Just a few pictures

Sorry it's been awhile. Life is just insane around here. Sarah is almost finished with basketball season, the girls are doing well in school and I'm about to finish my global finance class. This is probably one of the hardest classes I've ever taken. I will be so glad when I'm finished. Then I have one more finance class, my capstone and my 2 science classes! Yeah. I can't wait to be done! I can't imagine life without school work. I'm so ready. I just wanted to post a few pictures that Katherine sent of the trip to Shreveport with my parents to visit my aunt and uncle, These are really good.

Almira looks so pretty and so grown up.

Kathy B.

Dreary wintertime ...

Hello all,
I really don't have much to report here. I'm staying so busy with my global finance class that I just don't seem to have time for much else. I spent most of the weekend doing nothing but working on school work.

We did go to Sarah's basketball game this past Saturday and she had a really good game. She scored the first two points of the game and then got quite a few rebounds. She tied the ball up and caused several turn overs. They won the game and I'm so happy. They've had a rough year this year. She joined the 9 and 10 year old league and the girls are much bigger and tougher. They played a team a few weeks ago and one of the players was a big girl, she looked about 15 or 16 years old. We were assured she was only 10. She was about two inches taller than me, she must have been close to 5'7". All the other players just hit her about chest high. It really seemed unfair to let someone that big play, even though she is the right age. She hurt several of our players just falling on them or running into them.

Almira is doing well and making good grades. I think she kind of misses soccer now that it's over. I hope she will do some kind of soccer camp this summer. It would be so good for her.

I have been reading all the adoption blogs that I know of for older child adoption. I love to see the updates and hear how the kids are doing. I wish I had more time to keep mine updated, but with work and school, there just doesn't see to be enough time in the day. I'm so thankful I only have one finance class left. I can't wait to be done with school!!

I just signed up for graduation in May. We will actually drive to Little Rock, ARK, which is 3 hours north of here. That is the closest location for graduating. This just can't come soon enough.

I wanted to post some of the other blogs that I follow or that I check from time to time. That way if anyone out there is thinking about adopting from Kaz, especially for an older child, these can be a great resource.

Have a good day,
Kathy B.

Two in the double digits

Today is Sarah's birthday, she is turning 10. I can't believe the time has flown by so quickly. Yesterday morning I was at work and looked at the clock at about 8:30 and I remembered back 10 years ago. I'm so thankful that God let me experience carrying a life and giving birth, at least once. Ten years ago I was hooked up on the drip, experiencing labor, which wasn't too bad at that point. By late in the afternoon of that same day I had only dilated to 4 and was not making any progress. Finally a little after midnight on January 16th at 12:02 a.m. Sarah emerged, during an emergency C-section. Even on drugs, I still remember those moments. I remember everything about it, Jon holding my hand to left, the sound of her crying for the first time. They held her up over the sheet for me to look at very quickly before they whisked her away. And yes, she was born with that red hair, the exact color of my grand mother's, just not very much of it.

I also remember it was so cold and I was shivering so hard that he was trying to hold my shoulders still on the table. It was a couple of hours later before they brough her to me to hold. My family saw her when they walked out of the OR with her and took her to the nursery. My sweet baby. Happy Birthday, Sarah!

Back to the grind ...for the girls

Yesterday was hard, the kids had to go back to school. They did have a great day on Monday. My Mom and Dad took Sarah, Almira and Katherine to Shreveport. I have an aunt and uncle there. My uncle is a retired geologist and my aunt was a school teacher before they had their son, Michael. They lost Michael in 2003 to a brain tumor. He fought hard for 2 years, but lost the battle. Michael was one of those brilliant only children. He had just finished his masters in Bio-Chemistry, I believe. He was one of only 4 or 5 students accepted into the program at LSU in Shreveport. I think about my aunt and uncle often. Michael was their entire world. My aunt pulled out her wedding dress which is 50 years old and had Katherine try it on. Then she gave it to Katherine. I couldn't believe it. But Aunt Shirly has no one left to give it to. Katherine is about 5'5" and only weighs about 90 pounds. She wears a size 0 or a 2 in pants. The dress was tight on her through the rib cage. Mom is going to have it let out and cleaned. She will be a beautiful bride. Denis, you are a lucky man.

