Cleaning up and cleaning out!

I am exhausted! I have cleaned out every cabinet in this house. I have scrubbed almost every baseboard. I have pulled out unknown numbers of trash bags of McDonald's toys and other stuff I really couldn't believe we had held onto these last few years! I have just Reece's room and the garage to go....and Reece's room is a post in itself. This child is the most stubborn (but lovable) child on the planet. We have done everything we can think of possible to get her to clean this room...positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, taking privileges away for the lack of listening and helping...heck, even bribing at this point! I mean, the movers will be here in less than a week, we have to have this done!

Sigh. I am mentally exhausted from it. This has been going on since Sunday night....every minute of my waking since Sunday has been consumed with trying to get this child to clean. If it was just a few things, fine, but she has TRASHED this room. I mean, you cannot even see the floor for all of the toys and clothes on it. I don't think I'm in the wrong to expect her to clean up her mess....especially when I've been doing the ENTIRE rest of the house! I'm trying not to give in....and forgive my rant here :-)

We have our last swim lesson today. I did not let her attend on Tuesday (because of the disobedience around the room) and oh boy...we were definitely the circus side show there. She cried, she screamed, she begged, she tried to go in the pool in her clothes. I don't think it's fair to punish Kyleigh since she cleaned her room like I asked, so I have to go. It's 8:30...we leave in an hour and the room is not even close to being done. She sits in there all day saying she's cleaning and then it's actually worse than what it was earlier! I guess everyone at the aquatic center this morning will get another show. Maybe she will be a famous actress one day with all of this drama. At least one grandma befriended me on Tuesday and patted me on the back for standing my ground and not just giving into my kids all of the time. I really needed that :-)

This holding your ground stuff is tough tough....especially since the girls are SO different. Kyleigh would have given in and just listened within the first hour.....and we are on day 4 with Reece!!!! Lord please give me patience and strength!

You will be moving August 6th......

That was the email I received today from the moving company. They are coming next Wednesday to pack us up, loading it up on Thursday and moving it to the new house in Cary on Friday. Phew.

While I am **extremely** happy to have a quicker move time than the 4 weeks they initially quoted us, I am looking at the calendar and realizing just how quick that is. I don't have much time at all.

Outside of all of the scheduling with last minute appointments, coordinating real estate agents and everything at the new place, something hit me today. The importance of this house. The memories of this house.

I remember crying pulling out of the driveway at our Wilmington house moving here....that was the house we brought our babies home to...in fact, it happens to be the house pretty much all of the major events of our lives at that time had happened in. But this house, while it holds memories of my kids as well, has a special place in my heart for my dad.

My back porch is the last place I sat with him and just talked...he told me all about my grandfather, who he had never really spoken to me about before. My kitchen table was the last meal I had with him. My driveway was the last place I stood and hugged his neck. My road was the last place I saw him drive away. For these reasons, this move has all of a sudden hit home in a very bittersweet way.

I became a very different person in this house. In the quiet times of working from home away from the noise of the office, I was able to hear God for the first time. I still ran for a while, but being pulled away...this move...was one of the best things to ever happen to me. For the first time in my life, I felt safe with my life in His hands. And that is a wonderful thing.

I know I will cry pulling out of this driveway too, but I am so happy to also remember all of the great times that were spent here. Our family has never been stronger or closer and I cannot wait to see what this adventure has in store for us. Hopefully this next house will also be filled with memories of our Korean cutie soon!

Coastal Carolina no more!

Well, we've given it a little over two great years here in the North Myrtle Beach area, but Bobby got the call last Monday to move to Cary, NC....so here we go again!!

We were lucky enough to find a house to rent really close to the store.....now we just have to push that pesky moving company to get us moving! They are telling us the move is at least 3-4 weeks out! Don't they know school starts in 3 weeks!!!! At least we have somewhere to go. If we have to sleep on air mattresses in the new house in Cary until the rest of our stuff is able to be moved so the girls can start school there, I guess it will be an adventure! I'm just thankful we were able to find a place so quickly.

I will miss this area though. I take for granted that that ocean is 10 minutes away. I know I will miss it incredibly when we move, although there are so many more opportunities for our kids in the city. So much for Kyleigh and Reece and so much more support for adoptive families for sure!

So, this week has been crazy. We just finished celebrating Reece's 5th birthday and actually got the call while we had family down for her birthday. Now it's a rush to get the house ready to sell. We are so thankful to work for a company that will help us with all of this, but it is still stressful. To add to it, Bobby has to start there on Monday...as in day after tomorrow! So, us girls are left behind to get all of this stuff done and daddy is not really happy about having to live out of a hotel either! But, we know it's all temporary and we will all be back together soon.

