Turning twelve in Chi-town!

Noelle and Hailey at the Shedd Aquarium!

Cheesecake Factory, YUMMY!

Much better than a taxi!

The birthday girls at Wicked.

We love theater! And it was AWESOME!

Tornadoes

Tornadoes struck the Midwest with a vengeance. We are fine, as is our house. One of Noelle's teachers lost her home and a family that formally attended our church also lost their home. Both families are alright. However, seven people have lost their lives. Please join us in praying for their families and communities. Scott is joining some clean up efforts. It is so hard to know how to help. It seems like disaster after disaster has struck the world lately.

Matthew 24:6-8, "And wars will break out near and far, but don't panic. Yes, these things must come, but the end won't follow immediately. The nations and kingdoms will proclaim war against each other, and there will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. But all this will be only the beginning of the horrors to come."

Are you ready? Is your neighbor or friend or family member ready? We do not know how long we have here on this earth.

2 Peter 3:15a, "And remember, the Lord is waiting so that people have time to be saved."

John 3:3, "Jesus replied, 'I assure you, unless you are born again, you can never see the Kingdom of God.'"

John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life."

Our dossier has left the state!

Our dossier is finally on its way to Washington D.C. There it gets notarized again and authenticated. Then it goes to our agency on the west coast, where they send it off to Ethiopia. I did each of those steps "Next Day" so that should go pretty quickly. I really have no idea what happens then, but hopefully we get a July court date!!

As I was getting papers notarized, the notary said to me, "I bet Angelina (Jolie) didn't have to do all of this!" Makes you wonder doesn't it. At the very least, I am sure she paid someone to get all of this together.

It feels so good to have the responsibility be someone else's for a little while. Now I have to work on Jake's travel papers for Argentina. He is going on a missions trip with Global Expeditions/Teen Mania. Then, I need to do a little Spring gardening.

May flowers and redecorating!

Every time I drive up to my house, this is what I see. And it makes me smile! Isn't God a wonderful artist! This weekend it was 50 degrees and today it is over 80. Iowa weather is crazy!

This weekend we were at our cabin Friday night and Saturday. Jake shot this huge turkey!
Here's some shots of the new rooms. First the former guest room, now Jake's room. Sorry, Larsons, and other guests. As you can tell he loves hunting and golf.

This is Noelle's room, formerly Jake's room. I am praying the new room causes some cleaning fairy to overtake her body. She insists that she wants it to be less cluttered, but she loves her stuff.

I found Jake's dresser at a garage sale for $40 and Noelle's set at a vintage store called Good Things. It is art deco and so cool!

Without going into detail, we had an update on our daughter and she is doing well. We are just waiting for a couple things to come in the mail and hopefully our dossier will be off to D.C. next week. I spoke with both governmental agencies last week and they said we should receive our documents soon.