October

It has been a while since our last post so we wanted to update you on a few things that took place over the past month.  October has been a month of ups and downs.  Early in the month we were able to take advantage of a beautiful fall weekend by making a quick getaway to Traverse City over the Columbus Day weekend.  The sky was perfectly blue with temps in the 70s all weekend.  We just happened to catch the fall color at its peak as well - a great fall weekend!

We also finished our profile book this past month.  It took a lot of work, but the finished product looks great!  We pray that this book finds its way into the hands of the right person that is carrying our child!  For now though we just continue to play the waiting game.  Our domestic placement could come quickly or take a while.  In mid-October we passed the three month mark since we have been on the waiting list in Ethiopia.

October also brought a significant challenge for our family as Stacey's mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.  We were all extremely numb and concerned when we heard the news.  There were tense days as the doctors could not pinpoint a diagnosis.  We prayed continually and just a few weeks ago those prayers were answered after a successful surgery and good test results!  We are thankful that she is feeling better and on the road to recovery.

Philly & Maine

I am a bit behind with blogging!  Most of my free time has been spent creating our domestic adoption profile book... and I am happy to say that it is complete!  We had our home study update a couple weeks ago, so all that needed to be done was the book.  It is off to print right now, and our case worker can start showing it to potential birth mothers as soon as we get the book back in the mail!  We are excited and a little nervous.  Not having a timeline is hard, but just as we wrote in our profile book - we know that God will shape our family perfectly and we are exited to see what is in store.


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The second week in September we took a vacation to visit my sister and brother-in-law in Philadelphia.  We knew we wanted to make the trip there this summer, but did not know when we would do it.  For my 30th birthday Scott surprised me by planning a trip to see them in Philly and then going to Maine for five days!


So, we spent the weekend with them in Philadelphia.  We took in some traditional Philly sights - the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Christ's Church, and even authentic Philly Cheese Steaks.

Philly Cheese Steaks!

 Christ's Church...where George Washington attended.

Ok, so we didn't actually wait in line to go see the Liberty Bell, but we could see it pretty well looking in from outside.

Independence Hall (for the National Treasure buffs)

Katie and Andrew are expecting a little girl in December, so we did a little photo shoot while we were there at Valley Forge National Park.

Katie kindly returned the favor by taking a few pictures of us for our adoption profile book!

After spending the weekend in Philly, we flew out on Monday to Boston and then started driving up the coast of Maine.  Our 1st stop was Kennebunkport and then on to Portland - where this beautiful lighthouse is located.

We continued north to a cute little town called Camden where we stayed at a bed and breakfast for the 1st time.  I would recommend it...the inn-keepers were very friendly and helpful and the breakfast was great!  The evening we were there we decided to go sailing since neither of us had ever gone before.

Our final destination was Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park.  We loved these areas and they were the favorite part of our trip!

Lobster is everywhere!  We tried whole lobsters for the 1st time...lets just say we needed a little help from our server to get at the goods:)  Gotta love the bibs!

We did a little hiking in Acadia National Park.  The trail we chose got a little more challenging than we were expecting:)

After our hike we had seafood chowder and popovers at Jordan Pond House (a very popular restaurant in the park).

Jordan Pond - what we overlooked during lunch...too bad it was foggy:(

Overlooking the town the Bar Harbor from the top of Cadillac Mountain.

We had a great trip and loved seeing the beautiful rocky coast of Maine.  On Friday we headed back to Boston to fly out the next day, so we spent the evening in downtown Boston.  I did not take my camera, but it was a really cool city that we would like to go back too at some point.  Scott's Boston highlight - driving by Fenway Park:)