Our days in pictures

Since my last post was so serious, I thought I would let you all see that life still goes on and we even smile a lot during it!! :) Enjoy!

The boys made their snack to look like Smaug the dragon from the Hobbit

Waiting for Grammie and Grampie

Isaac at the beach

On the USS North Carolina

Wyatt the Sailor

This one is my favorite :)

Grace and Peace,
Shari

Not for the Faint of Heart

I cannot even begin to tell you what we have been doing the past week or two. Really. It's all a blur. All I know is Time is cruelly racing ahead and somewhere deep inside me I keep screaming, "STOP!!!!!" Tony's work schedule has been so erratic. He is home on weird days and then he is gone for what seems like days at a time; then all the sudden he is home again. But unavailable to go with us to practices or games because he is on-call and must stay within 30 minutes of the hospital. Now he is gone again for the weekend and all the while there is this deep down urge within me to just drop it all and run away. Fast. That sounds so very mature and logical, doesn't it :)?

Two days ago, I learned that another family's baby died of pnemonia in Ethiopia. This is a family whom I was particularly cheering for, since they were holding out so long for a referral for two children under the age of two. With our agency's policy of only adopting sibling groups to families requesting multiples, this referral seemed extremely sweet to me and I was simply thrilled for them. Then, the baby girl got sick and she never recovered. My sorrow over this loss for them is just so raw. And it seems that there is no where to go with this bag of emotion and thoughts. I believe that our agency is doing the best they can to get families moved through court in a timely fashion and limit the amount of time between referral and uniting children with families. The adoption process in Ethiopia is still relatively new (compared to other nations) and more importantly, the number of people adopting from this beautiful country has more than tripled in the past several years. The courts can't keep up. They lack staff and equippment and technology and all the other things that go along with a smooth operating procedure. What am I going to do, shake my fist at them and say, "Shame on you! Pull it together!" No. That will not do. Sadly, the one thing I know to do, I have been finding hard to find the words for... Pray. I know this is my strongest weapon to wield and yet, I seem to just face every time of prayer with this sort of numb, "struck dumb" feeling. I'm counting on that passage of Scripture that says the Holy Spirit will intercede for me when all that comes out are groans not understood by human ears.

There is a conference call this afternoon with our agency. It happens once a month and it is a chance for all of the "waiting families" (those of us done with paper work and waiting for a referral) to ask questions to program director that they may be pondering. I was going to make time to listen in today. Back when I thought maybe we were further up on the list. But, after a little research (which wasn't hard) I saw how far down we really are and now I am over my wondering if we will get a referral in the next couple of months. Besides, the questions I want to ask, she can't answer... "Will this all happen while my husband is gone?", "Is there going to be two children for us?", "Can you please do something about getting our babies home faster before they get too sick and it is too late?"

My apologies if what I just shared was too much. This journey we are on seems to be quite dangerous just at the moment. At least that is how it feels. A dear friend of mine emailed me several months ago and in sharing some of her struggles she said, "Oh, Shari, this thing we call mothering is not for the faint of heart". How poignant. It is a good thing that I was blissfully ignorant back when I began on this path of being a military wife, mother, passionate follower of Christ, etc. I would have certainly known how "faint of heart" I can become, then turned and ran the other way! :)

Grace and Peace,
Shari

What I should be doing...

What I should be doing is planning school for the next two weeks. What I should be doing is rotating, folding and putting away laundry which has piled up from our trip to the beach. What I should be doing is dusting, wiping or cleaning something. What I should be doing... is anything but blogging. But I am, so there you go.

Tony's parents and brother flew in last Thursday to spend some time with us before he leaves to go across the big pond. We rented a beach house on Ocean Isle and spend Friday - Monday at the beach. It was a really wonderful weekend, though I blinked and it was over. I ran my last really hard, long run before my race next month-- 22 miles up and down the island. The best part about running at the beach is laying in the water after the run!! I had my best recovery ever-- duh. I ran 22 miles, walked straight out to the ocean and sat down in the waves. Then after stretching and re-fueling, I spent the rest of the day sitting, laying and playing on the sand or in the water. No coming home and doing laundry, vacuuming, running kids to games, practices, etc. Just resting. It was good. :)

The other thing that was fun was having my middle child teach me how to "skin board". My brother-in-law rented a skin board from the local surf shop and taught Isaac what it is all about. He, in-turn taught me and we had fun. I'm NOT good at skin boarding, but that is okay. It was just fun to have Isaac teach me something new :). We also all had fun riding the waves on our boogie boards-- another new experience for me. Tony tried to teach me that one. I caught a couple good ones. Also very fun.

Wyatt enjoyed spending time talking all things military with Grandpa. On the way home we stopped by the USS North Carolina and took a tour. We have been on this great battleship before, but it was all new to Tony's parents. His dad is a HUGE military history guru, so there was much to discover together.