As for adoption news, we did confirm we have moved up to #10! Woo hoo! These teen numbers have been so incredibly slow. We REALLY hope and pray the single digits come soon and FAST! It was so awesome to hear my husband looking at houses and speaking to folks making sure that there was a room for our little one :-) He even tried to get him counted as an additional person as part of our move, explaining to the lady helping us coordinate this whole thing that it should be treated just like a pregnancy. Oh this man of mine!

Anyway, sorry for the lack of posting and craziness of this post, but as you can see July has been quite crazy for us and August I think will prove to be even crazier!!!

Waiting sucks

So eloquently put huh?

I've been really good about not buying a lot of stuff, mostly because we don't know how big our child will be, and mostly because I just don't want to stare at it everything and think of it. I got two great coupons in the mail ($10 off purchase of $10) and just couldn't resist. My girls have outgrown shopping at Carter's, but I knew I could get some boy clothes for a real good deal!

And we did....$2.16 for 4 shirts! After I came down from my coupon high, I just pulled them out of the bag and stared at them. I probably just should have given the coupons to a friend.

It's been over a year since we started this process. I knew the waiting would be hard, but for some reason lately it's just been harder. There were no referrals at all in June, and while I'm very grateful our agency sends us weekly emails, it's more and more heartbreaking to get it and see there has been no movement...again.

I've heard so many people talk about the ups and downs of this adoption process and I guess I'm just in a down part. I want so bad to have our baby home...just to know who he is! Everyday I think of him...wondering where he is, is he healthy...what is his birthmom feeling right now....do they know how much we love him already?

I really hope there is more movement in July!!!!

CMA Fest Day 5

On any other day, I cannot wait to wake up and get started...but this Sunday morning we just couldn't do it. We slept in the one and only day during our vacation :-) It was a bittersweet day with a lot of my mind...I was thankful because 12 years ago on this day, Bobby and I went on our first date, but also the fact that on this day last year, we started our adoption journey and a year has passed. That coupled with the last day of vacation and exhaustion, it was a lot to take in!

It was after lunch before we ever made it downtown to see what was going on. We spent the afternoon roaming around not really with any plans. We went to the big convention center and there were a TON of kids in there. Seems we found the Taylor Swift event.....

She was doing a 13 hour meet and greet, but you had to win wristbands to meet her. We kept texting every hour, but our names never got called unfortunately. She had stuff from her tour and her buses set up in the middle of the stadium, so it was nice (and air conditioned) to sit there and watch all of these personal videos of hers and watch her meet all of her fans down in the middle. She went back into her bus (we thought for a break) and shortly realized we had walked in just in time to catch her impromptu concert! We were quite a ways back, so we don't have really good pictures of it, but she really did a good job!

We ended up getting a signed CD for Kyleigh and a shirt for Reece and sat in there a bit longer after the show and got very much over priced pizza and drinks. After that, we hung around and grabbed dinner and then headed over to the LP field early and just took our time, hanging out and enjoying the last night of fun. We met so many fun people and it was nice to just sit back with a cold beer and take it in.

Did we mention again how hot it was? Here is proof when we went out to the car...

6pm......

103...not counting the heat index!

We were not the only ones taking in the last night. The way CMA Fest works, you get the option to renew your seats every year, so a lot of the people around us had been coming and sitting together for years! They were catching up and already making plans for the next year. You could definitely tell the hardcore concerts goers!

Here was the lineup for the last night....

Justin Moore opening the night up. I have the feeling he's going to be real big soon

Kellie Pickler didn't fair well with the heat and looked like her face was on fire the entire time, but she sang great!

I was loving some Blake Shelton!

Blake and Miranda

Blake and Trace tearing up the night time stage with "Hillbilly Bone"

I couldn't get over how built Trace Adkins was!

Darius Rucker certainly carried his own...and even graced us with some Hootie! He did a version of Prince's "Purple Rain" that completely blew my mind. Best of the night!

I guess Brad Paisley had a trailer full of guitars in the back because he changed them pretty much every song. He was really talented on them though!

You know all of the boys had to come back out for the final performance of the night..."Alcohol"

The last night was a close second to the first night. It was bittersweet to have to leave, but we headed out back to North Carolina bright and early the next day and made it back home around 9:30 that night. For anyone thinking about going, I would tell you to definitely do it! We had such a great time and when you break down all of the shows we saw with the price, it was the deal of the century.

We've had a lot of people ask us if we will go back next year, but we hope we are celebrating having our son home rather than spending it at concerts :-) Here's to hoping!!!

CMA Fest Day 4

So with everything that happened with the heat the day before, we were happy to have an autograph session with Gretchen Wilson indoors! Here we are meeting the Redneck woman....

