Chloe-ish

When I first got my camera, Chloe was my patient, willing model for hours of picture taking. In retrospect, I should have spread those days out longer as it appears my sweet littlest one has become tired of patiently posing. But these are just as fun because here you get to see the quirky, zany side of our Chloe.

Taking a moment to pause and shoot the mountains because they at least, were not wiggling.

One last try...

Fall

Fall is my favorite time of year in Colorado. Eager to experience the arrival of fall we headed out to Estes Park on Sunday. We managed the swirly curvy ride with minimal car sickness in the backseat. Chris and the kids explored while they waited for me to finish taking pictures so we could go out for the promised (bribe) of ice cream.

Chris loved this pic because he thought it looked like the tree was on fire.

It was hard to meter this picture correctly because the elk is in the shadow and the sign is white so I just gave up and snapped the shot.

There and Back Again

By Bilbo Baggins. Nah, not really by Bilbo. I'm plagiarizing from a hobbit. Hurray, Chris has a job! Soon he'll be among the working again and off of the couch....er...I mean all of the hard work he has been doing on the house. But seriously I am going to miss my favorite companion. Even though there have been days when I wanted to shoo him out of my hair and my routines, I've gotten used to having the guy around. Sigh. He's going to be working at a company that had actually offered him a job previously a few years ago. They were very excited to find that he was back in town and sent him an offer before he barely had time to change out of his interview clothes. He's going to be working as a Senior Engineer Project Manager doing something engineeringish and project managerly. We are grateful.

In other news, Aidan and Chloe have both started school and soccer. They are loving the casual atmosphere and learning environment. Roscoe has a fierce onesided rivalry with the neighborhood bunnies. Yesterday he sat and longingly looked out the window and tried several times to communicate with me that he wanted to go out front and chase the plump little morsel. Finally, frustrated, he went and got the plastic container we dish his food out in (which he often brings to us when he's hungry) and put it on the windowsill in the direct path of the bunny.

Between Here and There

I have meant to update this blog so much more often but the internet connection that we are borrowing (with permission this time ;) from our neighbors is sketchy and temperamental. But let's see, where did I leave off? We safely arrived in Lafayette. We soon discovered complications we were not expecting. Like the fact that the mold remediation company did not completely remove the mold in Aidan's room. Which in turn led to dismantling all of the newly finished Sheetrock. One thing led to another and to sum it up, Aidan's room in the basement is being completely dismantled and we are planning on redoing the room to conform to safety standards and make it to code which it was not previously. We are in the process of trying to get our $$ back from the mold company. So far, it has been over a month of emails and calls without any return contact from them. Frustrating. We also discovered that our new washer had been broken in our absence...Chris ran over a rock with our lawnmower and broke that...then part of the fence fell over...and Roscoe had to get treated for a bacterial infection in his ear... Chris doesn't have a job yet. But he has been busy working around the house and the kids are enjoying having two stay at home parents.

Waiting has never been my favorite thing. In fact, I loved sprinting because you could see the finish line from the starting line and the only goal was to get there as hard and fast as possible. I think that I live much of my life that way. And so waiting is hard. Especially when I can't see the finish line or even know where the finish line is. I think that I have gotten better over the years. But I still feel a bit like Chloe when she is so impatient to finish eating and go play that she stands at the table and wiggles, dances and hops on one foot. We are waiting for Chris to find a job and have a little more definition on the "Here". And in the meantime I have been trying to focus on enjoying the simple things like chilly mornings with warm tea. Painting. Drying the clothes on a clothesline. Coffee with my hubby. Colorado wildflowers and hikes in the mountains. And I confess that if I had written this blog earlier last month it would have breathed with more thankfulness to be back in Colorado. And I still am. I'm delighted to walk outside and see the mountains every single day. But in all honesty, the waiting is beginning to feel more burdensome. I guess I need to practice more long runs. =)

