahold of. He's managed to find the kitchen cabinets.

Upon further review, based on the number of pictures I've included in this post, I feel like it at least qualifies as a hard ground ball through the infield. Forget this bloop single stuff.

Kindergarten

2009-08-18T22:27:00.004-04:00

Today was Brennan's first day of Kindergarten!

We all (minus Jeremiah who was still in bed) walked out to the end of the drive this morning and waited with Brennan for the bus to pick him up.

When the bus pulled up to our driveway, Brennan walked right up to the bus and hopped on. The bus driver told him to turn around so his mom could take a picture. Brennan gave a quick turn, said "cheese", and headed for a seat. And then he was gone...

When he got home in the afternoon he said that riding the bus was his favorite part of kindergarten. I think he enjoyed a few other things too, but he wasn't too impressed with nap time. Kids just don't understand how great that concept is. Who wouldn't love a designated 30 minute time period to lay down and rest in the middle of the day?

Sawyer wants to go to kindergarten too but sadly he's got 4 more years until he can join Brennan on the bus.

Here are a few Jeremiah pictures taken over the last few weeks. He continues to do really well. He's such a happy, laid back little guy. Plus he's ridiculously cute in my biased opinion.

I had to include this picture of him in his Bears onesie for his little buddy Silas B.

Monica and her three boys.

Random - the Goodyear blimp flew right over our house today. Not sure where it was going.

Trip - Days 5 & 6

2009-08-04T21:49:00.012-04:00

OK, sorry for the long delay in posting...

Day 5 - Sunday

Sunday morning we ate breakfast with the Ralph’s and then left for church around 10:00. We went to their local MKC (Meserete Kristos Church) congregation. They don’t attend there regularly because the service is in Amharic (can't say I blame them). The service starts at 10:00 but the first 30 - 45 minutes is people filtering in and kneeling or sitting at their bench to pray. They are vocal prayers! I guess it was good to experience the service but after awhile I was ready for the service to be over. After church we went back to the Ralph’s for lunch and then packed our stuff up and Jim drove us to the Union Hotel. The Ralph's were SO great to us! Hosting us for those first couple days was a huge blessing to us.

The Union Hotel

Here are a few pictures of our room.

This bed may as well have been a sheet of plywood with a sheet on it. I'm sure there are some Room 106 alumni out there who can attest to this.

We were glad to see we had a crib in our room.

After we got checked in, we started looking at our window to try to see Hannah’s Hope ("HH"). We couldn’t see it from our balcony but when we went up to the 2nd and 3rd floors we were able to easily see HH.

I convinced Monica that we needed to walk over there. It was so close, how could we not? We agreed that we wouldn’t knock on the door because we didn’t want to mess up their schedule by showing up a day early. We could hear the older kids playing inside and at one point a ball came over the wall and I threw it back over. We took our pictures by the gate to HH and then headed back to the hotel.

When we got back to the hotel, we saw an American in the lobby. We weren’t expecting anyone from the AGCI travel group until later that evening, but I asked her if she was there with AGCI. Her and her husband were there with Holt International, an adoption agency that has an orphanage next door to the hotel. There were 4 couples at the Union adopting through Holt. They invited us to go out for pizza with them Sunday night at the Addis Ababa Golf Club. It was fun hanging out with them and getting to know them a bit. After we got back from supper, it was time to get to bed and get ready for the big day. I took some sleeping pills just to make sure I’d get plenty of rest.

Day 6 - Monday (Gotcha Day)

Monday morning we went down for breakfast and that’s when we got to meet the AGCI families in our travel group. There were 8 families in our group. It was good to meet some of the people who I had gotten to know through blogs and emails. There were a few mystery families in our group who kept themselves hidden from blog land. We had a great group!

Around 9:00 or a little after Almaz showed up and we went over a few things and worked on the I-600 and I-864 forms. We also placed our coffee order at that time. I ordered 10 kilos which is somewhere around 22 lbs and it only cost 600 birr ($55).

After we got through that stuff it was time to the real walk. Only one family in our group was getting an older child, the rest of us were getting infants. We all got to see Jason & Kala meet their son who is 4 years old. It was a very special moment. He ran right up to them and was hugging them and was so excited to see them. If you didn't tear up a bit watching that, something is wrong. Kala said later that meeting him went better than she could have ever dreamed.

After that we went inside the main building where the babies were. One of the first babies I saw when were standing inside the front door was Troy & Amber's little boy Silas. We still haven't met Troy and Amber but we've exchanged a lot of emails so it was great to see their son.

We waited while a few other families met their children. Then Almaz took us to where Bemnet was. He was sleeping in his crib so we just looked at him for a bit. He was napping in courdory pants and a long sleeve onesie. As if that wasn't enough to keep him warm, he was wrapped up in a thick blanket plus he had a comforter on top of him. Oh and they had an electric space heater running in the room. It was by no means cold outside either. No wonder they give those kids 2 baths a day.

Here's Monica getting her first peek at our little guy.

After a while one of his special moms came and woke him up and handed him to Monica. What a great moment!

Here's a picture of a few proud and happy parents.

After spending some time holding Bemnet and seeing the other families and their children, we had to get ready for our appointment at the US Embassy. We went to the hotel, got our stuff, came back to HH, got Bemnet, and got on the bus for the Embassy. I think we left around noon for the Embassy and our appointments were at 1:00. The actual appointment at the Embassy was very simple. After all our families were done, we loaded back up on the bus and headed back to the hotel.

On the bus ride to and from the embassy and while we were there, Bemnet was such a trooper. He just took it all in and was happy and content the whole time. Back at the hotel Monica was showing him pictures of his brother and he would get excited and laugh when she said "brothers" or "Brennan and Sawyer".

That evening I took a few of the guys over to the golf club to get a few pizzas. The plan was for us to get extra so that we could leave some in the fridge in our room for later. Unfortunately the power was out most of the next day. It got pretty warm in the fridge. Had I been at home, I may have eaten it but I didn’t want to risk getting sick on this trip.

If you didn't see it before, here's a link to the blog entry I posted from Ethiopia after that first day with Jeremiah Bemnet.

Misc. Picture Update

2009-07-07T22:46:00.006-04:00

Our friends, Gavin & Amy loaned us their exersaucer for Jeremiah to use. He always wants to stand up and after awhile our arms get tired so this thing is great. He's really enjoyed hanging out in it.

Sawyer likes hanging out around the exersaucer and trying to play with whatever Jeremiah is playing with. Brothers...

Jeremiah keeps finding this really cute kid to look at on the exersaucer.

This is what happens when you watch too much baseball instead of putting your son to bed.

At the beginning of June, Brennan learned to ride bike without training wheels. He's been pedaling like crazy ever since. He loves it! He's been on several "long" bike rides since he learned (2+ miles). He has to take some breaks on the longer rides to look back and see how far he's gone.

Sawyer enjoys the bouncy seat more than Jeremiah does. He's always crawling in the thing. He thinks he's pretty funny. Hopefully it can last at least a few more months.

Sawyer has been a full fledged mama's boy since we've come back from Ethiopia. This picture shows one of the happy moments but there are plenty of annoying "mommy hold you" comments that Sawyer makes along with other whining and screaming when mommy is holding Jeremiah or needing to do something else. This too shall pass...I hope.

We live in the woods and we've got a pretty good crop of wild raspberries right now at various spots in the woods. We've been out picking a few evenings over the last week. Tonight we were all out picking. Sawyer eats them as fast as he can pick them. It's pretty funny. There are a couple good shots of him, post raspberry eating.

Trip - Days 3 & 4

2009-07-01T23:15:00.005-04:00

Day 3 - Friday

I finally woke up around the time they were serving breakfast on our flight. We landed right about on schedule. Thanks to all the travelers who have gone before us we knew right where to go for our Visas. We were only the 2nd or 3rd people in the visa line and we got through that very quickly. Then through customs, and then we got our luggage. There were plenty of luggage carts available. We didn’t witness all the baggage helpers who we’ve heard would be trying to help us get our luggage for a price. I think the fact that we were arriving in the morning and weren’t on a flight originating in the US meant less guys hanging around trying to get tips. We were able to easily get our bags off the carousel and onto the luggage carts. From there we got in the line to have our luggage scanned. A kind gentleman pulled us over into the empty line, scanned one of our storage tubs and then let us through.

