Oh Myrtle how we love thee

Well we are here and day one is over.  I must say I am a beach person.  There is nothing I love better than a view of the ocean at all times, walking the beach, hearing the beach.  For me it’s peaceful, restful and pure bliss.  We had a wonderful day and can’t wait to do it all over again tomorrow.

The girls… Aren’t they so cute?

Dinner with the family.  The best part of being here this week is that we are all here together with all of the Rhodes/Great Nana made home made beef strugenough (totally mis-spelled that one).. Yummy in my tummy!

Adoption Process Update

With being excited about our family vacation there are other things going on around our home that are exciting as well.  I am hoping to finish up some things on our end so we can make some really wonderful announcements concerning our adoption process.   We do have a referral on a little boy and I can’t wait to tell you all about him and the wonderful way our lives have intersected.   We’ve known about him for a while now but have been waiting on getting all of his information in hand.  So that official announcement is coming soon with all the details and even a blog where you’ll be able to follow our adoption journey.  We are thrilled and excited and love being on this journey.  Thanks for all of your support.  We are in the final stages of our dossier as well and I should be able to send it to Haiti in the next 4 weeks.

Can anyone say beach?

We are heading to North Myrtle Beach on Saturday for a much anticipated family vacation.  This will be the third year to do this and we can’t wait.  We love going during the first week of September because all the kids are back to school and things there are peaceful and quite.  Yes, Emma has started school this year but she’s already missing some days.  We just decided that we are not going to let the public school dictate our family times together.  We are respectful of it but it won’t hold us back.  Dave is gone all summer so it’s special to be able to find time at the end of the summer travel to get together with our extended family.

I can’t wait to sit and watch the ocean, hear the waves put me to sleep at night, ride the lazy river for hours each day, walk the beach, build sand castles with the girls, play an outlandish amount of putt putt, have some fun date nights with my hubby and sister and brother in law. 

Here is a picture from our first year at the beach in 2006.  I was major prego at the time…oh my!  But look at this clan.  We have a lot of fun together. 

And last year, floating on the lazy river…..  One of the funniest memories was seeing great papa get on the lazy river and flip.  Well funny for us watching but not funny for him.

I’ll fill you in next week on our daily activities.  But until then, I’ve got to go and pack for vacation!  Oh yeah…stay away hurricanes please!

Girlfriends

Want to know some girls that make me a better person on a daily basis?  Here they are.  Ladies, thanks for putting up with all of my crap and loving me in spite of it!  I think for a bunch of 30 somethings we look pretty darn good!

The joy of friends

Dave and I went to the mountains last weekend with some of our friends.  It was a very quick trip but we always love getting together.  I love to be around fun people.  And I must say I believe Dave and I have some very fun friends.  After dinner last Saturday night we went walking the streets of Gatlinburg.  That was an experience.  There are some very weird people in TN!   As we walked we noticed that there were so many of the air brush t-shirt shops.  We all split up and went our own ways but as we gathered to head back for the night two people were sporting new shirts.  Can you guess who?  Leslie and Norris.  I asked Wendy if I could post this picture.  She said that as long as I put a line in here about how she joked about it as she saw it in the window and the next thing she knows her husband is buying it.  I think it is ending up in one of his drawers.  Lets hope so.  But bottom line, it was fun to have a great laugh. I kind of left wishing Dave had gotten one for himself!

I can see the finish line

We are almost done with our list of things to gather for our dossier.  This morning we had our Psych Evaluation and so now I wait to get our letter from that and then I have everything in order to send off to get state certified.  It’s very exciting to see the finish line in this whole paper work process.

First Day of Kindergarten

Emma started Kindergarten today at Reidville Elementary.  I’ve struggled all weekend thinking about her starting public school.  I think because I am a control person and I know that I can’t control the things that she will hear, say and now do.  But it’s a good thing.  I feel it’s important for our children to dare to start there own adventures and us be their biggest fans.  I must say that we have been told that Reidville is an excellent school with wonderful God loving teachers.  She has a wonderful teacher this year.  We are thankful.  This morning went well.  No tears were shed in the Rhodes house.  We got our normal picts and then I walked her to her class.  I can’t wait to hear about her day.  Can’t believe my first born has started her school adventure!

I LOVE this man

Dave and I had a wonderful time together up in the TN mountains.  We stayed in a cabin just outside of Gatlinburg with friends.  It was peaceful, restful, relaxing.  We laughed, ate, drank, slept, snuggled, and ate some more.  I love doing life with this man.  I LOVE this man.

The Latest.

There is so much going on to the point of not even having time to blog right now.  Let’s see… what is the latest you ask?

Emma has meet the teacher tonight.  This time next week she will be on her way to completing her first week of kindergarten.  It’s hard to release your children to the public school system.  But we’ve heard nothing but amazing things about Reidville Elementary School so we’ll send her and hope it’s a great experience for her.

Izzie is growing and growing.  She’s taking on a whole new vocabulary as well.  It’s so much better to be able to communicate with her through words and not grunts and screams. 

Dave is home from camp and we made it through our transition days.  They are the hardest for us.  We are fine when he’s gone weeks at a time but the hard part for us is adjusting when he’s finally off the road.  So we had a few fun days that reminded us again why we love each other and on we go.  We are actually heading out of town tomorrow for a much needed weekend get away without the kids.  We are heading to TN with some friends and are so looking forward to some quality time together. 

Me, I’m a to bed by 11 person and the Olympics has done me in.  1:00 are the new numbers I am seeing on my clock when I finally drag myself to bed.  I’ve loved watching the gymnastics and volleyball and of course can’t miss a swim by Michael Phelps.  It’s just been great TV watching.

And our adoption journey.  We just finished our home study and should have that in hand by the first of next week and we are also getting our Physch evaluation done next week as well.  Then we are sending papers off to get state certified etc.  We should have our dossier ready to send to Haiti I am hoping in the next 6 weeks.  I’ve been working on it as much as I could this summer and it’s fun to see things come in and get checked off the list.

Talking about Haiti…. Exciting news as well.  We have a potential referral for a little boy who is currently 16 months old.  We’ve know about him for about a month now and are hoping to make things official in the next few weeks.  I can’t wait to share more but I’ll just have to leave it at that.  It’s been an amazing journey thus far and we love each step that this process brings.  This little boy has already made his way into all of our hearts and we are so excited about the journey to bring him to be part of our family.  The girls are very excited as well.  It’s a long journey.  We have prepared ourselves for that.  Even looking at his picture now, we know that he will be a different child when he comes home.  It’s sad that the process is so long but we are so excited to be on the road and moving.

Seems like a Friday since we are heading out tomorrow.  So have a great weekend everyone and I’ll post more when there is more to share!

Saturday with the girls…

It’s always fun times at the Rhodes house.  Emma had her best friend Mary Chandler over today to play.  We’ve tried to get them together all summer and finally did.  Emma cried when she left.  I told her we will have many more play dates for sure.

Emma and Mary Chandler

Izzie, well she had quite the day as well.  I’m in the kitchen with the girls finishing some cookies we were making and in walks Izzie looking like this… 

Dear child, what is on your hands?

A trip upstairs tells the tale.  Someone had fun brushing their teeth.Oh What a mess! 

Looks like someone was having fun!

Instead of getting mad, I decided to reward the behavior by telling her to “say cheese” at the camera!

Still getting the stuff out of the carpet!