New Beginnings

I haven't blogged for a while so it's definitely time for an update. Remember that part where I said that I felt like things were percolating like a coffee pot? Well, change was definitely in the air. Before school got out, my little Chloe started talking about moving again. My ears perked up because she did the same thing before our sojourn to Texas. Chris was getting that itchy restless feeling at work and I had been prepping the house to get ready to return it to our landlords. So we started thinking that maybe Chris' job was going to transfer us. ( Haha.) In the midst of it all, we got a call that our renter in CO had abandoned our house and left a mess (!) in his wake. June was spent figuring that whole mess out with a couple of trips to Colorado by Chris and I. But finally we did, and the kids and I finished a marathon trip to Colorado fueled by the need to get our house ready for the next occupant. So hours were spent in the car and then more hours working on the house during which I conquered my fear of the weedeater and miter saw ( I could be hired by a contractor at this point. I felt like a mixture of Wonderwoman and Tim the Toolman-not sure what THAT costume would look like!) The kids and I had literally just left for our trip home when Chris called to let me know that he had just been laid off. His company awarded his dedication and move across the country with much less loyalty in the form of budget cuts. Now that's just peachy.

The good news is that our house is now ready for it's next occupants. The surprising news is that it will be us. In a week and change we will be saying our last goodbyes to the fire ants and humidity and concrete. But also to friends and memories. So the joy of going home is tempered with some sadness and questions.

I thought it was ironic that my last post was about when we moved to Colorado the first time and how we had watched God move in that situation. Here we are again. Heading to Colorado without a job and waiting for the way to be made clear. Ahh, a life full of adventure. I'll (try to) keep you posted. =)

Last day of May to publish a new post

I thought it was about time to post something new. Sitting here munching my baby carrots didn't give me much inspiration so I just decided to post some pics:

Our little Chloe recently received her orange belt in TaeKwonDo! We were all so proud and celebrated with an orange poke cake.

Here's Aidan receiving his 3rd grade awards for being a smarty pants and good citizen. Although they didn't use the actual term "smarty pants". In my opinion they should have.

Cupcakes!

We took this pic for Chris for his birthday. There were water moccasins swimming in the water behind us. So we threw dirt clods in the water to scare them to the other side while we raced down to snap the pic. None of us have a great love for snakes. And while Aidan has a normal boys' fascination with reptiles, he still prefers to his distance from the poisonous ones!

Not much new on the adoption front. Some days I feel so close. Like a coffee pot percolating and I'm just sure that something amazing is going to bubble up soon. Then on other days I feel so far from knowing which way to go that I'm sure I wouldn't be able to find my way out of a wet paper bag. In the meantime, I am trying to not focus too much on the big picture that I miss the little amazing moments all around me.

A few years ago we had one of those big life altering events when Chris was laid off from work. And so we were thrown into the loop of trying to figure out what the next, and right, step was for us to take. At the time we were living in Stillwater. And since the job market for mechanical engineers in Stillwater is quite small, the options there were nonexistent. But just knowing that we were not going to stay didn't exactly illuminate the path to take. I remember doing everything I could to speed up the process. Gathering friends and family for prayer meetings. Researching, praying, fasting, analyzing and (I confess, pestering my sweet, patient husband). As if I searched for The Answer hard enough, we would find it sooner. One night just after our friends were leaving from another prayer time, Chris suddenly started laughing. God had given him a picture of me. He said that he saw me sitting in the passenger seat of a car, with my legs sticking out over the seat because they weren't long enough to reach the floor. And I was furiously and intently working over one of those toy, plastic steering wheels. (You know, the ones that fit over your legs and you can turn the wheel and pull on the gearshift and turn the plastic yellow key?). There I was yanking on the steering wheel and plastic controls, pushing buttons...and there is God sitting next to me in the driver's seat. And my dear husband is laughing because he said that God had given me the toy to occupy myself so that I would just shut up and let Him drive. (And yet, He is smiling because that is the way He made me) Our departure from Stillwater did happen, and in a beautiful way that was completely out of our hands and orchestrated the entire way by Someone much larger than us.

Here I am again with several events going on right now that I want to demand to fit into my time frame. And for some reason the memory of that story has been coming to my mind. Hmm. I'm doing a bit better this time. Keeping my mouth shut when I want to make circumstances come about, trying for patience and trusting in a time frame that is not my own. Well, okay, so I may be yanking on the steering wheel a wee bit. What was it that the wise little green dude said? "Patience, young one."