We walked out and right away spotted the Ralphs waiting there for us. They were amazed at how quickly we had made it through everything (visa, customs, security, etc.). Everything just went really well for us. We traveled back to the Ralphs in their Camry and a taxi. We visited with the them until lunch time and Jim made me my first cup of Ethiopian coffee. It was great! After lunch we laid down for a short nap that turned into a 2-½ hour nap because Monica turned the alarm clock off.

The Ralphs

Friday evening is their pizza/movie night so Jim, Zack, and I went to get pizza. We ate pizza and watched two episodes of Perfect Strangers on DVD. It was pretty funny to flashback to a show from that long ago. After that we sat around talking until our eyes couldn’t stay open much longer. We went to bed around 10:30 and slept until 7:30 in the morning.

Day 4 - Saturday

We ate breakfast at the Ralph’s and then ventured out to see the city. First we drove over to find the Union Hotel so we’d know where to go Sunday. We found that pretty easily. It was a little weird knowing that our son was only a few blocks away. We even saw the famous path that families walk on to go to Hannah’s Hope. After we had spotted the Union, we went to find the bridge where Jeremiah was found. All we had was the name of the sub-city and the name of the bridge. We were able to find it remarkably easily and I got some video clips from the area. Unfortunately I had forgotten to put the battery back in our camera. I felt like an idiot! Thankfully we can capture still images from our video camera.

After spending a little time at the bridge, we went to a restaurant for lunch. They served mostly American and Mexican food. At this point of the trip I was gung ho about eating Ethiopian food so I was a little disappointed that there wasn't any on the menu but by the end of the week when we went out to eat with the Ralphs again, I was very happy to go back to this restaurant. After lunch we went shopping. It was a little overwhelming trying to figure out what to purchase. After walking in and out of many shops we started buying some stuff. We got clothing for each of the boys and for ourselves as well as some coffee mugs and a coffee set and some various other items. We knew we’d get another chance to shop with our travel group later so we didn't have quite as much pressure. It turned out that we came back to the same spot.

We made a short stop at a grocery store where Jim and I ordered macchiatos (#2 for me on the day) while Monica and Anna got a few groceries. After that we went back their house to drop things off before heading to supper. We decided to go to a traditional Ethiopian restaurant for supper. I loved it! I really enjoyed the food, especially the dora wat. After we finished eating we had a cup of coffee. I even made Monica take a sip. On the way back we drove past the Sheraton hotel. It is huge! We were going to go in and see it but security wasn’t letting anyone in. So, we headed back to the Ralph’s to call it an evening.

Rare sight of Monica drinking coffee

Trip - Days 1 & 2

2009-06-30T23:54:00.008-04:00

Day 1 Wednesday

We left home on Wednesday around noon. A friend from church, Merlin Miller, drove us to the airport. We got to O'Hare airport in Chicago with plenty of time to spare. We were able to bypass the regular check-in line because of the "unusual" size of the two storage tubs we were checking in. Note for future travelers, we used the 25 gallon Rubbermaid Roughneck tubs. Technically I think they're a few inches over the L + W + H limit but I'm pretty sure the weight is the only thing they check unless the size is obviously too big. We were able to watch the TSA guys send the tubs through the scanner and then they fastened the zip ties. We then made our way to the gate and had a few hours to kill. After a some anxious waiting, we finally boarded and took off for London on time at 6:00 PM.

We flew on United Airlines from Chicago to London. This flight had the TV's in the seatback right in front of you. Those are great because you can pick what movie you want to watch or you can flip to the flight tracker and see where you are at on the flight path. Another note for travelers, take your own headphones along. The ones the airlines provide you aren't good, as Monica can attest to. The first movie I watched was Taken. Good stuff! After watching a movie and eating supper I started realizing that I better get some sleep or I'd be in trouble the next day.

Day 2 Thursday

Neither of us got a lot of sleep on the flight over, maybe 4 hours +/-. We got into London at 8:00 AM London time which was 2:00 AM at home. After we got through customs, we took the Heathrow Express train into central London. For the rest of the day we took a combination of the Original Red Tour Bus and the Tube (subway) around London. It was sort of like one big final date before we added Jeremiah to our family.

We saw most of the big highlights in London; Big Ben, House of Parliament, Buckingham Palace (we caught a bit of the changing of the guard), and a whole bunch of other things. We also ate two of the staple meals in London. I had fish and chips at a pub. I guess what Monica had would be chicken sandwich and chips. We also had afternoon tea with a scones.

Big Ben

Changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace

Fish & Chips

Chicken & Chips

By early afternoon I was starting to hit the wall. We ended up walking around in Hyde Park for awhile. We found this really cool tree that (see picture below). After walking around awhile, we then decided it was time to head back to Heathrow. When we got back to the airport we went over to Terminal 4 and made a reservation at the Yotel for the layover on our way back home. Then we went to Terminal 3 to check-in for our Ethiopian Airlines flight to Addis Ababa.

Funny Tree

Standing under Funny Tree

We had a mini-scare when we checked in at the Ethiopian Airlines counter. They only allow one carry-on plus a personal bag and the carry-on can't be more than 15 lbs. We each had a duffel bag and a backpack. Somehow my backpack was ok because I had a laptop in it, thus it was deemed a laptop bag. Monica's backpack, while smaller and weighing less than mine, wasn't ok because it didn't have a laptop. Make sense? The woman at the ticket counter thought we would have better luck if Monica's stuff was in a purse rather than a backpack. So we had to do a little rearranging because they weigh your carry-ons when you enter the boarding area. We managed to spread the contents of Monica's backpack between our two carry-on duffel bags, Monica's purse, and my pants. It's a good thing I wore Cargo pants! I don't think my pants would have fit under the 15 lb weight limit if they had weighed them separately. The pockets were stuffed with snacks, a digital camera, and a video camera. I felt fairly stupid (and like my pants were going to fall down)!

Fortunately when we went through the boarding area they didn't say anything about Monica's purse or my backpack. They only weighed our two duffel bags and those both were ok. PTL! The same woman who had given us our tickets when we checked in was the one who let us through the boarding area. Fortunately she was very nice to us. While we were waiting to board the flight, I spotted another couple around our age that was on our flight and I told Monica I thought they were going to Ethiopia to adopt too. More on that couple later...

When we boarded the plane, we hit the jackpot and discovered we were assigned to the exit row. Sweet! We're talking serious leg room people. I fell asleep and never even found out when we took off. Monica woke me later when they were coming around for supper. After supper I went back to sleep and slept right through the stop we made in Rome. Evidently the stewardesses came around when we had landed in Rome and was very insistent that everyone unbuckle their seat belts while they were refueling. Monica managed to unbuckle mine without waking me and then buckled me back in at take-off. Thank you dear!

Update

2009-06-07T23:30:00.003-04:00

We've been home for just over two weeks now. It feels longer than that. Having three boys all under the age of 5 has proven to be a lot of work. Shocking revelation I know. I'm sure that will all change this week when Brennan turns five. Fortunately, Jeremiah is a pretty laid back, happy baby. It's the combination of having a baby in the house and two other boys that is wearing us out. More specifically, Sawyer is a handful. I love that little guy but he is a strong willed, stubborn little stinker.

Sawyer's adjusting fairly well to having a new baby brother but he's only 20 months old. You can't expect too much at that age. He has had a lot of changes thrown at him the last few weeks. Most importantly, mommy isn't always available when he "needs" her. Brennan loves his new baby brother and is adjusting very well to having a new baby brother.

So far Jeremiah has been taking it pretty easy on us. Somehow he managed to get his nights figured out right away. He generally goes to bed around 8:00, wakes up once during the night for a bottle, and then goes back to sleep until about 7:00. He also seems to be attaching fairly well, especially to mommy. He does fine with me, but if Monica is right there when I'm holding him he'll often fuss a bit to get over to mommy. I took off work Wednesday afternoon to stay with him while Monica went somewhere and it went pretty well.

We spotted a few uninvited visitors to Beachyville recently.