Back to Michael - I can't imagine watching my child suffer and then losing one of them to a disease. I know alot of people live through this, they must be much stronger than me. For many years I've had this terrible worry of something happening to Sarah. I'm quite paranoid about her going anywhere by herself or being left alone. I think it is from all my years working at the District Attorney's office and then working in the courtroom as a minute clerk. I heard too many horror stories and the news doesn't help either.

I had a nightmare last night about Sarah. I don't know where Jon and Almira were in the dream, but we were alone together on vacation out west somewhere. I had rented an RV and was driving. We had stopped at some roadside store for some reason. Sarah went inside alone while I did something. I showed up and she was drinking a soft drink. I asked her where she got it from and she said she had just opened it and was drinking it. Okay there are several things wrong with this picture. I would never be on vacation alone with Sarah, driving an RV. I also would never send my daughter alone into a store (even though she is almost 10) and she would never just open a drink and start drinking without paying for it. So back to the dream - I fussed at her and told her that I didn't have money to pay for that drink. Our RV was way back down the road and I would have to walk back and get my wallet. (Yeah like that I would park a mile from the store). So I sent her back by herself to the RV and told her to wait on me. (Another yeah - right like I would do that). When I walked back to the RV she wasn't there. She was missing. I sat up straight in the bed, just horrified. I couldn't go back to sleep and that was at 5:45 this morning.

My worst fear in the world is that one of my girls will be abducted. It is probably from seeing the story on the news last night about that hiker in Georgia. Sarah was in the room with me and I couldn't find the TV remote fast enough. I don't let her listen to grisly news stories. The young girl was found dead and decapitated. How can one human being do that to another?!? Her poor family. I finally found the remote, changed the channel and Sarah asked me about it. I told her that it was a bad idea for a pretty young girl to go out hiking in the mountains by herself, it just wasn't safe. There are bad people out there in the world. I told her again that I hope when she is in college or grown she will be safe and not go to places like that alone.

There is a fine line between warning and protecting your children and then scaring them to death. I try to be careful, but I think I've made Sarah scared. She won't hardly leave my side in a store unless Almira is with her, even if I can still see her. Now I'm afraid my paranoid ways have rubbed off on her.

I will admit if either of my girls go away for school I am going to be a nervous wreck. By then there is no telling what kind of high tech devices we will have. I'll make both of them text me every day or call me to tell me there are at home and okay and locked up for the night. That is a long way away and I probably shouldn't even be thinking about it yet. Maybe it is because Sarah is turning 10 in one week. If my mother is reading this right now, she is probably laughing at me because I was so rebellious and didn't want anyone keeping up with me when I was younger. Now I get it!

Sarah and I worked on birthday party invitations last night. We're going to do a backyard campfire cookout. I just couldn't come up with anything else and frankly I don't have a lot of extra money to spend. After Molly's kitten surgery last week which was almost $500.00 and then my desktop computer is giving me the blue screen of death - I'm taking it to the computer fixer store today at lunch and my wireless router is not working in my house. So I packed everything up last night and put it in a box and I'm taking it in. All I can think about is how much is this going to cost me. Yikes!! I've been getting on the internet from one of my neighbor's wireless internet connection lately and I have no idea who it is. But since I started back to school yesterday I don't have a choice until I get mine fixed. But it will all work out. We're just not eating out, going anywhere or spending any money for the month, except Sarah's birthday. It will work itself out, it always does.

I started global finance yesterday and it should be quite interesting, albiet a bit difficult. After this class I have 2 classes left and have to find some way to pass my biology clep or take another 6 hours of science on-line.

Hope everyone has a good day and a good week. I heard from Boris and our box finally arrived in Petro with Christmas presents for everyone. They will be delivered on Thursday. I can't wait to see pictures of Roza and Vika.

Talk to you later,

Kathy B.

Family fun...

Jon called me at work yesterday afternoon and said I have a suprise for tonight. I envisioned adult conversation, maybe a movie just the two of us or another couple, maybe a nice dinner in a dark grown up restaurant, not browsing over the kids menu. But his idea turned out even better. He had bought a fire pit, picked up some firewood that was stored in the back of the lumberyard, then headed to the grocery and bought hotdogs, buns and marshmallows. Sarah had basketball practice until almost 6:00 and then we stayed to watch a little bit of another girls basketball game before we headed home.

