Paintball Adventures

Because Carter spends his actual birthday at his mom's house he get's two birthdays at our house.  We celebrate with the family before he leaves and then he gets to celebrate with his friends when he gets back. This year we celebrated in Encinitas while we there before he left and today we celebrated with friends by playing paintball.

This was my first time ever experiencing the wars of paintball.  The boys were geared up like G.I.Joe, I was much more limited in my attire.  We headed out to Dragon Man's out east because that way if we need to rent any gear, get bottles filled, etc, it is all conveniently right there. 

Dragon Man's has 5 huge paint ball courses with all sorts of obstacles to hide behind and run around.  There 6 of us total that were playing today. Chad, Carter, Cole (next door neighbor and Carter's best friend) John and Shane Santos (next door neighbors from a previous house we lived in) and of course, ME!

We sweated under the sun in 80 degree weather on the prairie.

We played for about 5 hours, went through about 4,000 paintballs and had a blast!

We played some games by ourselves and a couple of games other people joined us.

We all walked away with at least one decent welt, I walked away with 5 decent welts, skinned knees and elbows.

Carter ended up with paint in his ear, we all had paint and dirt ground into our clothes.

Lots of cleaning when we got home!

Showing off our painted clothes

I kicked some serious paintball butt and had a blast doing it.  I am now tired, sore and aching, but it was so worth it!

Home Study Update

I am a little behind in blogging.  We have now had two of our three home study appointments. Let me back up a week and a half.  Our first home study was the individual interview with Chad and Carter.  I had to work that day, but that's OK because we all have to do our own interviews anyway.  I really cannot write much about their interviews because, well, for those of you who know my husband, he is a man of few words.  Let's just say that their interviews stayed within the one hour time frame we had planned.  Chad told me that I would have to "find out when it was my turn" when I asked him what she asked.


Fast forward one week to this past Wednesday.  My turn.  Can I just tell you how much I admire Jill and enjoy her bubbly personality and character.  She is amazing and I feel so comfortable with her, well as comfortable as I can feel sharing every little detail of my life.  We again had an hour scheduled this time with me, Chad was at work and Carter was at school.  My interview lasted two hours and we have to use another hour next week because we didn't have time to go into some of the questions and events that she needed more details.  A lot has gone on in my life, but I am lady of many details, and she did not tell me "short version" as Chad is so fond of saying.  When I did elude to events she would hone in and ask me to expound anyway, so it really was not totally my fault.


With this process you have to fill out different surveys before the "interview" and then Jill flags issues, details, events that show up on them, she also has to have a good feel for who you are and what helped shape who you are today.  Needless to say, there were lots of flags in my survey and interview.  She says that I am a well-rounded person today, but she needs to truly understand how I became who I am today so that it can be portrayed accurately when she writes up our home study.  


I was also able to ask her questions.  There is so much unknown about this whole process but she does a great job of trying to help me work through all of this in such a caring and compassionate way.

Jill says that we are great candidates for placement, which is exciting, she said that with our medical background and somewhat workable schedules as well as all that she knows about us, all the case managers are going to want to place kids with us.  It will be her job to make sure that we get children that will fit well with our family.


I am trying not to jump the gun, but also hate sitting and doing nothing.  So, I put up a crib.  Chad's mom had Chad's crib and had held onto it for us, so Carter and I went and picked it up and I set it up in the bedroom.  We have no way of knowing if we will use or need it, but now we have a bed in the room.  Something that we have to have to prove we are ready.  We have access to twin beds if needed for older children.  Candy also gave us some crib linens in an amazing beautiful pink, which I did not put on the bed because I felt that it was jumping the gun.  I have refrained from bringing up all the other baby stuff that I collected when I was pregnant with Aubrey.  Because I have it stored in the basement, I will leave it there for the time being.  Teri, Chad's sister has a variety of stuff for us as well.  Illa and some of the girls at work are excited for us and have boys and girls toys and clothes of different sizes that are available whenever we know what we might need!  


We are so blessed to have supportive people around us.  They are supporting us emotionally as well as with tangible gifts as needed.
There is no way to explain how much it warms my heart to have others excited for us and want to know how things are going!!!!


This Wednesday is the final home study, Chad and I together and the rest of my individual.  Jill says she will have the home study complete on Friday.  Friday evening and Saturday we have our adoption training.  At that point we will be waiting on fingerprints to complete our license!  Jill will be able to send out our home study even without our license!


Things are happening so fast and yet so slow.  I am trying to prepare my heart for the amazing things that God is bringing into our lives!!!!