Monica spotted three of these little guys playing near our swing set a week ago. Yesterday Monica saw one of them again but that's all we've seen of them. Hopefully they can work on the rabbit population in our woods. We have more rabbits than we need hopping around our yard and in the woods.

Someday I will post more about our trip...

Home!

2009-05-24T09:22:00.002-04:00

We got home Saturday around 3:00. It's great to be home! More later...

Almost Home

2009-05-22T18:02:00.003-04:00

Only one more flight to go to get home. We're overnighting in London right now. We fly out at 7:30 in the morning on a direct flight to Chicago. We're ready to get home. Monica and Jeremiah are asleep beside me on the bed. Tomorrow night we'll be in our own bed with all 3 of our boys in the same house!

We left Addis Ababa around noon Ethiopian time. We got seats in the bulkhead row which meant we got one of the bassinets. That was great. Jeremiah continues to amaze us with his personality. He barely fussed the whole flight. Most of the time he was either sleeping or just hanging out checking out what was going on.

Alright, I should get some sleep...sorry no pictures I'm too tired.

Still Here

2009-05-20T17:56:00.001-04:00

We're still here! Sorry for not blogging more. I've heard rumors
that my sister is complaining about my lack of blogging. Keep in mind
that there's no wi-fi in our rooms here. You have to go to the
computer in the lobby and "hope" that they can actually get the
dial-up connection to go through. Even as I type this, I'm not sure
I'll actually be able to post this (It's working!)

Jeremiah Bemnet is doing great! He is such a good baby. He almost
never fusses and is usually very content. Not to mention the fact
that he is stinking cute. To keep the audience happy, I'll try to
include some pictures in the post.

Tomorrow we're going to try and tour the Fistula hospital as well as
possibly visit a government orphanage. In the evening, we'll get to
see the family who hosted us our first few days in Ethiopia. Tomorrow
is our last full day here. We called home today and got to talk to
the boys. We're ready to be home and have our family all together.

We heard that a few families back in the states got some great news
today. We are rejoicing with you in Ethiopia!

Today It Really Happened

2009-05-18T14:09:00.000-04:00

I typed this a few hours ago but the internet wasn't working until now...

What an amazing day! OUR SON is sleeping on the bed right now. We
met the rest of our travel group this morning at breakfast and we all
anxiously awaited the arrival of Almaz. Once Almaz arrived we went
over some paperwork and then it was time to take "the walk". Because
we got to the hotel on Sunday afternoon, we had already taken a
practice walk the day before. Hannah's Hope really is very close to
the hotel. When we took our practice walk on Sunday we were able to
resist the temptation to knock on the gate. We just took a few
pictures, tossed back a ball that came over the wall, and went back to
the hotel.

Anyway, we took the real walk this morning with our group. We have 8
families in our travel group. Only one family was getting an older
child, the rest infants. We all got to see them meet their son who is
4 years old. It was a very special moment. He ran right to them and
was hugging them and was so excited to see them. If you didn't tear
up a bit watching that, something is wrong. The mom said later that
meeting him went better than she could have ever dreamed.

After that we went inside the building where the babies were. We
waited while a few other families met their babies. Then Almaz took
us to where Bemnet was. He was sleeping in his crib so we just looked
at him for a bit. After a while one of the special moms came and woke
him up and handed him to Monica.

Ever since we got him, he has been AMAZING!!! He could not have
possibly been any better so far. He's been happy and content the
entire time we've had him. If he's half this content and happy
normally we are going to be sitting pretty. Earlier I got a video of
Monica showing him Brennan and Sawyer's picture and saying their
names. Each time she would say "Brennan and Sawyer" or "brothers" and
point at their pictures, he would get all giggly.

It has been an amazing day! We are so incredibly blessed. Thank you
for all your prayers and support.

Saturday

2009-05-16T16:34:00.001-04:00

We had a good day today (Saturday) in Addis. After getting about 10
hours of sleep and some breakfast, we headed out with our hosts to
find the Union Hotel so we'd know where to go Sunday. We found that
pretty easily. It was a little crazy knowing that our son was only a
few blocks away. I had actually seen the sign pointing towards All
God's Children so I knew we were close before I spotted the Union
hotel. I think we even saw the famous path that families take on "the
walk" to go to Hannah's Hope to meet their children. After we had
spotted the Union, we went to find a spot that's very meaningful to
Jeremiah's story. We found the spot pretty easily and spent a little
time there.

From that point, we went to a restaurant for lunch. They served
mostly American and Mexican food. After lunch we went shopping. It
was a little overwhelming trying to figure out what to purchase.
After walking in and out of many shops we started buying some stuff.
We got clothing for each of the boys and for ourselves as well as some
coffee mugs and a few various other items. We'll get another chance
to shop with our travel group later so we can figure out what we still
need to purchase.

After a short stop at a grocery store, where I was able to get a
macchiato (#2 for the day), we went back to the house to drop things
off before heading to supper. We decided to go to a traditional
Ethiopian restaurant for supper. I loved it! The food was great,
especially the dora wat. After we finished eating we had a cup of
coffee. On the way back we drove past the Sheraton hotel. It is
huge. We were going to go in and see it but security wasn't letting
anyone in. So, we headed back to relax for the rest of the evening.

Tomorrow we'll go to a MKC church service, eat lunch with our hosts,
and then sometime in the afternoon/evening we'll head over and
check-in at the Union Hotel. Maybe we'll take a practice walk up the
path...

For all the coffee lovers out there, the stuff over here is awesome!

That's all for now

We're in Ethiopia!

2009-05-15T02:43:00.001-04:00

We're in Ethiopia! We got in this morning at 8:00. Everything on our
flights and went well. We didn't get much sleep on our way to London
so by yesterday afternoon we were hitting the wall. We pushed our way
through and didn't sleep until we got on the plane last night. I
slept most of the way to Ethiopia. We got through the visa line and
security just fine. Our hosts were there ready for us and we're
relaxing in their living room right now. I'll write/post more later
but just wanted to send a quick update.

It's Time!

2009-05-13T11:48:00.003-04:00

First of all, we got some great news yesterday. JB & Carla finally have a court date (June 4th).

In a few minutes we'll be leaving for the airport. I think we've got everything packed. I discovered that you shouldn't trust your bathroom scales when weighing your luggage. I'll try to post as much as I can during the trip.

London & Addis Ababa, here we come!

Test with picture

2009-05-11T14:15:00.002-04:00

Just testing out my ability to post pictures to the blog via email. This is Brennan when he was a "little" guy. He was a chubby little guy.

Free up baby room....Check!

2009-05-08T22:48:00.003-04:00

Tonight Brennan and Sawyer are sleeping in the same room. We've been needing to get Sawyer moved into Brennan's room so Jeremiah can have the baby room when we get back. We setup the bunk/loft on Wednesday and Brennan has been enjoying sleeping on the top. Sawyer is too young to use the bottom bunk so we borrowed a crib (thank you JB & Carla) and put it under the top bunk. Sawyer went to bed in his "new" crib without any problems. The night is still young but so far the transition seems to be a success.

Purchase Tickets....Check!

2009-05-04T13:02:00.006-04:00

All right, the tickets have been purchased! We're leaving on Wednesday evening out of Chicago and flying to London. We get into London in the morning and we have about a 12 hour layover so we're going to take the tube into town and see Big Ben and Parliament (hopefully not as many times as Chevy Chase did).

After a day in London we'll catch a 9:00 PM flight on Ethiopian Airlines that will make a brief stop in Rome and then head on to Addis Ababa. I think we get in around 8:00 AM on Friday.

We'll spend Friday, Saturday, and Sunday experiencing Ethiopia with an amazingly generous family from Pennsylvania that is living in Addis right now. Using some connections at church, we've managed to Mennonite Our Way all the way to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We're very excited for the opportunity to spend a few days seeing Addis before we meet Jeremiah. Hopefully we'll get somewhat adjusted to the time change too before we start taking care of an infant.

On Sunday afternoon/evening we'll check into the Union hotel where AGCI has families stay. I believe there are at least 5 families in our travel group. Monday will be the big day when we meet Jeremiah for the first time and have our embassy appoinment. There will be other activities like shopping and a cultural dinner during the week. I think most families will head for home Thursday evening but we'll be leaving Friday at noon and flying to London. We have an overnight layover in London and then fly out in the morning to Chicago.