On the adoption front, there have been some big changes in our agency. The director of the ET program-- who also happens to be our family coordinator-- is moving with her family to Ethiopia to handle our adoptions from that end. So much has to happen once a family gets a referral, in order to make it possible for us to be united with our little ones. It is a complicated, slow process, often met with mess-ups and potholes along the way. Hopefully, by her moving to Addis and working for each family from that end, the entire process from referral to travel will go more smoothly, with less turmoil in between.

The other big news is that that AWAA increased its Ethiopia Program Fees. And here is my sad admission-- I haven't even taken the new fee schedule and compared it side by side to the old schedule. It's not that I don't care. Especially, because I believe that the reasons given were valid and ultimately, I believe that God will provide. Now, having made that "great statement of faith"... here is my confession. All I care about now, is the fact that we are getting closer to referral and now all the sudden, I am getting antsy. This really irritates me, because I was doing so well, for so long and not at all thinking about getting "the call". I assumed it was so far off and things were going so slow, that we wouldn't get the call for many more months. And, I think that is probably still true, but for some reason, after that last referral and the new "estimated" time frames for referral, I am rattled. I know there are lots of people in front of us, but I don't really know how many or what they are requesting. I don't want to spend lots of time on the chat group trying to figure it out, but still... I wonder. I especially wonder if all this will come down the line while Tony is gone. I put in an email to our coordinator asking these "wonderings" and, of course, she didn't respond. She is too busy, and we obviously aren't close enough to the top of the list to warrent a response.

So... I think I had better start finding something else I should be doing, instead of sitting on this computer blogging :)...

Grace and Peace,
Shari

More Referrals coming down the pipes!

This morning I woke up to a very happy Yahoo Group Post. More families are receiving referrals and the most recent referral came to a family not far in front of us-- for a sibling group!!! This is encouraging to me, since we would love nothing more than to bring home more than one child. I just don't know what the Lord has in store for Team Dragovich, but I trust Him and know that He is working in and through all things. He sees deeper than the surface and His wisdom is greater and higher than anything I can imagine.

In the meantime, we continue to be wrapped up in fall sports. It seems that on any given night, we are at a game, practice and sometimes both! Many nights Tony and I are in "divide and conquer" mode-- one at soccer, one at baseball. There is no way I could do this without him home, and I seem to keep reminding everyone that come Spring, Team D. will be choosing ONE sport and sticking with it. I can't say that I regret letting them choose this time, though. It is wonderful to see them excelling in their chosen sport and gaining confidence with each practice and game. Most importantly, Tony is enjoying every minute of getting his boys to their events and watching them intently as they learn to throw, catch, dribble, pass and make plays. So, who am I to drudge through this season like it is a chore and not a joy? Besides, after October, it is over, then we will all be scratching our heads and wondering what we should do with all our extra time :).

I think I am turning out to be somewhat of a "sub-par" blogger. There are many days that something happens and I think, "That was funny! I should blog about that!" And then, the day is over, I am exhausted and I decide that the three people who read don't care that much anyway :). I am probably wrong, because, if I have only three blog stalkers, then they are my most faithful following and they DO care-- so, sorry!!!

Okay, that was a random side-note, but oh well. At least I have a window of blog time now! Yeah! So, that is all I have. We are still pretty far out in the wait process, unless a LOT more sibling groups come AWAA's way and then who knows, maybe we will get a referral sooner than we think? Or, maybe the family that received the referral was just a perfect match for this sibling group and AWAA knew that and made the match. I may just look into this one. Hmmm...

My love to all of you who read, whether I know you personally, or not!
Grace and Peace,
Shari

My Game Ball Boy

Over the weekend, all the boys had their opening games AND pictures for their sports. Wyatt is playing soccer in Sanford and Isaac and Sam are playing baseball in Broadway (did you catch that? Three different boys, each playing a sport-- with lots of practices and games-- in different towns). Not only did they all have games, but they were almost all at the same time AND Tony was single daddy (see the post below) for the weekend. Oops! Well, they all survived and I'm so proud that they even did WELL!! Sam missed his pictures, but it's okay... he's five. There will be more.

The most exciting thing, though is that my Isaac got the first game ball of the season!!! He played first base, made three outs AND hit a double, helping propel his team to the victory :D. I am so bummed that I missed it, but he was sure to show it to me as SOON as I walked in the door. After I took his picture, he looked at me sort of sheepishly and said, "Mom, do you think we could put this on the blog?" Like he needed to ask ;). BTW, this is his first year playing baseball-- yes, I am braggin' on my boy.

