Hey! Many of you have asked, and been awaiting an update from the Gardenhires.... and I've noticed that we haven't touched the blog since January (yikes) so here goes!LIFE IN GENERAL - is going well. As most of you know, we are praying about a possible move to Dallas, Oregon, after visiting the area back in October 2007. So many good things about this area make it desirable to us... small, but growing community in the beautiful Willamette Valley, 40 minutes from the Oregon Coast, 30 minutes from the Gulstroms (Dave's sis + family), an awesome church to attend and serve God with (Dallas Church) and a more affordable living situation than where we currently reside. Another bonus is for me (Renee) to finish my bachelors in Nursing at Western Oregon University, located in Monmouth, which is 10 min. from Dallas. As you know, there are so many variables that play into a move like this, most importantly being God's timing, as opposed to ours. Back in December, we were certain we would be calling ourselves "Oregonians" by now, yet here we are. We are amazed at how things can change. We don't know what job opportunities are there for Dave, we still have some big projects to hammer out prior to placing our home on the market, and Dave has work booked out where we are at. Plus, there's the adoption wait, which plays into any big life changes right now too (see adoption update, below). So, as of now we're in "limbo-mode", a place I like to describe as 1) uncomfortable, 2) stressful and 3) heart-changing. We're looking to our God for direction and furthermore, a peace about where that is at. Please pray with us! We'll update our blog (promise) as we move forward towards where-ever it is that HE is leading us.
CONNOR is enjoying his days as a 2nd grader, mastering his skateboard (he can go down the big ramps at the skate park now - so proud!), and starting his first year of PONY baseball. Mom was shocked to hear he'd be playing in 24 games this season (!! Maybe I should take back my earlier comment of updating this blog more frequently?!!) He's been taking group piano lessons once a week, with the future goal lying ahead of "playing the guitar like Jack Johnson". :) Some friends of ours encouraged piano as a base for any other instrument that he wanted to play in the future, so here we are. Life is good for our busy boy. He's building a rocket at school in the next few months, and doing his first report on guess who? Tony Hawk. :)
The ADOPTION is slowly moving along, at a pace much slower than we anticipated, nor had hoped for, but again, that whole TIMING thing! Our LID (Log-in-Date) is 07/25/2007, so our little way of celebrating this is having Chinese food out on the 25th of every month. The three of us talk about visiting China, what it will be like having a little sister/daughter, what she will be like, you get the idea. We just this last week celebrated our 8 month log-in date, with 8 inches of snow on the ground, wondering if there will be snow in China when we're there?
When we started the adoption process, the current time-frame for a match was 9 months. We're approaching our 9th month right now, but the current wait is extended to 27 months. Triple the wait. While we try to not let the rumors of potential wait times stretching beyond 4-5 years, I must admit it is frustrating and tough on a mother's heart to long for a daughter that I don't even know has been born yet. We know that God knows who she is -that HE will place her in our family and when HE does, what an amazing story we will have to share with her.
My mom asked the other day if, based on our blog title "waiting for Mei-Mei" if we had already named our daughter "Mei-Mei". Sorry for the confusion, but let me explain. The term "Mei-Mei" can be interpreted a few different ways, since various Chinese characters can employ the same phonetic sound. One way to interpret it is "little sister", furthermore, one of the characters for "mei" means "beautiful", and when repeated signifies emphasis. One other meaning that we personally like is "pretty girl". So, either way, we love referring to our daughter as this, until we "meet her" on match day. Just like when we were pregnant w/Connor, we don't want to name our little girl until we see her face and know a little about her.
Well, this is plenty to read for today and we need to head off to a youth meeting and worship tonight! Blessings and love to each one of you .... until next time! x o x o
1 comments:
Post a Comment