A trip to the beach and answered prayer

 So what do you get when you take one grandma, 3 moms, 1 dad......

 1- 15 passenger, 1- 12 passenger, and 1- mini van....

 Full of 16 children, 2 of which are babies :) and the oldest of the crew is 13?  You guessed it you get the Geer, Dixson, Wright Family combo :)  And LOTS OF CUTE KID FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Joanna thoroughly enjoyed her first trip to the beach.  She ate some sand, had some fun, and played- a LOT!!!

 This little boy.....decided to ask the question....what can I do to give mommy a heart attack?  Hmmmm.......  I could take off running full force down the beach front right near the waves that are really huge with my little barely 30lb. body.......for over a half mile.......REALLY?  Yes really......the only reason I can think of is he looked up and didn't see "the family" and took off running to find us- in the opposite direction.  Thank the LORD I was standing "not too far away" and saw him take off.  Although he was far enough there was no way I was easily catching him.  This mommy I am sure looked absolutely ridiculous running in a swimsuit (try not to get sick seriously), all the way down the beach all the while thinking- I can't yell for Jason and the others they are too far away....and he is STILL RUNNING!

To make matters worse.  I had just told the family I was going back in the ocean for a while.....and after a bit they tried to find me.....and couldn't find me......and didn't see me all the way down the beach so assumed something happened to me.  YIKES!!!!

PRAISE GOD!  We were all ok!!!! 

 And with that much cuteness going on......

 the fun was HUGE!!!

 I mean look at that smile!

 Look at these 2 boys playing :)

 And even though it was way too windy, and a bit cold to start....

 It was still fun with family.....

 Look at this cutie!!!  Awww....Jessa.....

 Great fun was had by all.....and the only drawback- sunburn....oh dear.  It was overcast....and even though we are former camp directors and told staff and campers all the time- don't get sunburned, and we are all experienced parents- yeah sunburns are not fun.  OOOPPPSS!!! 

Gotta love the grandma and grandbaby!!!

AND WE FOUND A PLACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR PRAYERS!!!!!!!  I would have said something sooner, but no internet- we just found out Tuesday :)  And let me tell you this mommy's heart has felt much much much better knowing we get to go somewhere much safer soon!!!  (Saturday we move in).  We drove by the place the other day - just 10ish miles down the road :)  So excited and relieved.  And of course Jason couldn't resist bugging them yet for the millionth time about our internet- and we finally got our own hook up today.  Yeah, that only took 2 1/2 weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank the Lord for family!  For safety.  Have you ever had a time in your life that you felt very unsafe?  Reminds me daily since we have been here that God is our safety net.  It has brought my heart to a place to think of all the people around the world that don't ever feel safe.  Of all the children that never feel or even understand what the word SAFE means?  My heart breaks.......because safety should be a basic that everyone should know.  Praying especially for those that don't feel safe today- join me......... (which has me thinking....could you be a child's safe place?)

Still alive, and praying soon.....we will be somewhere else

So here is how we roll with the Wright Family.  This is a video clip on Joanna's Birthday.  It's all the kids singing the "Joanna chant".  This is what the kids do to help entertain Joanna when she gets crabby and it always seems to work.  Nothing like having you very own song!  :)

Tossing our cutie pie always makes her giggle - love it!  just a few seconds long literally....

Love her cheeky face in this.....

And love her new skill of clapping- soo cute!!!

News flash Elizabeth lost her first tooth & Joanna had her last formula bottle.....  awwwww.....
One year ago yesterday was the first time I held Joanna.  One year ago today was the first time Jason held Joanna :)  Time flies!!

So on the housing situation (don't know check the last post)....nothing has changed well except our microwave now broke as well.  I think our kids have cut themselves a million times on the corners of the sharp edged furniture.  Lovely......

We do have a couple of possibles????  PRAYING one of them works out soon!!!  Praising God for what we have and trying to play the Glad Game.  :) 

Tomorrow we are going to enjoy church, and we get to see my cousin Heidi's family :)  YEAH!!!

Joanna's Birthday & Prayers needed!

 Hello everyone...hang on mommy put a LOT of pictures in this post.  It seems I am just too cute for words so she put pictures instead.  :)

 Yep, never wanted a pacifier over the past 12 months, but now I kind of like it mostly to chew on.  :)

 So we had to get out of the house....yeah....more on that at the end of the post.  So we went back to the state park for some picnic time!