That's the gameplan. We're leaving in NINE days! Wow we have a lot to do. On Saturday Monica helped Target get off to a strong start for May sales. We've got a little more stimulating to do to the economy between now and when we leave.

Since we have three bedrooms and will soon have three boys, we've known that we needed to do some combining of rooms so Jeremiah had a place to sleep. The plan has been to put Sawyer and Brennan in the same room. We've known this for awhile but it took some time to figure out what we were going to do for beds. We decided to go with bunk beds and I would make them. It needs to be more of a loft at the beginning so we can just put Sawyer's crib underneath until he's ready for a big boy bed. So this past Saturday, with the help of my father and father in-law, the project took finally got off the ground. Here are some less than stellar shots I took with my cell phone. We're one light sanding and a final coat of poly away from it being done!

Tentative Travel Dates

2009-04-29T16:35:00.001-04:00

We got our tentative travel dates today! AGCI wants us there by Sunday, May 17th. We're tentatively planning to go a few days early so we'll tentatively be leaving on May 13th or May 14th. That means we're leaving in 2 weeks (tentatively of course)! Wow! Tentatively we will get home on May 22nd or 23rd. One thing that is definite is that Monday, May 25th is Memorial Day which means I'll have an extra day to recover before going back to work. Sweet! I'll post more definite travel dates once we get our tickets booked.

I'm using this post to test out my ability to post to our blog via email, which would allow me to post while we're in Ethiopia (I guess you can't access blogger in Ethiopia). A few families that traveled recently did this so hopefully I can figure it out too. They even managed to get pictures on their posts. I'll tackle that later. Baby steps.

Two weeks people!!!

Donation Items

2009-04-25T16:21:00.002-04:00

While I've got everyone's attention, we're hoping to take a bunch of donations for Hannah's Hope, Jeremiah's orphanage, when we go to pick him up. Their biggest needs right now are Soy Formula, Diapers, & Wipes. The diapers they need are the smaller sizes for infants. If anyone wants to donate something for us to take, please contact me. You could also just give us money and we'll buy the donations to take. The sooner you can get us stuff the better so we'll know how to pack.

Thanks!

Hopefully I'll have travel dates to post next week.

We passed!!!

2009-04-22T14:18:00.004-04:00

Our case manager called Monica a few minutes ago and told her that we passed our court appointment earlier today in Ethiopia. Jeremiah is legally our son! We should get our travel dates next week. Our adoption agency needs to schedule our appointment at the US Embassy before they can give us firm travel dates. It will likely be sometime in mid-May. I'll post once we know more.

Court Date

2009-04-21T09:18:00.005-04:00

Sometime tonight while we're sleeping or early tomorrow morning a judge in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia will review our case and have the opportunity to declare that Jeremiah is legally our son. Hopefully all the paperwork is in place and the judge will approve our case. Obviously we're praying that we can pass the first time through and go to Ethiopia soon to bring Jeremiah home. I'm not sure how quickly we'll hear results. It would be nice to know by the weekend, but I'm not counting on it. Sometimes it takes close to a week for people to find out if they passed or not. I'll post something as soon as we find out.

In other news, our case manager was in Ethiopia a few weeks ago and sent us this update about Jeremiah "B"...
"As I am sure you are well aware, B is such a sweet, handsome little guy! He was usually sleeping whenever I was around, but the few times I caught him between sleepy times he would look at me with those beautiful eyes of his and give me the shyest of smiles. I am so sad I was not able to catch one of these on camera! From what I could understand from the special mothers, he is a pretty laid-back happy baby, and they absolutely love taking care of him. It looked like there were two special mothers who primarily looked after him during the hours I usually visited, and from seeing how well he responded to being with him, I think it is a good indication to his ability to bond and attach. I am so excited for you to be united with him!"

We also received a few new pictures of Jeremiah with the update. It's amazing how much a baby can change going from 2 months old to 4 months old when you don't see him everyday. The straight hair from age 2 months has turned into thick, curly hair at 4 months. I had to look at the pictures for a little while to make sure that our case manager had sent us pictures of the right child. Once I spotted the cowlick, I knew that was our boy.

Well I guess we'll keep doing what we do so much during the adoption process.....wait.

Drawn From Water

2009-04-14T14:25:00.004-04:00

I came across a video yesterday on another blog about an organization called Drawn From Water. The organization was formed because "in rural Ethiopia, parents are forced to kill some of their children due to tribal superstitions. We are rescuing and providing a home for these children." This group is just getting started. It's an amazing/heartbreaking story. Read the story, check out the video, and maybe even get involved.

Drawn from Water from Drawn From Water on Vimeo.

Spring Break

2009-04-07T22:58:00.003-04:00

This was the view out our kitchen window Monday morning (the first day of Monica's spring break)...

It looked really nice but seemed like it would have fit better with Christmas Break than Spring Break. Most of the snow was melted by the middle of the day.

As for the adoption front, there really isn't much to report. We're still waiting for our April 22nd court date, which is rapidly approaching. Our case manager just got back from Ethiopia. Hopefully we'll get an email from her sometime in the next few days with some pictures of Jeremiah.

Tomorrow afternoon we're heading for Kansas. My cousin is getting married on Saturday. It's about a 14 hour drive. We're splitting the trip into two days on the way out but we have to do the whole trip back on Sunday so Monica can be at school on Monday. Hopefully the boys' eyes will just glaze over as we feed one video after another into the DVD player.

Speaking of the boys, I'm realizing I don't have very many pictures of them on here.

We got an update!

2009-03-15T14:42:00.002-04:00

One of the people that traveled to Ethiopia last week to bring home their child was gracious enough to check up on B (Jeremiah) for us while she was there. Here's what she had to say:

"B is a cute little guy he seemed very happy the first day we saw him, he was in the shade and had a smile every time I would get his attention. The second day I saw him he was being fed by one of the special mothers. Hannah's Hope is an amazing place and he is being loved and cared for just as you would hope while he isn't with you. I pray that the time you have to wait goes by quickly, but know that he is safe and content there."

Thanks so much for the update Christine! Hopefully we can return the favor for some other waiting families when we travel.

We've had no concerns about the care that Jeremiah is receiving but it's nice to be reassured yet again by someone who has been there and seen our son being cared for.

Court Date

2009-03-07T00:17:00.003-05:00

We got a call from our case manager Christy today with news of our court date. It was quite a shock to us. Not as much of a shock as the Brock family got, but still a pretty good one. Our court date is April 22nd. We were totally expecting something in mid-to-late May based on the dates other families were getting. Now we may be traveling to Ethiopia by mid-May. Most families travel 3 to 4 weeks after they pass court.

We're not sure what happened. Christy said a spot in the court schedule must have become available and somehow we ended up getting it. We almost feel like we should be apologizing to the other families who we've somehow gotten in front of. While we're thrilled at the chance we may be able to get Jeremiah sooner, we're also saddened that it looks like we may not be able to travel with our friends JB & Carla. Obviously there are no guarantees we'll pass the first time through but we hope and pray that we do. Who knows what will happen, but it has been confirmed yet again that it's not in our control.

For you non-AGCI families reading this, you should really follow that link I posted above and read about the absolutely amazing news the Brock's got today. They've been through some very difficult stuff in their adoption process so it was great to see their news today. Spoiler alert - they thought they were getting called today to be told when their court date was going to be. Instead Christy was able to tell them that they passed court this week! How great is that?!?

What's happened since The Call

2009-03-01T20:20:00.007-05:00

Once we knew the gender of our child Monica started putting the pressure on to figure out what his name was going to be. She did the same thing once we had an ultra sound during her pregnancy with Sawyer and found out we were having a boy. My Grandma Beachy was also very concerned that we give this little boy a name. It didn't take too long for us to finalize a name. We're going to keep B's Ethiopian name as his middle name. His first name will be....Jeremiah. We've always liked that name but obviously haven't used it until now. Jeremiah 29:11 sort of sealed the deal. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

After coming up with the name, I was at Miller's Country Store paying for a few things and I spotted this plaque (see below) by the register with Jeremiah 29:11 on it. I couldn't pass it up. We'll put it up in his room. FYI - the little hippo in the picture is from Ten Thousand Villages. It was made by an artisan in Kenya. Anyone in the Phoenix area should visit the Ten Thousand Villages store that my sister manages. There is some really cool stuff there. If you live somewhere else, find a store near you. OK, shameless plug over.

