This week in my quiet time I have read this passage over and over. I think that it is incredibly powerful and thought that I should share it.
Pause and let it speak to you.
1 John 3:17,18, 23
If anyone has material possessions (yes that is all of us here in America) and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? (18) Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. (23) And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as He commanded us.
Adam

We had a VERY busy weekend!! We spent all day Friday getting our garage sale stuff sorted and folded so that Saturday morning we could be ready to go. In addition to our garage sale, we had a produce stand along side, where we sold our homegrown veggies, homemade jams and pickles and our handmade ornaments! Adam began getting everything out onto the lawn at 6:00 am, and within minutes, people were already making purchases! It was CRAZY! It was a lot of work, but the day turned out to be a HUGE success! We made $1,487!!! PLUS, we still have some "big ticket" items that we have posted on craigslist! God has completely blessed us, and we are AMAZED!!
We could not have gotten thru the day without the help of our family and friends. Thank you so much; Jim and Sandy, Art and Briana, and Sarah!! You guys are AWESOME! ALSO, we want to thank everyone who donated to our garage sale! What a HUGE blessing you have been to us!
Along with Friday being "garage sale" busy, we also had our dossier that we really wanted to get submitted. We needed to have our last form notarized, and then Adam had the HUGE job of sorting everything, copying everything (four times) and then sorting it all again, and making sure that each and every piece that was needed was actually there and correct. Somehow, we got it all done, and mailed off our dossier Friday afternoon around 1:00. Hopefully it will arrive at our agency in Virginia on Monday!
So, now that our dossier is complete, we begin the wait!
We are thrilled that our paper chasing is behind us, and that we are also thru with our garage sale. We are only just beginning to think about our next fundraiser (in September), but we are pretty sure it will include our homegrown tomatoes again, as well as some homemade marinara!:)

Well, the first leg of our adoption journey is finally coming to an end. We received our final piece of paperwork today that is needed for our Dossier! (For those who have forgotten, our dossier is our Huge pile of paperwork that we have been compiling together for the past four months)! This is HUGE people! Four months of getting paperwork like letters from our doctors that we are healthy. Only, not just any letter, but very specific form letters. It has all been worth it though, because in the end, we know we are getting a baby that God has hand-picked just for US! Needless to say, we are so excited to be celebrating this very monumental day.
So, what is our next step? Well, Adam will be getting everything photocopied tomorrow (we have to make four copies of everything to send to Ethiopia). Then, we will be sending it via fed ex to our agency, and from there it goes to Ethiopia!

Amongst all this excitement, we have been VERY BUSY planning our Garage Sale/ Produce Sale Fundraiser. We have never had a garage sale before, so you can imagine the amount of stuff that we have accumulated in our almost TEN (yup, that's right:) years of marriage! We have gone through every closet, box, drawer, bin, basket, and cupboard! We have also gotten quite a few donations as well! We are SO excited to see how God blesses us on Saturday!

Our God is AWESOME!

Have you ever just sat and just been in awe of God? That is what I am doing right now. It is incredible. What an AWESOME God we serve.
I have a cup of coffee.
I have a campfire.
All the kids have been sleeping for 2 hours.
I have worship music on.
All of this and God has been showing me his shooting stars, and owls!
This has become a frequent nightly ritual for Heather and I. The only difference tonight is that Heather is out with friends.
I look forward to these nights all day long, today has been no exception. I would encourage everybody to get out of the house and enjoy God and all the beauty He has given us. Come to our house if you need it:)
We have had a busy day today. We cleaned out our garage in preparing for our garage sale coming up on the 28th. It is nice to have a clean garage again. We went through everything! Even the boxes that we just stowed away right when we moved in to this house 2 years ago.
(Maybe it is a good thing Heather is not here tonight. I am burning old financial stuff, found in the garage today. The wind just picked up, blew embers and started to catch a bush on fire. It is a good thing that I know how to take care of it I guess:)
Coming up this Sunday, the 22nd we are having another veggie and back sale. It will be after church at our house. We would love for everybody to come. Here are some of the items that we will be having.


Also, we have some ornaments for sale. They are $15 total (including shipping). We plan to put a little link to them on our blog soon, but for now you can email us with your information and we can send you one.


Thank you to everybody that continues to support us. God has provided SO MUCH to us. We still have a long ways to go, but we have all the money that we need to send our dossier in as soon as we can. We know that not everybody can adopt an orphan themselves, but we love seeing God work through His body. Remember, WE are HIS hands and feet.
Now, I need to throw more paper on the fire:) Yes, I am serious, I am a slow learner.
Adam

Fingerprinting: DONE!!

We went to Salinas today to see about doing our fingerprinting a few days early. It went SO great!! We just walked right into the office, told them we had an appointment on Thursday, but wondered if we could get it done today because Adam works Thursday (trying to preserve all the sick time he has:)! And they were so great! They were like "Oh, definitely, that's not a problem at all." After we finished up there, we took the girls to the Aquarium:)
It feels like we are getting sooooo close to being DTE!!! For those of you who don't know, DTE means Dossier To Ethiopia. Once we get our Dossier (ALL of our paperwork) sent, we just wait for the referral of a BABY!!!!!
We are working on getting all of our paperwork together tonight, because tomorrow night we will be getting everything notarized!! CRAZY! Then once we get our fingerprinting paperwork back, we are hoping to take a little trip to Sacramento (to our state capital:) where everything will be getting certified!! Then we send that in, and VOILA! DTE!!! Can't you just feel it?? It's SOOO CLOSE!

We are so excited!! We have received our date for our biometrics fingerprints. We are scheduled to be in Salinas on Thursday the 12th, but are hoping to get it done a few days early on Monday. This way Adam will not have to miss work. Hopefully this will work out well. We mailed off our first application for a grant as well today. We trust that God will provide, and maybe this might be an avenue that He will use.
We had a fabulous weekend camping at Lake Tahoe.

London and Geneva had a blast! London rode on a jet ski for the first time with Adam. She loved it!

Geneva was content to play in the sand, but wouldn't even put one toe it the water!

Capri did GREAT sleeping and crawling around in the dirt all day:)

London turned four years old today! We can't believe how fast the time has gone!
We are looking forward to our next couple of fundraisers. On Sunday Aug. 22nd we will be having another produce/bake sale from 1:00-5:00. And, on Saturday Aug. 29th we will be having a garage sale. Adam and I have been busy cleaning out our closets, looking for stuff that we might be able to sell. If you have anything that you would like to donate, we would LOVE to take that off of your hands:)
Thanks for all your prayers and support. God is good and has been teaching us how to be fully reliant upon Him!