I'm so proud of each of my boys. They work hard and try their best at whatever they do. I know God will put the talents and gifts that He has given them to great Kingdom work, someday... what a joy and honor to be their mama!! :)

Grace and Peace,
Shari

My Running Camp Weekend

Yes, I ACTUALLY registered for AND attended a running camp last weekend. It was an amazing experience. I drove to Boone, NC on Thursday and spent four days running, attending running workshops, eating great healthy "runner" food-- that I didn't have to make, practicing running drills, learning running core work and yoga moves for runners, learned the components of a training program, got one-on-one time with an elite running coach AND just hung out with other runners-- all from different walks of life, with different goals and desires for the weekend camp. I won't bore you with all my running details, but needless to say, I had a great time, met some great people and came home revived and ready to put renewed energy into my running life.

Did I use the word "running" enough for you? Here is the link to ZAP if you would like to see what they are all about and check out their beautiful facility and location in the NC Mountains. Their main mission is to support and train elite athletes on their road to success. But they also spend the summers offering many different running camps geared toward the "regular" person who loves running and wants to learn ways they can reach their goals, no matter what level they are. BTW... it just so happened that one of my fellow campers was there to not only get great running (there's that word again) information but also to feature ZAP in an upcoming issue of Southern Living. Scott Jones is the food and wine editor of the magazine and an addicted-- I mean-- avid runner as well, currently training for Chicago Marathon, AND raising money for World Vision. A photographer from SL came to spend a couple days with us and took LOTS of pictures. Who knows, maybe in the next few months you could open your Southern Living magazine and see... ME!!! And other campers, of course :).

Okay, that is how I spent my last weekend-- totally spoiled and very pumped about my running future :) Only seven weeks to go before City of Oaks Marathon in Raleigh. Just... Keep... RUNNING!!!! :)

Grace and Peace,
Shari

Hanna and other Happenings

We survived Hanna but not completely unscathed... can you believe that??? At about 7:30 this morning, Isaac pointed to the ceiling from the second story and said, "Hey Dad, what's that? Water just dripped on me." That was all it took to make Tony move faster than lightening. The next hour was a a flurry of, "GET ME FLASHLIGHT!!! I NEED A BUCKET!!!!! WHERE IS THAT FLASHLIGHT!!!!" Note to self, make a list of supplies that we MAY need in a hurricane and put them ALL together in ONE PLACE! I had all that stuff, but it was scattered all over the place. Not helpful. And my brain wasn't firing on all pistons at that moment either. Also not helpful.
Turns out, a venting pipe which goes out the roof of the house wasn't sealed properly, allowing water to seep down the sides of the pipe and down onto the ceiling. Fortunately we caught it early and it was a minor drip. It will also not take much to fix. No problem. I like high pressure situations in the morning-- wakes me up. You know I am not serious. The sad truth is, I have been secretly looking forward to Hanna's arrival for a couple days now. I knew she wasn't going to be strong enough to inflict real harm, but definitely mighty enough to cancel all our Saturday responsibilities.
The drippy ceiling was not our only injury. Our power never did go out, but did surge a few times-- again, early in the morning. Apparently, it got the best of our home computer. Tony can't get it to do anything but flash a blinking question mark at him. Hmmm... I don't think it is supposed to do that. We are going to take it to the Apple store tonight to have a diagnostic done on it. Fortunately, we have our computers covered as part of our USAA home owners policy and I am pretty sure we will get at least part of a new computer covered through them.

So, that is it for Hanna. It is gone. Quick mover, that Hanna is. Except now, I have no excuse for not doing a run this afternoon-- oh wait, yes I do. I have to have my computer "diagnosed". Besides, it's hot and sticky and still windy. And I'm on a low-mileage week, so I don't feel bad not running. Guess I'll have get back to business tomorrow.

In other Team Dragovich news, yesterday the boys and I were up at the crack of dawn driving to Spencer, NC. There is a pretty awesome Transportation Museum there and though it took us two hours to get there, it did NOT disappoint!! The boys had a FABULOUS time, learned a lot of fun NC Railroad history, and had LOTS of hands-on experiences-- of course, culminating in a REAL train ride on an old-fashioned passenger train. That wasn't their favorite part, however. Their favorite thing was playing Star Wars in the factory-turned-museum. They apparently turned the entire building into a Star Wars spaceship and ran from station to station turning knobs, pressing buttons, flipping switches and rooting out evil in-between the railroad cars. And in case your wondering what kind of mother lets her boys run wild in a train museum playing Star Wars... well, I could go to great lengths describing how the museum was really designed for such freedom of investigation- whether you are playing train conductor OR Star Wars... but, instead I'll simply say...I am that kind of mother :D

Enjoy the photos!
Grace and Peace,
Shari

Before the train, came the canoe


Can you imagine racing in this???

Wyatt and Isaac on the turntable... they aren't so sure yet.


Climbin' on the caboose

Getting on the Train


PS. BTW, we have been officially waiting over 3 months for our referral. Only 4-6 more to go ;)!!