On Monday (02/23), we were finally able to get all of our referral acceptance paperwork sent to AGCI. The International Pediatrician from Riley called us the previous Thursday (02/19) after she had reviewed the information and pictures we have of Jeremiah. She said everything looks great. On Saturday (02/21) the last piece we were waiting for, the social worker approval form, arrived in the mail. On Monday I was able to send our paperwork in along with JB & Carla's acceptance paperwork to AGCI. The cost of overnighting a package is a lot better when you can divide the amount by two.

We're now back in the waiting mode of the adoption process. The adoption process seems to be hurry up...wait...hurry up...wait...keep repeating cycle. Right now we're waiting to find out when our court date will be. I'm assuming we'll find out sometime in the next two or three weeks.

More on THE Call

2009-02-14T08:13:00.013-05:00

Right before I left work on Thursday I called the International Adoption Clinic at Riley Hospital for Children just to see if there was anything I needed to set up in advance for them to review our referral information, you know once we actually got our referral. There wasn't, but I did get the email address that I would need to send the information to. As part of the process of officially accepting a referral we need to have our child's medical information reviewed by a international adoption pediatrician. After I made that call, I packed up and headed home.

When I walked in the house I heard the phone ringing and I got a little excited. Monica answered the phone back in our bedroom. I looked at caller id and when I saw the area code I quickly grabbed my cell phone to see if that matched up with any of the AGCI numbers I had stored in my phone. Right about the time I had matched them up Monica came out and told me Christy was on the phone. Monica's version up to that point involved seeing caller id before she answered and realizing this was probably the call, talking to Christy, and telling her that she might cry.

Once we were both on the phone, Christy told us that she had a little boy to tell us about, but she wanted to make sure that we wanted to proceed because he was younger than what we had talked about early in the adoption process (see previous post for discussion of a baby referral). We both agreed that we wanted to hear more. If this is God's plan, we want to go along with it. Christy then began telling us about our little boy. His name is "B". (Side note, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post his Ethiopian name on here, at least until he's legally our son. Maybe I can, but I'm not risking it until I know otherwise. We definitely are not allowed to post his picture.) B is two months old. Christy told us what they know about his background (not much) and then told us about his test results and the results from the pediatrician checkup done at Hannah's Hope. While she was telling us all this stuff, the oven timer was going off and Sawyer, our 16 month old, was wanting one of us to hold him. It was a little chaotic. We wrapped up our conversation and Christy said she'd be emailing us all of B's information and pictures. We snapped a few pictures of each other while we were getting "the call" to document the moment.

After we got off the phone, we scurried around to try and get Brennan and Sawyer ready because we were supposed to be leaving to go watch Donkey basketball. It was a fundraiser event for one of the elementary schools in the school system Monica teaches in. We thought about not going but Brennan was really excited about it and a bunch of our friends were going to be there so we could share the news with them. We got the boys ready and then checked our email and got our first look at B. Right away Monica noticed that he's got a cowlick like our boys do, particularly Brennan. We printed two pictures of B and headed out the door.

On the drive we both were on our cell phones calling our parents, siblings, and friends to tell them the good news. I had called Carla (also adopting from Ethiopia with AGCI) to tell her and she had just gotten to the "basketball" game. She was waiting for us when we got there to see B's pictures. At the game we were able to show off B's pictures and tell several of our friends.

Now it gets even more interesting...During the halftime intermission Monica was talking with one of her co-workers and Carla was holding our son Sawyer. All of a sudden Carla came running up to Monica and gave Sawyer to her. Christy from AGCI was on the phone! They were getting their referral too!!! Seriously, was this really happening???? For those of you that don't know, JB & Carla are some of our very best friends. We go to church together, were youth leaders together for five years, our oldest boys were born about three hours apart, and we only live 4 miles from each other. We started this adoption journey together but were 5 spots apart on the boy list. They received a referral for a 2 year old boy "M". Well, they think he's 2 but don't really know. He certainly isn't 5 months old like the birth date given on his information. For the AGCI families tracking numbers, JB & Carla were #9 on the boy list and #22 on the girl list at their official February update. How awesome that we got our referrals only a few hours apart!

After we got home and put the boys to bed, my parents came over to check out B. It was a great evening. As we've shown off B's pictures to people, a common theme has been that people think he looks like one of our boys. We agree. When we told Brennan (our 4 year old) the good news he was really excited. He thought we would be leaving right away to get B. Most of his excitement was based on the fact that when we go to Ethiopia he gets to stay with Grandma Kathy and Papaw.

So what's next...We have to fill out more paperwork, get the medical review done (see above), have a conference call on Tuesday with AGCI and the other families who received infant referrals last week, and then write another check to send in with our paperwork. After that we'll wait for our court date. I'm guessing our court date won't be until May based on the recent court dates other AGCI families have received. We will probably travel 3 or 4 weeks after we pass court. So my guess is that it will be at least June before we can go get B. Obviously we hope to be able to travel with JB & Carla. We've been hoping for that all along but now it feels like a real possibility. That's our prayer.

Seriously, this is a ridiculously long post. I'm done for now.

It Happened!

2009-02-12T22:29:00.003-05:00

We got the call today around 5:00. He's a young one. He was born on our anniversary, December 11th. It was a crazy evening. Food coming out of the oven. Hungry boys. Then the phone rings and our lives change forever. Then we did what every normal family would do after getting a call of this magnitude, we went to watch donkey basketball!

I'll post more later...

And then there was one...

2009-02-11T15:39:00.003-05:00

...and that one would be us. When it comes to getting a boy, we're the new number

The couple ahead of us on the waiting list, Troy and Amber, got their referral today moving us into the top spot. I'm a combination of freaked out and excited. Needless to say we'll be keeping our phones charged and close by our side.

For those keeping score at home, JB & Carla are up to #5 on the boy list.

And down the stretch we come...

2009-02-05T22:32:00.004-05:00

We got our monthly update email from AGCI with our new numbers. Officially we're #4 for a boy and #15 for a girl, but the email included this..."there are a few referrals that were recently made that have not yet been factored out of the lists as we are awaiting the official acceptances". We're pretty sure that at least one of the families ahead of us on the boy list who got a referral doesn't have their official acceptance in yet. If so, that would make us unofficially #3 (at least) on the boy list.

On the toddler front, our case manager told us that "there are three other families ahead of you for a toddler girl, but two only go up to 2 years, and the other only to 3 years". Our parameters go up to 4 years. So if a three year old girl would come up for adoption, we'd be first in line. If you think we need a girl, this is the scenario you should be praying for.

Now for a toddler boy, there is no one standing in our way. We're at the top.

The thought of getting a referral for a baby has me a little scared. When we started this process, I assumed we'd get a toddler referral long before we'd make it to the top of the regular list. Well, it's coming right down to the wire. Monica is more excited about the possibility of a baby than I am. Based on how quickly we've gotten to this point on the list, I've decided that maybe there's a reason we're rising so rapidly. Maybe God has a plan different than mine. Proverbs 3:5 popped in my head the other day while I was thinking about this. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." Technically the reference didn't pop into my head. I had to look that part up. The "lean not on your own understanding" part is the whammy for me. I guess if God thinks we should have a baby, I'm willing to defer to His wisdom.

FYI - JB & Carla are #9 boy and #22 girl.

More movement

2009-01-30T10:21:00.002-05:00

The couple holding the number 1 slot on the boy list got their referral yesterday. That puts us up to #4 on the boy list and #16 on the girl list. We may not find out about any more movement up the list until we're in the #1 slot. The families who are now #1 & #2 haven't revealed themselves to the blog stalking community so there's no way of knowing when their referrals go out. We know who is right ahead of us at #3. So, once they get their referral we'll know we're in the top spot. I think we'll get a call or an email from AGCI next week letting us know what our "official" numbers are. I'll be sure to post if/when we get those.

