and we're back

when we walked into our house today, i felt like we'd been gone forever. we had a fun time while visiting jamie's family despite the fact that we both got sick and are still hacking up our lungs. i accompanied my sister-in-law, janelle, on a back-to-school clothes shopping trip for our nephew, tyler, who is starting kindergarten in a few weeks. i had a blast picking out clothes and watching him light up every time he got to try on a new outfit. he is going to be one sharp looking kindergartner. while we were in the store, tyler happened to spot pjs that looks like a buzz lightyear (from toy story) outfit. our nephew, trevor, is obsessed with buzz lightyear. so, as a treat, janelle bought the boys the pjs, and i wish i had some video footage of trevor's reaction when he saw the buzz lightyear pjs. huge smile. delighted little squeal. ahhhh, little kids (especially our nephews) are adorable. as i mentioned in my last post, we spent the last part of our trip in new jersey and new york. our trip to the seeing eye, where jamie and janelle got their seeing eye dogs, was interesting. i could probably write an entire blog post about the need for disability advocacy and awareness, and i just might one of these days, but not now. all i will say is that there are many people in our world who, by no fault of their own, are disadvantaged and it is not fair. lastly, we did spend a day in nyc, and i think a day was just enough for jamie and me. our brother-in-law, steve, had never been to the city before, so we crammed in a bunch of stuff in one day. it was well worth it, but i'm pretty convinced i won't go back to nyc any time soon unless (1) it's christmas or (2) i can spend time in one of the more laid back, artsy districts like soho or greenwich village. i'm officially over the nyc tourist circuit.

on the adoption front -- our social worker is coming in a week! and jamie's birth certificates finally came in the mail! please pray our social worker gets our homestudy written quickly. we are dependent upon it being completed to apply for grants, which we will certainly need to be able to send off our dossier. also, please pray that we will be able to send off our USCIS fee soon. we had originally thought we'd be able to send it off when we sent off our homestudy fees, but we are waiting to evaluate our finances after we see how much utilities in this house cost. one fun surprise we received today when we arrived home was a package from jamie's rowing coach, karen. she sent us a bunch of cloth diaper stuff (yes, we are leaning towards using cloth) and some cute onesies including one that says "daddy's little rower" and a baby baseball cap with rowing oars on it. now i'm hoping our baby will be little enough to fit in the onesies!

i will now shamelessly plug the book jamie and i almost finished on our road trip. it's called the hole in our gospel by richard stearns. he left his job as CEO at the tableware company lenox to become the president of world vision. the book is a wonderful, wonderful introduction to why social justice is integral to christianity. i would recommend it to anyone who wants to explore more deeply why christians must take the lead on caring for the poor and oppressed of our world. i will blog more on this later, but check out the book now.