A Week of Disney Magic!

Ahrrrrrrr. . . Ahoy Mateys!!!

"Hey daddy!! What are you doing with that camera??!!!"

Epcot's Spaceship Earth

Me and my girl at Marakesh restaurant in Morocco

Lovely belly dancer at Marakesh--right next to our table!!!

Trying out some Moroccan food. . . hmmmmmm. . .

Psychedelic photo of Ya Ya and me in "It's a Small World"

Ya-ya donning her "Minnie-gear"--great smile!!!

Great shot of Cinderella's castle--nice work capturing the reflection, Geoff!!

Anna Grace's face says it all--there is nothing more magical than a moment with Minnie Mouse!

One of the best full-stage shows at Disney! Lion King is absolutely breath-taking!!

Yes, that is real fire he is twirling in a circle--extremely close to his bare skin!!!

We didn't capture the full costume of this dancer--he was dancing on stilts--incredible!

Lion King's costuming was simply a work of art

Just learning how to do the night-time photography. Fireworks at Epcot. . .

My sweetie and me at the Coral Reef restaurant--in the Living Seas

The whole gang at our favorite restaurant of the week---O'Hana's at the Polynesian Resort. If you want an incredible experience and food to die for---you MUST go to this restaurant! And, what's really cool is that you can see the fireworks at the Magic Kingdom through the glass wall of the Resort--after your dinner!

Anna Grace is completely star-struck with the beautiful Polynesian lady who entertained at O'Hana's! She got all the children dancing and making music--and they all got flower leis for participating!!

Okay, Pocahontas is now one of Anna Grace's most favorite princesses. Her comment was, "My eyes match her necklace"--My girl loves her princesses

Geoff and his mom

We just returned from one of the most wonderful trips! Disney truly is "the happiest place on Earth"!! Ya ya (Geoff's mom) flew down and spent the week with us and Mickey Mouse! I am amazed by this lady. She will turn 81 in a couple of months and she walked those parks for 5 days and didn't miss a beat!! She rode the water rides at Typhoon Lagoon and made friends with all the people around her in the lines. She is a breast cancer survivor and years ago had bypass surgery (6 bypasses!!!) Wow, Ya ya!! You are one tough and amazing lady!!

Anna Grace enjoyed the Disney magic and none of us wanted to leave! The one thought that kept recurring to me as we went through our magical days at Disney is that perhaps the next time we go, we will be able to bring Anna Grace's sister with us. . . I sure hope so!

Homestudy is officially off to DHR!!!!!

I called today to inquire and our social worker called us back with the news that the homestudy had, indeed, been sent today to DHR!!!! It will be a few months, more than likely, before we are cleared through Immigration---but at least now we are on our way!!!! Yahoooooo!! It felt like it was never going to happen, and now it has at last!! :-)

Now, I will get working on compiling our photo pages for our agency and doing more required reading. While we wait on Immigration--we need to get our ducks in a row.

Whew!!! I feel relief!!

Thanks for reading :-)

Kristy

Friday Update

I haven't posted much about our adoption lately because, frankly, not much has happened as of late. It seems it has been one long dramatic pause over the past couple of months as we wait for our homestudy to be completed and then passed through DHR and Immigration. I have been told that our homestudy should be mailed "today" to DHR. That could be a 2-4 week process. Then it will go to Atlanta to CIS (Immigration). That could be 2-3 months. Only after all of that will we have a notarized homestudy. And, only then will we be able to get on the waitlist.

I have been told adoption is not for the "faint of heart". It is true. It is not so easy or so simple as it seems it should be. To me, the problem to be solved is simple. There are 143 million children who need loving parents. There are countless men and women longing to have a child to love. Bring the two together giving both a hope and a future. There is just no "good reason" that the system takes so long to put these children with families who love them. Maybe in time, the adoption system will be streamlined to work more effectively and efficiently--putting children with their families sooner than later. I hope that day comes soon.

I will certainly post as soon as I learn that our homestudy has been sent on to DHR.

Have a wonderful Friday, everyone!! And, thanks so much for reading :-)

More Fun this Weekend with my cousins!