FYI - JB & Carla are now #9 on the boy list and #23 on the girl list.

Top 5, Already?

2009-01-20T09:45:00.003-05:00

Just a quick update to say that it looks like we're unofficially sitting at #5 on the boy list. These folks are the new #1.

Also, at the request of my sister, here is one of my favorite blogs of a family who is home with their Ethiopian boys. They adopted TRIPLETS (two identical and another one who hung out with them in the womb)! From the videos I've watched, these boys just crack me up. They are always piling on top of each other. Life is a full-contact sport for them. To see what I mean, watch the video from this post or this post or this post.

New Numbers

2009-01-09T22:12:00.004-05:00

Sorry for slacking off on the posting lately.

We got our monthly update call from AGCI on our wait list numbers. Officially we are #12 on the boy list and #23 on the girl list. Last month we were #14 and #27. Those numbers should be dropping soon though. There were a number of referrals that were given out this week. Those people don't come off of the wait list until they are able to officially accept the referral. From what I've read on other blogs, I think we can subtract 4 from the boy list and the girl list numbers based on the referrals that have been made but not yet officially accepted. It's very, very likely that they will be accepted but it takes some time to get through the paperwork.

Last month when we got our official numbers they gave us unofficial toddler list numbers of #2 on the boy list and #4 on the girl list. We didn't get an update on this unoffical list but we were told that there was a toddler referral this week. After a little digging I found the blog of the family who got the referral. They got a referral for a 3-year old girl. I believe they were only on the girl list. So that would put us unofficially at #2 on the toddler boy list and #3 on the toddler girl list. After our first batch of numbers, I've sort of been assuming we'd be getting a boy. All of a sudden I'm realizing that I could be getting a daughter! I'm not sure if I should be scared or excited at that thought so I'll go with both.

Another positive thing we found out from our phone call is that there are a lot of families traveling to bring home their children. From the end of December through early February there are around 30 families traveling to bring home their kids. Each child that leaves the orphanage opens up a spot for a new child to come to the orphanage.

Unless we get a referral, we probably won't get any official updates until next month. Back to waiting....

The wait has begun

2008-12-01T13:13:00.002-05:00

Monica spoke with Christy Penney, our adoption case manager, a few minutes ago. We mailed our dossier to AGCI two weeks ago but were missing one document that needed to be state certified. That arrived at AGCI's office today. We're now officially done with our dossier and on the waiting list! Christy called and gave us our official wait list numbers. We are #28 on the girl list and #14 on the boy list. That's great and all but here's where it gets exciting, scary, crazy, etc....Christy told us that there are only three families ahead of us waiting for a toddler girl and only ONE family ahead of us for a toddler boy! C-R-A-Z-I-N-E-S-S!

After we receive and accept a referral it will be approximately 3-5 months until we travel to pick up our child. Our case will go through the Ethiopian courts before we travel.

Laundry Room = Serious Progress

2008-11-21T01:08:00.000-05:00

The laundry room project has been moving along nicely the past few weeks. Last week dad and I got the hardwood floor installed. I used various leftovers from Stoney Acres Hardwood Flooring and mixed together the wood species and finish colors. Before I installed it in the laundry room, I laid the boards out in the basement so I could get the mix how I wanted it. They even had a leftover transition piece I could use to go from the hardwood to the linoleum.

This week the cabinets and countertop were installed. As you can see from the pictures, we're still missing a few doors and some hardware but that part is almost done. Don Miller built the cabinets.

The cabinets over the washer and dryer area (they're still in the basement - not looking forward to hauling those up).

The mudroom locker thing I designed for Don to build. I still need to get the coat hooks installed.

Now we're waiting for the plumber to come out and hook up the sink and we'll be functional. Oh and the electrician (me) needs to wrap up a few things too. Did I mention we still have to haul the washer and dryer up from the basement?

What's happening with our adoption?

2008-10-28T11:31:00.000-04:00

We're just waiting on the notarized copy of our home study report. The home study report is done, but the agency needs to get it notarized by an Indiana notary. Since they're located in Louisville, KY that makes it a bit harder. I guess they had it notarized once and then realized that something was done incorrectly. Anyway, we should get it sometime in the next week.

Once we get the notarized home study report, we'll compile that with all the other documents we've assembled that make up our Dossier. We have everything else we need for the Dossier. The report is the last piece. Once we turn in our Dossier to All God's Children, we'll be put on the waiting list for a referral and given our first set of numbers (i.e. our spot in line for a child). We'll get a number for the boy list and a number for the girl list. Some families are on both lists and some are just on one of them. Within the lists, the parameters for each family (age of the child they are open to) may be slightly different. Based on what I've read, I think a lot of families are looking in the 0 - 12 month range. The stated time for the wait list is 6 - 8 months. Because we're open to a child between Brennan and Sawyer in age, our time on the wait list may be shorter, but it might not be.

I'll update once we get the Dossier turned in.

In other news - I got one coat of paint on the walls in the laundry room. Progress!

Laundry Room - Drywall

2008-10-21T00:00:00.001-04:00

Remember a long, long time ago I was working on a laundry room project? Well, I'm finally back at it. I've been blaming adoption related activities on my lack of production, but most of the paper chasing is out of the way for now so I've started to pay more attention to the laundry room again.

A few weeks ago I started making a push to get the wiring done so I could get the drywall up. I was able to do that and on Saturday, October 11, I finished the drywall hanging. The following week the drywall finisher was able to get everything done. As of last Friday (10/17), it's ready for a coat of primer, and it's still waiting for that coat. The cabinet man was out last Monday to take final measurements for the cabinets. We're going with white cabinets and trim in the room.

Here are a few pictures since my last update.

Generally when I'm working on the laundry room Brennan wants to be right there working with me.

Brennan had a great time nailing these screws and nails into the drywall.

Brennan also provided a little art work along the way. While I've got this picture here, note the two cold water lines (the blue ones) side-by-side in the bottom left of the picture. I have to give my mother in-law some credit here. I believe it was her idea to run a hard water line to the laundry room for watering plants. So, our laundry sink will have an extra spigot for hard water. The current system generally involves me filling a water jug out in the garage. Good idea Vi!

Poor Sawyer was stuck in captivity.

Here's what the area looks like where the closet used to be. I put new drywall up on the walls in that area because the walls inside the closet had been textured.

Here's a shot looking into the laundry room.

And here's a shot from inside the room looking over to the entrance.

In case you didn't know...

2008-10-15T13:27:00.000-04:00

Apparently God wants McCain to win this election and His reputation is on the line, at least according to one Rev. Arnold Conrad. Check it out. Wow! I realize there are extremists on both sides of this election. I think it's unfortunate that Christians get so caught up in this thing to the point that they make statements like Rev. Conrad just did. I'm not going to expand anymore on his statements other than to say I strongly disagree with him and think it is embarrassing to hear another Christian make statements like this.

A note of clarification for those who would read this and make false assumptions about what I'm trying to say in this post. I'm in NO WAY saying that I think it is embarrassing for a Christian to support McCain. I have never stated that. Don't just read the text. Follow the link and see how this man was praying. The manner in which he was praying regarding the election is what I found embarrassing as a Christian, not the person he is supporting.

Home Study Interviews

2008-09-21T23:08:00.001-04:00

We had our home study interviews last Thursday and Friday. They went really well. Our social worker, Rhonda, was great. She was very easy to talk to. We had our individual interviews on Thursday and then a joint interview on Friday. During the individual interview, I went ahead and confessed that talking about my feelings and emotions wasn't exactly my strong suit. She seemed to get a kick out of that. She would tell me when we were done with questions about feelings for awhile. There was a finance piece in the interviews that I was all over!

A few minutes after Rhonda got to our house on Thursday, Brennan asked her if she wanted to see his room. Brennan proceeded to give her a tour of the whole house, basement included. It was pretty funny. Later she asked Brennan a few questions to see what he thought about us adopting. One of the question she asked him was how he would feel if his new brother or sister got into all his stuff. Brennan sort of chuckled while answering and said something to the effect of "oh that's ok, Sawyer already does that". It was pretty hilarious.