We got home to a roaring fire in the backyard, with chairs pulled all around. It was so nice, no TV, no IPOD, no stereo playing, just the four of us sitting around a big camp fire, roasting weenies, eating hotdogs and then marshmallows. Almira had never done any of this and so we gave her a quick lesson in marshmallow roasting and how to get the outside just crunchy, just right and get the inside all gooey. Yum! I haven't had a roasted marshmallow in at least 3 years since we went to church family camp in 2004.

It was a nice night, around 50 degrees here. I understand it is quite cold back in Petro right now. I know it has been negative quite a bit lately. Almira was talking about how much she missed the snow today. The kids were running around in the driveway today playing badmitton and then hitting the tennis ball some - with short sleeves on. It was 65 today and overcast.

I hope everyone is enjoying their new year. We got the last of the Christmas decorations down and put back in the attic today. Then I ended up having something similar to spring cleaning. The Lord knows this house needed it, with all the craziness of Christmas.

Enjoy your weekend. Sorry, didn't take any pictures of the weenie roast, but I finally did of the Christmas cards that the kids painted before Jon took them down. Almira drew both of them and then painted hers. Sarah and her friend Kellen painted the Santa card that Almira drew.

Kathy B.

Back to the grind ...

Hello everyone. This has been much harder than I thought ... returning to work after almost 2 weeks off. The update on Molly is she is much better, but not out of the woods yet. We got to bring her home yesterday. She can only eat 1 teaspoon of food at a time and is on an antibiotic.

Yesterday I decided to take off work and get a few things taken care of. I started my morning off at the eye doctor. I felt like I needed an eye exam. I only started needed some light reading glasses about a year ago, mainly because I spend 10 hours a day on computer and then reading for school. I have been having more trouble reading small print lately. Boy was I right. My doctor recommended bi-focals. Yikes! I'm only 39, just turned, so what is the big deal. Between my foot killing me and now bi-focals, I feel like I'm falling apart!

From the eye doctor I had dental cleaning appointments for me and the girls. Then ran to Sarah's doctor because she had an ear ache. She had a right nasty little ear infection, probably from swimming last week in the in-door pool. It was quite a busy day and I'm glad I took off work.

The girls are enjoying their last few days at home before school returns and Almira is already counting the days until the next day out of school. I did find out she made straight A's this time, so I can't believe she doesn't like school. I think she just really enjoys having nothing to do, which I can understand ... I remember those days from many years ago, mainly pre-children.

I'm also trying to plan a birthday party for Sarah, who is turning 10 on January 16th. It's a good thing I didn't wait until the last minute ;-)

Just wanted to drop a note and wish everyone Happy New Year! I just hope this year is as good as or better than last year. 2007 was definitely a memorable year.

Kathy B.

Happy New Year!

Pictures: Fun at the beach, building a sand castle. A yearly tradition in the shark's mouth. The last day, walking back to the car. Saying goodbye was hard.

We arrived home Saturday night late and finally all got to bed about 11:30. It took most of the day Sunday to get unpacked and then into Monday to get all the laundry done. Monday morning started off with a trip to vet. Molly, the kitten, has not been feeling well for a couple of days. Sunday she just wasn't herself. She wasn't eating much and just cried and cried. She stayed curled up next to me most of the day on Sunday just sleeping and purring. A trip to the vet led to major surgery. Seems as though our baby Molly ate a 6 inch piece of elastic string. She had major surgery but is expected to recover.

We are going to have a quiet night this New Year's Eve. Mom and Dad are taking the girls up to my aunt's house in the country to see all my cousins and everyone. I am in the bed with a bad foot. I found out in July of this year that I have plantar faciatis and a bone spur on my left foot. After all the walking I did the last few days, I got up yesterday morning and pulled my crutches back out. Every step is so painful. I am trying to stay off my feet as much as possible, which is okay since I've been studying for a biology clep since yesterday morning. I have some more great pictures of the girls from the beach, that is the main reason for my post.

If you read this, say a little prayer for our baby Molly. I'm sure she is feeling pretty scared, lonely and hurting right now. She can't come home until Thursday, maybe.

Kathy B.