Fort Worth or Bust!

I come to you tonight from the front seat of the truck as my sweet hubby drives us to Fort Worth. We are currently jamming....singing our respective parts to Marry Me by Bruno Mars...which has somehow made it's way onto my Showtunes Pandora station. Let is also be known that even if you think you are great at typing, try typing in the car going down HWY 6. It's not joke and should be some kind of sport. At least we aren't driving down the roads in Louisiana. 

I know that I have promised a post about fostering puppies, but that will have to wait until this batch of babies has gone to their final homes. If you wouldn't mind sending up some prayers for one, he is pretty sick. We left him with Mama Karen for the night. She aptly gets her name from being Ferris' foster mama, and we taught him, Shelby & Bella to get excited to go to Mama Karen's house for play-dates and sleepovers. She is Luke's mama....Bella's boyfriend. Hehehe. Although, the big puppies are with the Uncle Bryce tonight, enjoying a quiet house. 

So, where are we off to you ask? We are heading to Fort Worth to attend an adoption workshop that our agency is putting on. THEN, we have a meeting with Andrea to turn in our application. Man, just typing that makes it real, as if packing up & driving there is not real enough. Gotta shout it to the world too! We could not be more excited for this next step in the process. It feels like it has taken forever to get to this point. 

Last weekend, we took a day trip up to Plantersville to attend Mass with the priest who married us. He made one request, okay well 2, but the first one was that before we turned in our adoption paperwork and books about us, that he would be able to pray over them & bless them. Y'all. His prayer was beautiful. He gets it. The process is not just about us. There is a whole other family that is part of this. Not to mention all of the people who will be involved....lawyers, doctors, etc.. 

I snapped this quick picture, and I am so glad that I did. Sometimes a picture is worth more than a 1,000 words. 

The second part of this post if asking for help. Adoption is not only a long, and sometimes grueling process and we will need all the prayers that we can get. But y'all, its expensive. There is no way around that fact. A sweet friend of ours has set up a GoFundMe to help to off-set the expense of our adoption. If you feel called to donate, that is great. If you can't, please, please do not feel obligated to do so. We are welcoming all the prayers, excitement, and dreams joining with ours. So many of you have expressed being so excited for us to welcome a child into our family....from family members, co-workers, dear friends, our sweet vet and favorite vet tech, and so many more. The link is below if you would like to donate, but once again, there is no obligation.  Feel free to share. :-) 

https://www.gofundme.com/f/baby-brinker?member=2437982&utm_medium=email&utm_source=product&utm_campaign=p_email%2Binviteacceptedemailtoteammember

Hello June!

June has finally arrived & is such a welcome sight for weary eyes. I published our last post & dove head first into the craziness that is the last few weeks of school.  

There is nothing like end of the year teacher tired. We spent the weekend relaxing, which really means we were up working in my classroom getting ready for next year already. If you're a teacher, you get it. There is nothing like leaving a room that has finished one year & is ready to welcome a new group of students the next year. I've got a half day left to finish before summer really gets to start! 

We are starting our summer with a bang! I have taken a small job teaching, at DECATS, a program in Texas through private schools that caters to gifted and talented students, for a couple of weeks in June. This week, we will pick up our 2 newest fosters with Houston Collie Rescue...more to come on them! They are only 4 weeks old. 

AND, most importantly of all, we are turning in our application. It has been 6 months since we began, and last week we finalized Life Insurance...oh hey adulting! Jared also finished his autobiography....insert a huge gasp! I don't think I have bugged him about more in our marriage than this. Bless his heart, he is not a writer & was not at all thrilled about the task, but he finished! I was taken aback when he asked where the adoption binder was & I saw him putting his biography in. 

It has been a full time job putting everything together. I'll spend this week going through the list with a fine tooth comb making sure that we have dotted all our i's & crossed all of our t's. It seems surreal. Doesn't feel like this day would ever come that we would be done. A lot of sweat, a little blood (I'm a clumsy scrapbooker) & a whole lotta tears have gone into this application. 

Here is to be one big step closer!