A Moment of WOW

                There are moments in life when life throws you a major curve ball. I am talking a good life curve. In this moment you have tingles from your head to your toes, you feel like your walking on air and your not even sure if it is you that is living this moment. This first time I ever had this feeling was when the love of my life asked me to marry him standing on the beach 8 1/2 years ago. But I was blessed to feel this happiness again while we were on vacation this Christmas. I had said how my husband's family blessed us with making our adoption their Christmas project this year. Every year, instead of buying gifts for each other, we have collected money to give to someone in need, and this year they chose us. We were very excited and felt very blessed that they were willing to do this for us, but I wasn't ready for what was about to happen. The family passed the bag around and collected money for us and before we all left the room, my husband's cousin, Nate said he had something to say. He told us that he had made up little cards with Nina's face and name, and that she had epilepsy and also my blog address, and was passing it around his campus at college. I was STUNNED to say the least. Nate is such a sweet guy but I wouldn't say he is a crazy out going guy, and the fact that he was willing to get out there and put energy into raising awareness for our little girl and adoption in general was so shocking to me! But he went on the to tell us he also had a jar with all that information on it and was asking people for loose pocket change to help go towards helping us bring our little girl home. THAT is the moment I felt like I was having an out of body moment! Even as I recount this moment I still get teared up. People who don't know my little girl, or us, or even Nate for that matter were giving him money. Some pocket money, but some were giving more than that!
                      I hope to have Nate write in more detail the people he met collecting money soon. He told me some were people who at first glace, you never would have thought would give anything and were more than willing too. He also met people who lived with epilepsy either in their family or they themselves had it. He met people who were from China, those who had been adopted or had siblings who were adopted and others who just really thought adoption was awesome. He said one person said they did not feel comfortable giving to someone they did not know, and then later tracked him down because they saw people they knew posting about our adoption on Facebook! It made me laugh when he told me how before this he knew maybe 5 people total on campus, and now as he walks through campus he is seeing familiar faces everywhere saying hello to him! God never ceases to AMAZE me in how He works through people and their big hearts! With all the "pocket change" he managed to raise a little over $1,200!!!!! Our God is so good!!!
      We were also shown other sweet blessings on our vacation  Not only were we very blessed by the generous donations of the rest of the family, my nieces and nephews were given Christmas money that their parents told them they could use to go get a toy with tomorrow or give it to Aunt Sara and Uncle "Bud" (no I do not like the nick name in case you were wondering, but there are two Uncle Josh's) for our adoption. And each one of them decided to give it to us! Such sweet hearts raised by giving sweet parents! And all the girls were given for Christmas presents, brackets from their Aunt that had a picture of Nina on them!
     My heart was so over whelmed by love for us and love for our little pumpkin so many miles away! Oh if only she knew how very loved she already was!!!!
             While the lesson of patience through this whole process has been more difficult than I ever thought it could be, the blessings and lessons a long the way are growing me in ways I never imagined! And these are the moments I hold onto while I wait...and wait...and wait...





---FUNDRAISING---

I am still having the 31 party going on a little longer for any one who is interested. All of the proceeds are going toward our adoption. The new Spring line is SO SO SO CUTE!!!

And we still have shirts available! :)