Catching you up

20 Jan 2011 2 Comments

by ewegrant in Adoption, Ethiopia, Family, God, Kids, Random, Soap Box, Uncategorized

A lot has happened since my last post which was on Thanksgiving, so this post is to catch you up on what has been going on in the Grant Clan.

-Brian and I got away for a night and visited the New Glarus Brewery, and stayed in a super cute B&B.  Brian had a ton of fun sampling the beers at the brewery, I was prohibited from drinking due to all of the gluten in beer but I really enjoyed watching Brian have fun.

-We saw Santa:

Ewan really wanted to visit Santa so we met a friend at the local mall and the kids sat on Santa’s lap.  Shortly after our Santa visit, in fact we were still at the mall, Ewan started to ask questions as to the legitimacy of the mall santa.  He came to the conclusion that the mall santa was a man dressed up, and personally I also thought he was kind of creepy too.  Later that afternoon we were at our home school group Christmas party and the kids started debating over whether santa was real or not.  A mom came to me to warn me of the conversation in case I was a die-hard santa person, which I am not.  I figure my kids will find naturally and I am a-ok with that.  Later that night as we moved furniture around to make room for our Christmas tree Ewan started to ask the direct questions as to whether santa was real, in fact he asked me straight up if Santa was real.  I stop sweeping, and since I was not facing him at time allowed myself to panic quietly for a moment before turning to answer his question.  I have always been of the mind that if my child asks me something directly I will not lie to them.  So, I told him that santa was not real and we talked about St. Nicholas, the conversation went really well, until he started asking about the Easter Bunny, at that point I told him to talk to Daddy.

We ACCEPTED an OFFER on our CONDO!!!!!!:

This has been by far the biggest and best thing that has happen to us since my last post.  It has also been an answer to prayer and completely guided by God, and amazing we can see that happening in the midst of it all.  We accepted the offer a few weeks before Christmas and are slated to close in the next few weeks.  For me the most amazing thing about this whole experience is how God has answered our prayers and given beyond what we have even been praying for.  We have seen his provision and experienced his leading and been able to see his plan for our family unfolding.  I am learning patience in this process and to trust in Gods timing, I am learning that even when it feels like things are not moving, God is.

This Saturday we are looking at a house in our neighborhood (which we really love) for the second time.  At the showing we are meeting woman who owns the house, who was also raised in the house and then purchased the house from her parents and raised her children in the house.  We are praying that she likes us and feels good about possibly selling to us.  We are also praying that God would perfectly orchestrate this for us, which we know he can.  So feel free to talk to God on our behalf if you feel lead.  :)

- I started a group at my church:

This fall I started an adoption support group called Odyssey at my church.  The group was started to meet the needs of the adoptive families in our church and outside of the church as well.  A safe place we can come to talk about things related to adoption, a place to feel supported.  Each month we have had a topic, this months topic is “How do we keep our children connected to their culture”?  I am happy every month when we come together and share our experiences, I am always learning new things from the other parents.  I am also elated that my church is so supportive of adoptive families and of orphan advocacy.

-Looking to Ethiopia:

With the sale of our condo and the purchase of a house on the horizon we have started teh conversation about possibly adopting again.  We are currently discussing when we might want to start the process again.  I am eager to get to a place in which we are earnestly praying about the next adoption, I can’t wait to see where God leads us.

Well I have just about used up my time at the computer, the children are getting restless.  Esu is actually standing on my chair behind me and pulling at my hair, I better wrap up before he pulls too much out.

-My last picture is a current one of the kiddos, they are growing so fast I can hardly keep up.

Catching you up

03 May 2010 5 Comments

by ewegrant in Adoption, Ethiopia, Family, God, Kids, Random, Soap Box, Uncategorized

So the last post I made was in the middle of March, I know it has been a long time.  Here is what we have been up to since March:

Brian was laid off from his job at the end of March which was quite a surprise at the time, although looking back there were red flags within the company.  The good thing was that Brian had not been laid off for any other reason other than restructuring and that they were giving him a severance package- Praise God!! Brian continued to work for three more weeks and so his final day at work was sometime in early April.  Three days after he was no longer working he was offered a job programming for Sears, again- Praise God!

At the same time that Brian was laid off we very unexpectedly received an offer on our condo.  It was a great offer and we wanted to take it so we signed a contact to sell our place!!  I scrambled to get all of the paper work together and before we knew it the inspection was over and we were in attorney review.  We had not looked at any homes yet as I was scared to look and get my hopes up, but things looked good with the deal so since Brian was off of work we scheduled a morning to look at houses with our realtor.  About 10 minutes away from the first house our realtor got an email telling us that the contract was being canceled-  BOOOOO!  Apparently the buyer could not get financing, we were really bummed out!  It took me a few days to get over the loss of the contract but in the end I believe that God had a reason for keeping us in our condo for now, I am not sure what it is but I trust that it is for the best.  We have not had anyone look at our condo for awhile, and so we are just waiting.

We got to spend a lot of time together as a family while Brian was waiting to start at Sears and that was great!  I also got to take the opportunity to go to this amazing conference on Adoption, Foster care and Global orphan care, the conference is called Summit and it is put on by The Christian Alliance for Orphans.  The conference was two days long and it was in Minneapolis, MN this year, each year a different church hosts the event.  It was amazing and I feel so blessed that I was able to attend.  I came away feeling even more equipped to start and Orphan ministry in our church, I also came away more on fire to make a difference in the lives of orphans locally and globally.  I highly recommend this conference for anyone that has a heart of orphans, is in a ministry involving orphans or is thinking about adopting.

As you can see the past 6 weeks have been packed with life changing events which have pulled me away from my blog and most everything else.  I am hoping to be able to write more regulary now that things are settling down a little.  I have really missed blogging and the other day was gently urged by my sister to start posting again- she said- “Shonah your blog has dropped to my 4th most read site, it used to be #2″.  I asked her what her #1 was and she told me it was her e-mail.  So this post is for you Meghan.