Lobsterfest!

We don't really have much in the way of news, but wanted to share some pictures we saw last week.  Our lobster giveaway winner received her taste of Maine last weekend, and it looks like it was very much enjoyed!   So happy to see the smiles in the pictures and again, so very grateful for your support on our adoption journey!  

Who's ready for some lobster?

I can't help it.   Seeing lobster be cooked will forever make me think of Sebastian from The Little Mermaid

Preparing the feast

Yummmmm!!!

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A couple of non-Peter-related items of importance:

Remember Malcolm?   His parents are currently in-country AT.THIS.MOMENT meeting their little boy.  He's a gem - absolutely adorable and they are even more in love with him than before.  Please say a prayer for their safety and continued success of their trip.  Thanks!

And last, but definitely not least, please go visit our friend Kara's blog and check out her giveaway to bring Nico home.   I want to meet this rascal as soon as possible, so let's all rally around her and help to bring him home!   You could even win an iPad in the process - woot!  

The Great American Road Trip Scavenger Hunt, wrap up (in pictures!)

I can say, without a doubt, that this was the most fun road trip we've ever taken - and we've taken A LOT of road trips.  Getting into the car and hitting the road with picnic meals planned (ask about the time we grilled pork chops in a park-n-ride parking lot!) is honestly our favourite family activity.   We LOVE road trips.

But this one took the cake - the scavenger hunt was a BLAST!  While we didn't manage to find everything on the list, we did find quite a few.  Some of the items (that we saw from the road) we weren't able to snap a picture of, so you'll have to take our word that we found them!   The rest, however.....have photos to prove our accomplishments!

To refresh your memories, here is the final scavenger hunt list:

In no particular order, here are some of the items that we found:

Red Barn, somewhere in Oklahoma

Another red barn - also in Oklahoma, but it was easier to see the redness!

red leaves!!!

The Hudson River

First Maine license plate - in Connecticut at a rest area

welcome to Maine sign

Pine trees!

The Atlantic Ocean is out there - this is the Portland Harbor , so it leads out to the ocean

Frisbee stuck in a tree!  (Courtesy of some playtime at Nanny's house in PA)

The black markings are tiny waterfalls, along the cut rocks in PA

Portsmouth, NH, welcome center

A treehouse we spotted just down the road from our Maine house - and yes, I randomly pulled into their driveway to take a picture.  I'm part-stalker, apparently.  ;-)

Oklahoma City Memorial

Oklahoma City Memorial

Old Cathedral in St Louis, with the Gateway Arch behind it

Mommy and boys at the Arch

The Mississippi River, in St Louis

Finally, our house in Maine!

It was a lot of fun, and our completed scavenger hunt list looked like this:

Thankfully, it didn't snow, so we didn't get a picture of that.   We tried valiantly to get a honey bee hive, especially after finding out that Albuquerque is a "bee friendly" city, but we couldn't find any to go visit.   We talked to the Bee Keepers Association there, and it turns out that all the hives are on private property, and they couldn't find anyone who could give us a tour.  :-(   A little bummed, but I understood!

I totally meant to go out after the kiddos went to bed while we were visiting Nanny and Poppy (Heidi's parents) in Pennsylvania to find some Amish baked goods and a steak and cheese (yum!)......but I kind of fell asleep on the couch.   I guess I was tired out by then!!

Because we visited my parents on the way, it meant we didn't head down through NYC, so we weren't able to get those things on the list.  However, we have plans to go down for Thanksgiving, so we'll try to catch up then!!  haha

Overall, I'd say we did pretty well with the list, and it definitely made the trip fun.   We probably wouldn't have seen some of these things (specifically the Arch and the memorial) without you guys suggesting them, and I'm SO glad that we did - they were some of my favourite memories from the road trip!   Definitely some places we'd like to go back and visit a bit longer!!

So thanks for the fun, and THANK YOU for helping us build these memories!  You guys rock!

Home study update!

We had our home visit for the home study update yesterday.  It went well - we'd had help from a friend on Saturday with unpacking (Thanks, Mary!), and so our house was almost completely set up.  There were still a few boxes here and there, but we definitely were able to get everything that was important to the home study unpacked and put into place.

It went well - this was our first face-to-face meeting with the social worker for the agency in Maine (lots of phone calls so far, but first in-person meeting), and we really liked her.   Her goal is to have everything for the update completed by October 15th, which is amazing!   

Things are coming together!  :-)

Drumroll please......

We're finally all moved in, after a little bit of moving truck chaos (the truck couldn't make it down our new long, dirt driveway, so they ended up having to get a UHaul truck and shuttle it down said driveway.....all in the soaking rain!  Poor guys got a GOOD tip from us!).  

Now our house is starting to come back together, and we're trying to get things in order for our home study update visit, which is tomorrow morning.   It doesn't have to be perfect (the social worker knows we just moved), but it definitely has to give her an idea of our home, Peter's new environment, and our plans for once he comes home.   We've been working around the clock to make that happen!

In a bit of update news - we did finally receive our questions from Peter's country, and have answered them and they've been sent back already.   They were exactly what we expected, and were pretty easy to answer.  There wasn't anything that really surprised us in the list, which was good.

........and now the moment you've all been waiting for!

PICTURES!  (heehee, not really - that'll be another post.  I have our scavenger hunt pictures uploading now so we can let you all see how we did).

But in the real news......It's LOBSTER TIME!

All of the entries are in, and Random.org has popped out a number...

As a HUGE thank you for helping with the scavenger hunt and our move, a dinner of 4 fresh, Maine lobsters is getting sent to......

MAUREEN GRIFFIN!  Woot!   Maureen, if you could just send me your shipping address here , I will get those lobsters ordered and on their way!

Congrats, Maureen!!  I hope you enjoy your taste of Vacationland!  :-)

....

......

.........But wait!  There's more!

Thanks to the generosity of our wonderful friends, Johnny and Alison, and their matching funds, we've had a great flood of donations come into both our Paypal account and our Reece's Rainbow fund.   We've been brought to tears as we've seen Peter's puzzle jump from 140 puzzle pieces spoken for to 227!   (And this is BEFORE we add in the matching funds - amazing!).

Because of those puzzle pieces being spoken for.....we get to give away the Hello Kitty hat!

Remember this beauty?  

Random.org was put to work once more and the winner of this awesome handmade hat is....

CHARLES SMITH!  Woot!

Congrats, Charles!  :-)  Send me your new address here and I'll get it in the mail for you right away!

Thank you all for your generous and loving support - we definitely could tell you were all cheering us on as we drove from one corner of the country to the other!

Watch out for the scavenger hunt pictures.....and our next hat to giveaway!  It's football season - I'm pretty sure some of you will really like our next hat!  

Quick Update (hi and bye!)

Well, we made it to Maine, but we don't have internet set up just yet.   That will get turned on tomorrow.   Once that happens, I'll be able to upload pictures, double-check all the entries for the lobster giveaway (I tried to do that on my phone, but it was NOT user-friendly!!  haha), and go ahead and give that Vacationland dinner away.   Thank you for being so patient!

I just wanted to check in quickly, let you all know that we made it safe and sound, and to thank you for all the support and prayers along the journey here - we definitely felt them!

We'll see you all again tomorrow!


***ETA:  If you've commented recently on the Macbook or lobster giveaway, they're sitting in my email, waiting to be published.  I'm waiting to add those entries until we are online again.  Thanks!