Hopefully in another 3-4 weeks we'll have our homestudy finalized and be ready to submit our dossier to AGCI and officially be on the waiting list.

We have an appointment at 8:00 AM this Tuesday in Hammond, IN to be fingerprinted for the Dept of Homeland Security. It has something to do with us getting pre-approved to bring an adopted child into the country. I think that's the last criminal/background check we have to get through.

Overdue Adoption Update

2008-09-08T16:22:00.000-04:00

Fortunately, the delay in posting an update on our adoption process does not mean there was a delay in getting things done on our to-do list. One thing that should be sufficiently clear at the end of this process is that we are not criminals. We've submitted several different criminal background checks for the home study and dossier (local & national). We had to go over to South Bend to be fingerprinted at an Indiana State Police post. Hopefully soon the USCIS (Dept of Homeland Security) will be sending us an appointment to go somewhere else and be fingerprinted.

Home Study - We have submitted everything on our list for the home study agency, and our social worker called us today to schedule our home study interviews (09/18 & 09/19). She's going to interview us and JB & Carla on those days. Once we get through the interviews, I believe the agency will be able to get our home study written up. When that is done it will go into our dossier.

Dossier - The only significant item we have left to complete for the dossier (besides the written home study report) is our Statement of Reason to Adopt letter. It's partially written but we need to finish that up. Otherwise we just need to take a few pictures of our house and ourselves to include.

We also have a ten hour online educational thing to get through and a big workbook to fill out. We're 1/10 of the way through the online stuff and about 1/2 way through the workbook.

So, I think things are in pretty good shape. Once we submit our completed dossier, we'll be on the waiting list for a referral.

Floor Update

2008-08-28T21:42:00.000-04:00

They finished sanding Mom & Dad's floor on Tuesday. They had to rent a special hardwood sander that's designed for houses that have the old hot water radiators. It's designed to be able to get underneath the radiators while sanding. They needed this to be able to get up close to the edges because of the logs.

Here's a shot of the floor I took tonight (w/o a flash). I believe they've put two coats of finish on the floor. I think they're going to put a top coat on tomorrow and then it will be done. Wow does it ever stink in there. I was in for a few minutes and my eyes were burning. We'll try to air the place out this weekend before mom and dad get home.

Our little boy's getting bigger

2008-08-25T22:17:00.000-04:00

Today was Brennan's first day of preschool. He's going to preschool at the old Honeyville School, now Eden Worship Center. He has class on Monday, Wednesday, & Friday from 8:30 to 11:00. Today I picked up Brennan and his buddy Noah after class and they were both eager to tell me about how much fun they had. The highlight appears to be finger painting with chocolate pudding and then getting to eat the pudding. Throughout the day Brennan kept mentioning how much fun he had at preschool. Here are a few shots of Brennan getting ready for his big day. Sawyer filled his diaper right before Monica was ready to take pictures of Brennan so the photo-op got cut short.

At the neighbors

2008-08-25T22:10:00.000-04:00

Mom and Dad are in Phoenix for this week visiting Melissa, Maury, and Isaiah. While they're gone, they are having their hardwood floors sanded down and refinished. Here's a few "before" pictures and a few shots of the sanding that was done today. The before pictures don't really do justice to the need to have the floors redone.

Demolition

2008-08-10T18:15:00.000-04:00

A few Saturdays ago, I set out to remove the closet in our "mud room" to make way for the entrance to the new laundry room. Here's a shot of the closet before I got the sawzall involved. Brennan was on hand most of the time to help me out. I started by taking the closet doors off and taking all the trim off.

Once I got to the point of actually ripping the walls out, it got pretty dusty in there. Fortunately Monica and the boys were gone during this part.

Here's the current state of the area.

Jon Swartz came out a few days later and helped me rip this hole into the garage for our entrance into the laundry room. I'm pretty confident I could've taken at least 2 or 3 times longer than Jon did to frame the opening and created a much bigger mess. The opening is covered by a sheet of blue styrofoam right not to try to avoid all of our cold air escaping into the garage.

Over the next few weeks I need to get the electrical work done and hang the drywall. The guy who is going to be doing the mudding can't get to it until a week or two into September so that buys me a little time, which at my current pace I'll need.

On the adoption front, we're starting to tick away at our to-do lists. We both got our autobiographies done this week. That's a pretty big accomplishment. Hopefully we can get far enough along to get our home study interviews scheduled soon.

Brennan and Isaiah

2008-08-07T22:13:00.000-04:00

One day during Isaiah's last week in Indiana, Brennan and Isaiah were watching the movie The Incredibles and they decided they wanted to pretend to be superheros. Brennan decided to be Dash and Isaiah went with THE FLASH. Isaiah went for the mug shot photo shoot.

Under Contract

2008-07-29T21:44:00.000-04:00

Last week we received our signed contracts and our Adoption Planner from AGCI which included our dossier information. Between that and the home study, we've mostly been stuck in the "wow, we've got a lot of stuff to do" mode. We have a call scheduled for tomorrow afternoon with our case manager from AGCI to review the dossier and get our questions answered. After that it will be time to buckle down and start picking things off of the list.

Some of you may already know, but in case you don't, some of our best friends, JB & Carla Hochstetler, are joining us on the adoption journey. They're also planning to adopt from Ethiopia through AGCI. We're looking forward to going through the process together. Since our home study agency is from Louisville, KY and we have to pay travel costs, we're going to coordinate with JB & Carla so that they can get our interviews in at the same time. Because JB is so busy with Bible Memory camps for a few more weeks, I've been using that to justify some of my procrastination. Thanks guys! I better build a little cushion though because Carla doesn't usually mess around.

I'll get a laundry room update posted later this week. (Sneak peek - It may involve some demolition).

Laundry Room & Adoption Update

2008-07-19T23:04:00.001-04:00

I was able to make another dent in the laundry room project today. I started off my morning (ok, forenoon) by getting the dirty work out of the way and made a trip into the attic.

I had to crawl into this part of the attic to run a new electrical wire to the light in the laundry room. Previously this light was switched with the garage lights. I was pretty sure Monica wouldn't think it was very cool to need to go to the garage to turn on the laundry room light. It might take away some of the convenience of the main level laundry. Being in the attic brought back some good memories of working on JB & Carla's house.

Brennan wanted to get in the attic with me. I decided I didn't need any holes in our ceiling so I just let him peek in.

After I got back out of the attic, I spent some time framing up a soffit. The main purpose of this soffit is to hide the heat pump lines running between the unit in the bonus room and the outdoor unit.

My next big challenge is to re-frame this wall to allow for the opening into the house. Because it's a bearing wall, that makes it a little more interesting. Also, you can see that it's not just one big wall. Nope, there's a 6' wall and then another 3' wall sitting on top of it. I'm thinking of calling in a pro for this task (paging Jon Swartz, paging Jon Swartz, would Jon Swartz please report to Beachyville?).

Tentatively the plumber is supposed to be out on Wednesday to rough in the water and drain lines for the washer and the laundry tub. The cabinet man was out last Monday to get our cabinet layout going. This week I want to start tearing out the closet in the mud room so that's done when we're ready to cut through this wall.

Adoption Update

We should get the word on Monday or Tuesday that we're official clients of AGCI. We sent in all our contracts and a chunk of cash last Monday, they arrived in Portland on Wednesday, and they take 3 business days to process them. After that we'll be assigned our case manager and sent our dossier packet to start working on.

We got our information from the home study agency this past week. Oh yeah, it was an 86 page pdf document. When I opened it and saw the number of pages, I felt a little overwhelmed. Fortunately a big chunk at the end is just educational stuff, but there is still plenty of things to do to get everything they need. The biggest stuff for Monica and I is that we each need to write an autobiography addressing the following main topics: Childhood, Family, Education, Military Service (that should be brief), Criminal History (we won't discuss the length of this section:), Courtship & Marriage, Career, Self Evaluation, Physical & Emotional, and Child (adoption and parenting stuff). They are "interested in your impressions and feelings, not a list of events." Good times! That's right up an accountant's ally.

Alright, enough for now.

