Happy 4th and all that jazz!

When I saw this morning that I hadn't posted in two weeks I thought I had better step up to the plate!! Sorry, but know I haven't abandoned any of you. I'm still reading and commenting a little. Know that I am praying for you all as well! It's just that it's SUMMER!!! And summer is Michigan is so very short! Plus, my niece is here for just a few days more. She's headed back with her grandma on the 5th. Boy, I'm gonna miss her!

We are having awesome weather here this weekend, perfect for all the family activities we have going on! There are several of us camping at the family homestead this entire weekend. We came out Thursday night to set up and I ended up staying in my camper alone. E had to work Friday morning so he and the boys went home to sleep. I worked all day yesterday. My nieces, D and K, are staying with my mom in her camper and my niece from Memphis got a surprise yesterday when her sister showed up as well! Tennessee Grandma came up for a week and brought little M up too! My mom has the joy of two eleven year olds and a nine year old, all girls, staying with her. Our camper only sleeps four but Mom's sleeps six so she has the room. It looks like a pink hurricane hit in there!

We have been doing this 4th of July camping thing for several years now. We're only about 15 miles from home but it's so much easier to stay than drive back and forth.
Way cheaper, too, than putting all that gas in our cars!

So, on to the serious stuff. I'm sure you've just skimmed this post looking for adoption info so here it is! We received our home study in the mail Thursday to review, sign and return. It went back to them yesterday. We are approved to adopt 2 children ages 0 to 10, boy or girl. We listed our impairments as mild physical, mild mental, moderate emotional and moderate learning. It was hard to put moderate on that sheet. It's just scary not knowing which end of the spectrum moderate can be. I am hoping for mild-moderate rather than severe-moderate. Now we are waiting again. We are waiting for our license from the state of Michigan. That can take 2 to 4 weeks. Then we will start locking at profiles. Rather, our case-worker will start looking at profiles and when she sees a possible match, she'll forward the info to us. Then she will send our info to the child's case-worker to review. If he or she deems we may be a good fit for the child then we'll talk with the case-worker and possibly the foster parents. We may be able to meet the child at this point.

We are preparing ourselves for a lengthy transition period. Our CW said it could take as long as 3 months. We'll have to do a lot of driving I'm sure! We'll start of with some play dates and then do some day trips. After a while we'll be able to bring the child to our home for overnight visits. Depending on the strength of the attachment he or she may be able to stay several days. As of right now, I'm hoping to be a mom by Christmas. Given that Christmas is less than six months away I think it is very feasible!

Other than that not much is happening! I love everything about summer and since it is so short here in the Great Lakes tundra I soak up every minute of it! Work has been crazy. We're dealing with all of our training for the core-processor change-over the end of July. The only thing that will be the same about my job are the members and how to turn a computer on. Everything else will be changing. I joked that I'm going to make "teller in training" signs for all our windows! It's been super-stressful and our new CEO drops the F-bomb every chance he gets! No, not that F word but the "you're fired" F word! A 15 year branch manager was let go last week. We about died! And my boss, I'd never seen her so pale in all the years I've worked with her! We've all been just minding our P's and Q's and doing our job. Hopefully we'll be able to come through this change-over with the rest of our staff intact!

Well, I think that's all for now. I need to get ready to head into town for a hair-cut. After, I'm meeting my aunts to go to the arts and crafts fair in town. Everyone have a happy 4th!



P.S. If there are typos, ignore them! I'm typing this post on my little netbook!