Holiday Rush

I finished student-teaching on Friday! (Hooray!) I thought it would be bittersweet but mostly it was just sweet. :) I am not a morning person and this second school was nearly 40 minutes away with morning commute traffic. I was only there for three weeks and my cooperating teacher was great and the kids were adorable but I didn't get attached to them the way I did with my 11 week placement so thankfully it wasn't as hard to say goodbye. I am going to visit my 11 week placement class next week and I can't wait to see them!

My body thanked me for finishing by getting a huge cold that kept me in bed all weekend. It was wonderful to sleep and sleep and not worry about getting the laundry done because I didn't have to be anywhere come Monday morning. Of course I am now in mad Christmas mode. We have places to be all week and I have to finish the shopping for the gifts that need to get in the mail and be sent to all our friends and relatives who live in California (and Kevin's grandparents who are now in Texas). I hope to have everything off by the end of the week so that I do not have to pay for quick shipping. Then I can relax a bit. Did I mention that we have our tree decorated but haven't finished the other decorating yet? This was supposed to be done last weekend but I was asleep!

On the adoption front, the SDA (State Department of Adoption and Families - or something like that) in Ukraine put out the quotas for 2008 and the American numbers have declined. I am just hoping and praying and trusting that we will still be able to adopt in 2008. There is still a lot of unknowns and we won't know much until they officially reopen. That should be February but even that can be unpredictable. We are updating the paperwork in our dossier that has or will expire during their close and we will be sending it to our facilitator (in Ukraine) in about a week or so. Please pray that it is done correctly and that our dossier will be accepted by the SDA for a 2008 appointment. We are hoping to travel this summer. So many unknowns, but we remain faithful that we will be put there at just the right time to be matched with the kids who were meant to be ours. :)

All our leaves are now gone but here are some pictures we took this fall. Enjoy! (Did I mention it was freezing last week and this week we have broken record highs? It's no wonder I am sick! It was in the 80's yesterday and the high for Saturday is 45. Bizarre.)

From the day we drove to Grandfather Mountain and had the unfortunate run in with the fog:






Keaton had so much fun bounding through the leaves that he was a blur in most of the pictures. I am thinking that since neither one of us is very good with our camera that we may need to get a new one before we go to Ukraine. I am guessing the kids will move around a lot too. ;)


Our own fall colors:






The trees in our front yard looked like the were on fire. The colors were even more vivid than they are in these pictures. This is one thing that I LOVE about living on the east coast. Look at that view we had out our front door!