Laundry room update

2008-07-13T18:46:00.000-04:00

I was able to work on the laundry room some more yesterday. I've got most of the main framing done, that is until I have to hack a hole in the wall between the garage and the house. That may require some outside consultation.

The end wall was a far cry from being level and it was a combination of framed walls and trusses. So, I shimmed it out to get everything even and then overlaid the whole thing with 3/4" OSB. This should make life much easier when it comes time to hang cabinets on this wall. I did the same thing on the little angled section up top.

I think I'm ready to get my cabinet man out to get the cabinet layout finalized and I need to call my plumber to get on the list to get stuff roughed in. Hopefully I can keep things moving along.

Orientation Call

2008-07-11T00:40:00.000-04:00

We had our orientation call with AGCI on Wednesday. There wasn't much new information that we learned. It was mostly reviewing their procedures that they outlined in the stuff they had already sent us and making sure we reviewed the contracts that we're about to sign. So, the next step is for us to sign a bunch of documents (contracts, fee schedules, etc.), get them notarized, and then send them off to AGCI along with the first big chunk of money. After that they'll send us the information to get started with our home study and dossier (DAH-see-ay). Estimated time to complete, 2 - 3 months. For starters, I need to apply for my passport, and we need to get a will (the legal document kind).

Random note for any NFL fans, while Muhsin Muhammad was with da Bears he adopted two kids from Ethiopia through AGCI. There was a video linking to the Bears site that showed the kids arriving in the US but it doesn't seem to be working now. I think the Bears may have taken it down since he's back with the Carolina Panthers now.

While we're on the topic of sports, I noted that Dan Wilson (former Seattle Mariners catcher) is on AGCI's board of directors.

The Journey Begins

2008-07-06T16:37:00.000-04:00

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had something good coming in the future to post about that would be even better than the laundry room project. I think it's time to put my cards on the table. After several years of discussing this idea and a few weeks of really serious consideration, Monica and I have decided we'd like to add a third child to our family. We've even started the process and I've got the picture to prove it. Right now you're thinking, seriously we don't need to see that. Well don't worry, it's not what you think, or at least not what I've tried to get you to think.

We've decided to go the import route for our next child and adopt a little boy or girl from Ethiopia. We've applied and been accepted by an agency called All God's Children International ("AGCI"). There's a lot of good information on their site if you're interested. If you go to their Media page there are several videos and photo galleries that you may enjoy.

So, why adopt? Well, we'd like to add another child to our family and there is already a tremendous number of kids out there who need a family to love them. The need is great. As I mentioned, this is something we've talked about for years and we've decided to stop talking and start doing. So here we go.

Why Ethiopia and why AGCI? In the process of checking out numerous adoption agencies websites I would look at the various country programs that they offered. When I found AGCI's site and began to learn more about them, I was really impressed by their story and how God led them into the work they are doing. Looking at the pictures of the children in Ethiopia, we were just drawn to them. AGCI has their own orphanage in Ethiopia called Hannah's Hope. Knowing that we'll be working with people from AGCI here in the US and when we eventually travel to Ethiopia means a lot to us. It's also good to know that our son or daughter will be staying at the Hannah's Hope orphanage until everything can be processed.

What age and gender are you looking for? We're going to let God make the call on a boy or girl. At this point we're saying we'd like to adopt a child who is between Brennan (4 years) and Sawyer (9 months) in age, but we'd like to stay on the lower end of that range. We've been fortunate enough to have two babies biologically, we don't need to get the youngest child possible. We'll let others experience that. I like the idea of adopting a slightly older child who may not have quite as great a chance of being adopted because I think most people want a baby. I personally will be just fine if we skip the baby phase, but I also recognize that there will be unique challenges to bringing a toddler into the family.

How long is this going to take? We're not exactly sure but AGCI's website states a time frame of 12 - 16 months from application through finalization of the adoption. However, things could go more quickly for us because we're going to be open to a toddler. At this point, we've got lots of paperwork ahead of us. We need to get going on completing a home study and getting our Dossier (fancy French word for a whole bunch of documents). There is more information on AGCI's site regarding the adoption process.

Anyway, that's a lot of info for one post. We're excited to begin this journey. I'll try to keep the blog updated along the way regarding where things are at in the adoption process.

As promised, here's the picture of our efforts.

Slowly but Surely (emphasis on SLOWLY)

2008-07-06T16:25:00.001-04:00

I finally spent some more time working on the laundry room this past Friday and Saturday. Thanks to the blog, I feel guilty when I don't work on the project because that means I can't post any progress. At my snails pace I managed to get down almost all of the subflooring. Brennan wanted to be part of the action so I kept him occupied by having him hammer short screws into some pre-drilled holes in a few scrap pieces of wood. He was enjoying himself so it was worth the loss of a few screws. Sadly the freezer is still hanging out under the laundry room floor. We'll get it out someday. Monica will probably force me to move it soon. It is fairly annoying if you need anything in the freezer these days.

Laundry Room Layout

2008-06-25T15:07:00.000-04:00

Here's my highly technical drawing of what the new laundry room and improved mud room area will hopefully be like when I'm done with the project. Hopefully it will give you a better idea of how this flows with the rest of our house. I used the "powerful" Microsoft Paint software to modify one of our house drawings.

A few family photos

2008-06-23T22:34:00.000-04:00

Here is a picture of our family hot off the press.

Sawyer is getting dangerously close to needing his first real hair cut. He's plenty shaggy for a Beachy.

Sawyer loves his mommy. I'm pretty confident the feeling is mutual.

Isaiah can really get Sawyer excited when he gets down on the floor and plays with him. Sawyer just laughs and laughs.

Brennan and Sawyer both got a kick out of this.

Isaiah caught with a smile on his face.

Laundry Room

2008-06-22T15:50:00.000-04:00

We've been living in our house for a little more than 3 years. Naturally that means it's time to remodel. Back when we were in the final planning stages before building, I took the main level laundry room and turned it into a basement laundry room while I was trying to down size (i.e. fit into the budget). It's safe to say that Monica wasn't overly impressed with that decision. Well, I've come up with a solution and have started the process to right my wrong.

Out in our garage we have this handy corner just to the right of the door that goes into the house. It has a window and really tall ceilings (same height as our house). It shares a wall with the "mud room". So, I'm turning this space into our new Main-Level laundry room.

I'm going to need to take out this closet inside the house to make it work. The doorway into the mudroom will be just to the left of that wooden picture frame on the wall. I use the term "doorway" very loosely because there won't be an actual door, just a cased opening.

I got started with the project on Memorial Day by cutting out the drywall around the perimeter of the area so I could fasten a ledger board onto the existing walls to hang the floor joists onto. My buddy JB has one of those sweet self leveling lasers that I was able to use to make my line all the way around the room. I was also able to borrow JB's 12" Bosch chop saw and his framing nailer too. JB spends his summer directing Bible Memory camps so he doesn't need his tools. I'm happy to keep them company. I'm using yellow pine 2x8's for the floor joists. The span is less than 8'. I wanted to maximize my clearance underneath the floor joists. At the end of my first day I had the ledger board on all the existing walls and a little over half of the floor joists in. I took the opportunity to preview our future view from the laundry room.

I finally got back to the project on Saturday (06/14) and Monday (06/16) and was able to build the two little stub walls on the sides, put my header across the angled wall, and get all the rest of the floor joists in. I'm now ready to put down subflooring. I've got about 46" of clearance under the floor joists that will still allow for good storage in the garage. I left the opening a little over 48" wide. In theory I could park the riding lawn mower under there in the winter to get it out of the way. That could be interesting. I do plan to eventually get the freezer out of there. It's kind of a pain to only be able to lift the lid up about a foot.

Now that I've posted this project, hopefully I'll feel a little extra motivation to keep it moving along so I have something to post about. Don't worry though, I've got some other good stuff to blog about but I'm going to make you live in suspense a little while until I make that revelation. I can't play all my cards on the first day. Just take my word for it, it's better than a laundry room. How you ask? You'll just have to wait and see (all three of you reading this).

Post #1

2008-06-22T15:04:00.001-04:00

Alright, I'm going to give this blogging thing a shot. I enjoy reading other people's blogs so I guess I'll take a stab at it myself. We've got a few things going on that could be good blogging material. So, here goes....