After this we did a bit of shopping and just walking around downtown Nashville. We were coming out of a boots store (I racked up on some great boots!) and noticed a very small line outside of the Wildhorse Salon. Anyone else would have thought this might be just the line for lunch, but just then I remember there was a secret CMT Social event that was supposed to happen that afternoon. We decided to crash the line and see how long we could wait in the heat!

This was at 11:30a.m and the show didn't start until 3pm. Luckily they let us in a little over an hour early just to cool off. Getting in line early paid off because we were in the 2nd/3rd row standing right in front of the stage! It was a really cool event because you got a few songs from the artists and they stayed around a few more minutes and answered questions from the audience.....sometimes it got quite interesting!

Here is who was there and a few pictures: Chris Jansen, Randy Houser, Rodney Atkins, Laura Bell Bundy, Gretchen Wilson and Chris Young.....

Loved hearing Randy Houser's rugged, country voice

Rodney Atkins' stories were funny

Laura Bell Bundy was really cute and sincere

It was great to see Gretchen Wilson and Chris Young again too...they were equally as good the second time! We decided we would go back to the hotel again and freshen up, grab something to eat and be refreshed for the night time concerts.

I am kicked back and ready!

At this point we also realize we did not plan on seeing the CMT social earlier...and are not sure how much camera battery we have left! Here is how the lineup went for Saturday night

Randy Houser opened, but we didn't take any pictures since we got quite a few at the CMT Social

Easton Corbin was next

Here's Billy Currington....

Zac Brown Band tearing it up! Although there were several upset folks when they didn't do Chicken Fried!

Martina McBride left the crowd breathless singing "With a Broken Wing". She got a standing ovation that lasted forever...and it was well deserved. She was the best of the night!

And to close it up...Rascal Flats!

Saturday night was the first night we got to bed before 1:30am. All of the concerts ended on time and it definitely felt more scheduled.

Sunday is going to be our last day :-( We know that Taylor Swift is doing some sort of meet and greet event, but don't have a clue about when or where it is. Should we stand in line and try and get an autograph for Kyleigh? Can we handle another day of 100+ degree heat and going strong from 6am to 2am straight?

CMA Fest Day 3

On Friday, we wanted to get up early enough to be at the Riverfront by 9am to be able to get a good spots for the great shows they were having early morning and late afternoon.

Just as planned we got there and got a decent spot and waited for the first show (Gretchen Wilson) to start at 10. Let me tell you, I must be getting old because chugging back beer at 9am is just not my cup of tea...but there were so many folks out there doing it, which was really dangerous because the temperature was climbing fast and there was NO shade anywhere to be found.

We made it through Gretchen's show (which was great by the way)

I cannot imagine not having a good time with this girl...

Next was The Band Perry, a group that has just recently come out. They did good, but the humidity didn't do any favors for the poor lead singers hair :-(

At this point, I would beg, borrow or trade some shade or air conditioning for just about anything. It's not just hot, it's sticky and miserable. We got lunch, but I couldn't even eat it. I did, however, take it a couple of bottles of water to try and even up what I was sweating out. Good news was everyone else there looked just like us. I'll spare you guys the pictures :-)

Patty Loveless was next, but I spent her performance laying on the ground trying to fan myself and cool down. I really wanted to hold out for Chris Young, who was next. Thank goodness he did not disappoint....

Chris, joined by the HUNDREDS of screaming girls around us.....

We had to leave after that and seek some air conditioning and a shower, so we went back to the hotel for some downtime. After cooling off and getting refreshed, we were ready to go back to LP Field for some more night time concerts!

I see the lineup and I am pretty excited...mostly for Josh Turner (who is one of my favorites) and Keith Urban! Here is how it played out:

Julianne Hough opens...

My man Josh Turner

Miranda Lambert


Keith Urban

A pretty intense tribute with Keith Urban, Little Big Town and Sara Buxton for TN flood victims

At this point, everything was stopped for a wedding...yup, a wedding. Seems two members of the stage crew fell in love and they got married before our eyes...

Taking their vows....

You could tell something was up because there was a completely stop to the show before Reba. They said there was technical difficulties, but it took forever for them to start the show back. We could not figure out what happened except she had one very short video before she came on stage. Anyway, she only sang 4 songs because of how long it took, which was frustrating.

And Kid Rock to close the show....

He performed well after they cut off the TV cameras until 1am. I was surprised, but he really put on a great show! Best of the day goes to Josh or Keith still though :-)

On Saturday, we were going to an autograph session with Gretchen Wilson and no other plans otherwise. Check out the next post to see where the day led us to!