Recap of the Last Few Weeks

I thought we were busy during the school year...that was nothing compared to the summer that we have had so far! Did I mention that I LOVE summer? It is my favorite season, but every year we cram in way too much!

As you all know, we have been very busy with Brendan's baseball. We went to the State tournament the weekend of July 18th. I am sad to say that we did not win, but our boys played very well and hard!!! I am so proud of all of them, but I am especially proud of how far Brendan has come this year!

In the middle of baseball, we took a long weekend trip to Ocean Isle Beach, NC with the boys. It was a laid back short family get-away with no expectations, and it was wonderful!!! http://www.oceanislebeach.com/

The very next weekend (July 4th), we visited our friends in Wilmington, NC and had more beach time at Wrightsville and Topsail beaches. We also had a 4th of July celebration which included watching fireworks off their pier at the intracoastal waterway!

That same week on Wednesday, JC and I drove Brendan to Camp Don Lee on the Neuse River for his first overnight camp experience. He was there for three nights and LOVED it. Next year he will be old enough to go for the entire week, and he is very eager to do so! http://www.donleecenter.org/

The trip to Wilmington for our state baseball tournament worked out well for us because we were already going back to Ocean Isle on the 18th with my family for the week. We went down after the last game on Sunday and stayed until this past Saturday! As I've mentioned before, the beach is my heaven on earth. We spent almost every waking hour on the beach...from ~ 8:30 every morning until about 6-6:30 each night. We LOVE it!!! Jackson bought himself a surfboard (a foam one - not the $1000 ones), and he basically taught himself how to ride the waves in. One of my favorite things to do is collect beach glass. If you look very closely - especially right where the water meets the sand - you can see the brown, green, clear and aqua glass pieces. We found several this year! I also found 6 or 7 shark's teeth...a couple were a little bigger than I would have liked to see on the beach! The boys went jet skiing in the waterway, and we enjoyed great seafood! It was wonderful!!!

Now we are back to reality!!!

We thought that we may get a court appointment for St Petersburg last week, but we did not hear anything. I am getting very frustrated, but we have been so busy that I am trying to focus my energy on the boys and all of our activities at home!!!

Oh, and by the way, in the middle of all of this, we moved THREE bedrooms around in our house. My mom selflessly painted them all for us!!! We are still getting the last of the decorating and picture hanging completed, but I think these rooms in the house will be better used now.

This is why I have been nonexistent in the blogging world! Maybe life will calm a little, and I can enjoy these dog days of summer!!!

Missed y'all!

Wordless Wednesday

Back to CIS

Tuesday our agency called to tell us that all of the paperwork had arrived in St. Petersburg. That means that we were able to redo everything and have it in Russia by the end of June. She then told me that they are now waiting on Moscow's Ministry of Education to send a release letter that states our little one is off of the National Registry of Orphans. This could take up to another two weeks. The court appointment cannot be made until our Russian agency has this letter. It looks like traveling in August may be a little ambitious unfortunately.
Yesterday, JC and I also drove to Charlotte to North Carolina's CIS office to have our fingerprints redone. Our first set expires August 1, 2009. Now we will wait on our amended I-171H form to arrive with the new fingerprint expiration date. This is the form that we have to have in order for Emma to become a US Citizen so it is rather important.

I hope that you all have a very Happy and Safe Fourth of July! After visiting another country recently, this quote really hits home to me:

"You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism."

~Erma Bombeck