Dec. Numbers

Not much in the way of movement as far as number are concerned. We are still officially 15 for a boy and 23 for a girl. There have been a few referrals over the past week, so our unofficial numbers are a little lower. There are a lot a families traveling to Ethiopia this month for court dates and embassy dates. As children began going home with their new families I would assume that Hanna's Hope will have more children arriving soon. We are going to be in the single digit numbers before we know it. As every day passes we are one day closer to meeting our new little "D".
Have a Merry Christmas,
Tony

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We have had a lot of fun getting ready for the
Christmas season. We put up lights on the outside of the house and made holiday cookies from scratch with the kids. Now that was fun!









We are headed down to Pigeon Forge, TN to visit with my father. He is currently working at Dolly Wood in the show “T’was the night before Christmas”. He is playing the part or St. Nick. This is going to be great!




Have a safe and joyous holiday,
Tony

November Numbers

Our new number on the boys list is;



The new number for the girls list is;



We are so excited about the progress that we have been making towards our referral day. We can't wait to meet the little person that God has planed to join our family. I can only guess what wonders lie ahead. Carrie shared our plans to adopt with our church family this past Sunday.

Tony

Happy Times

Family outings, walks and dinners together have made me feel much more connected with my family. This month has been very exciting as far as our adoption is concerned. We are unofficially in the 20's on the girls list and in the teen's on the boys list. Families that have been waiting the past two months for the courts to re-open in Ethiopia all at once received their call. Soon and very soon we will be receiving that same call and our lives will forever be changed as we seek to continue to glorify our wonderful savior.

As we wait we continue to enjoy time at the zoo. We also had a fun evening out with friends to the local bowling alley, what a hoot. Tomorrow is trick or treat night, so the kids decided to carve up their little pumpkins. It was so fun seeing them dig out the inners. Good times!

Bowling




Zoo!





What are you looking at?


My wife took this amazing photo! WOW!


Hey pumpkin.


Here is a picture of the sunset looking out the back window of our home tonight. Just beautiful.


We are looking forward to sharing all of these fun activites and family outings with the newest member of our family, soon to come.
Tony

After school

I actually left work by 3:30 today. I didn’t have any papers to take home to grade and I didn’t have golf. It felt really strange, so strange that I decided to carry my empty bag home with me. I guess this made me feel a little more comfortable. I was able to get home just about the time my wife was leaving the house to walk and pick up my son from school. I walked along with her to the school and when my son came out he said “Wow, you both came to pick me up? Why are you both here?” My wife then spoke up and said “Daddy is finished with golf until next year.” He quickly said “YES!” He then turned to me and asked if we could play football when we got home. Of course we played football, all four of us throwing, running and rolling around on the ground. I love spending time together like this and this fall weather is beautiful.
Tony

Whirlwind

Our life is like a whirlwind, but the winds should be dying down very soon. Tomorrow my high school golf team travels to participate in sectionals. Once Golf is over there will be no more long evenings away from the family and more time to focus on other important aspects of my life. This past weekend was so fun. We had our two nieces over for a sleep over (1yr old and a 4 yr old). The house was transformed into a princess wonderland with dresses being changed about ever fifteen minutes. I am also really glad that summer has past but can we enjoy some fall before the winter... another 40 degree night.

We are slowly moving our way down the adoption wait list but I bet we still have another six or seven months to wait impatiently.
Tony

Hiking

After Church today my wife felt the desire for us to do something together as a family. We would have gone for a bike ride except that I bent the rear rim on my bicycle a week earlier. She brought up a hiking trip we took down in southern Ohio a couple of years ago and how much fun it was. It would have taken us two hours to drive back down there, so I searched the internet for a more local park/trail. I found a park about thirty minutes away from our house, so we loaded up in the van and away we went.

Over the past month or so we decided to do a t-shirt exchange with some of the other families that were adopting. This week we received the (Adoption Rocks) shirts from the Huson family (North Dakota). After changing out of our Sunday dress clothes my wife decided to put on her t-shirt.


I had never been to the park before, so I was not sure where the trails started or ended. As I drove deeper and deeper into the park (which was very busy) I finally found a place to park. Imagine that, a busy park on Labor Day weekend. Just off of the end of the parking lot there was an opening into the woods. As we entered we found a map that showed a five mile loop trail. I thought to myself this is going to be an awesome long walk and it should wear the kids out. We saw some incredible wildlife and scenery. Some of the wild life that we got to see was a deer, cardinal, squirrel, hawk and a woodpecker.





There were a lot of other families out enjoying Mother Nature as well. Then I heard a lady talking to her husband as they walked past me in the other direction, she said “Maybe we should ask them”. To this I stopped and said sure what can I help you with? (This is where it gets cool) She said I noticed your wife’s shirt and my husband and I were just discussing this not more than a minute earlier. We shared with them about our involvement with Ethiopia and the schools and how it led us to the decision to adopt from ET. We told them all about our agency, timeline, finances and our excitement. We gave them our number and told them to feel free to call if they had more questions or if they wanted to meet and talk more about adoption. What a great hike!



Interesting how God works out his plan, a t-shirt from North Dakota worn on a trail in the woods in central Ohio that we have never been on before and on a holiday weekend.