What an exciting weekend it has been! Scott, Emmalie, Ramsey and baby Bryant came for a visit while Uncle Scott took a couple of study courses for his upcoming boards. This is our culminating dinner at my favorite little Mexican restaurant after days of fun at the park, the botanical gardens and the zoo. I've journaled our last few days of fun memories as photos. Enjoy!

Tired, hot, happy and full of good Mexican food after a fast, fun-filled weekend!

Yes, I'm a flirt. . . and yes, you do love this face!

My happy little Bryant!

Some sliding fun. . .

Wait for me!!!!

"I'm a mayus!!" (Ramsey's way of saying "I'm a mess")

Taking ownership of the monkey bars. . . and cousin Ramsey awaits her try.

We have played hard and had a great time making some special memories this weekend. Best cousins. . . best friends!!

Big Weekend with Cousin Ramsey!

Aunt Emmalie, Ramsey and baby Bryant came to spend a couple of days with us! We had a wonderful time at the botanical gardens, the zoo and a birthday party at the park. We had such fun taking pictures of our special memories.

I loved my day at the gardens!

Surrounded with roses. . . .

The cousins. . . one, two, three!!

Aunt Em, Ramsey and baby Bryant

Hey! Look at that neat bug!!!

Sittin' by the stream

Best buds!

Mommy and her girl!

Peek-a-boo!

Walking the gravel path. . . hand in hand

Lovin' my day at the gardens

A weekend with Geoff's family in Asheville, NC!!

We went to Asheville for Ken's 50th birthday, and what a weekend it was!! He had 40 friends and family come out to celebrate his big day. It was a great weekend!

Geoff and I grab a quick picture by Beth and Ken's pretty azaleas.


Our happy family of three---soon to be four when we bring
Anna Grace's sister home from Taiwan!

Sunday lunch at Ya ya's house has been a long-standing tradition!! Did anyone say fried chicken???

Anna Grace has the "Three Little Pigs" read to her by her "Ya Ya" at bedtime. Ya Ya is a great story teller!! That's a special treat she gets every time we visit her.

Geoff with his sweet mama at Ken's birthday party--posing for a quick pic in-between bites of the delicious food.

Geoff, his mama and his sister, Beth at the party. It was a beautiful day!

Concert Launch Complete!!!!

Me and my sweetie before the concert. . .

Me with my mama!

Dan and Cathy Pitts have always been my biggest fans since I was knee-high!!

Well, yesterday was an amazing day!! It was the first concert (hopefully of many), and it went very well. The good news is that it was a small group of people who have known me and loved me since I was a toddler. It was a loving group to do my first complete run-through with--to work out any kinks. The great news is, there truly were NO kinks. It showed me that it is a tight, polished, professional concert (due in large part to the generosity of Bart Thau, Ron Dometrovich, Church of Brookhills, Don Moseley and Lifeline Children's Services--because they provided the material audio/visual to create the video and some of the track recordings). Also, it showed me that the concert will be well-received and enjoyed by people of any age--as we had people ranging in age from 25-91. That was an answer to prayer as I hoped the music would reach hearts and touch souls of any person sitting in the congregation-regardless of age. Yesterday proved that it, indeed, does.

It warmed my heart to see the faces of those out in that audience who have been there supporting me since childhood--still there cheering me on even today! And, their generosity was overwhelming. I know that some of the folks who gave an offering yesterday did so sacrificially too--and that meant much to Geoff and me as well.

The only disappointing thing about yesterday's concert was that there was such a small turnout. It taught me a very important lesson. I need to come up with a plan for publicizing in order to improve turnout. What I did for this concert was obviously not enough. So, it was worth it--to learn that lesson and now I know I need to do a better job of publicizing for future concerts.

More good news on a different note. . . I received an email from Gabriel at Journeys of the Heart (our adoption agency) that they had finished reviewing the draft of our homestudy and had emailed the corrections to our social worker to correct and resubmit. Now, if our social worker will quickly turn it around--we will be well on our way to getting on that wait-list!! Keep a prayer lifted that this homestudy process will resolve very quickly!!

Thank you for reading and following along on our adoption journey!!