 Awww......me and my sister chillin' together aren't we cute?

 It's time for my party!!!

I actually like balloons now. 

 Uh oh!  Here I come!!!!

 Hmm.....what is all this, a dish thing, and silverware what???

 MMMMM.....now this looks GREAT!

 Hey, look everyone is singing to me...awww....thanks!

 This is really the part of the cake I want. 

 It's time to get started on the desert!

 Hmmm.....I think I dropped some in this thing.

 What is this thing....trying to get the hang of it.  (she did really well by the way)

 Awww.....that is what I said when I saw my cards. 

 Ohhhh a pink ball :)

 I like ripping the paper- fun!

 And then when you do this...it does this....

 Now I am getting the real hang of ripping open my presents!

OOOOOO- now this makes some fun music to jam to.  (I will have mommy post a video later).

To read my AMAZING STORY here are some links....  we have a daughter, pics of our Joanna, Joanna's Story part 1, Joanna's Story part 2, Joanna's Story part 3.

To our BEAUTIFUL daughter Joanna Faith Wright.  There were many many many tears on our journey to find you.  There was loss of another daughter.  There were times when it felt very hopeless, BUT GOD had plans beyond our view.  Something so wonderful that we couldn't have planned......YOU!  We Thank God EVERY DAY for you.  For the joy you bring into our home and our hearts!

Your fun words- mama, dada, baba, and of course Uh Oh (he he he).  Wonder how you learned that?   You love to dance, cuddle, cruise, and hang out with your brothers and sisters.  You don't really like going to anyone except family right now, but we don't mind because we love to carry you in the sling as much as possible :)  We are privileged to watch you grow up.  We Thank God that your birth family chose life and we will NEVER forget their sacrifice, their love for you, and for us.  We PRAISE GOD for them and will always be grateful to them for YOU!

****Lastly we have a HUGE prayer request.  In our in between step, that is until we find a home to buy, we rented a vacation rental.  We have put our stuff into storage until we find a home.  So that being said.  The place where we are staying is a NIGHTMARE!!!!  The house itself is ok (well besides all the things that keep breaking down and having to "borrow" internet because ours - you guessed it is still not hooked up), but this is NOT A SAFE AREA TO LIVE IN!!!!!!  I am not saying that lightly.  When you neighbors tell you they wouldn't allow their child to come live with them because there were drug raids etc going on last week, there are cars on jacks, smashed windows, places boarded up, trash in all the yards (even ours even though we have picked up every day around our townhouse), loud music blaring from neighbors and cars at all hours, people yelling and screaming outside our windows, mobile home dragged into the middle of the road near the entry into the area along with a bin on it's side, the "entry house" has been trashed, we have been warned by more than one person to NOT LET OUR CHILDREN OUTSIDE AT ALL!!!!!!  Yeah....not making me feel safe.  To be honest I am surprised our computer is still here- FOR REAL!!!  Other than our computer and ourselves there is not anything of value with us.  Please pray!!!!  We have not been able to find any alternative- this is FL and there are rentals everywhere, but they are all rented!  So right now we are STUCK!  We are just praying our tax refund comes soon (oh yeah we have to send in additional paperwork for that- which they will be sending a letter to us this Friday to let us know what we are to send them- UGH!!) so we can buy a home asap and GET OUT OF HERE!!! Praying a hedge of safety around our family, and for those living here that are stuck!

I'm BACK!!! And today was Joshua, Sarah, and Elizabeth's 3rd Adoption Day!

 Look at this cheeky girl.  She never wanted a paci even when we tried to force one in her mouth for the last year give one to her.  And yet she sucked on these blue whistling lips.  Hey, it occupied her while we scooped up some last minute bits and pieces.

 This was the road that leads away from camp...our home for the last 7 years.......

 Our last smaller 16 ft moving truck and of course our dream boat of a 15 passenger van :)  Great for holding all our treasure in the world.

 One last pic of our front entry....and all the bikes of course. 

 The view from our window....

 You can see the slide from the pool....

 And the cabins as well....

 There is my hard working honey.....loading things up!!

 Joanna says why am I stuck in here???

 Our kiddos watching some netflix on the camp's laptop since it started raining the last day we were there and all of their stuff was packed!

 Looks pretty empty!!!  Ready for us to leave by 4:15am - Sent on our way by "big" Sarah (the young lady who worked with us over 6 years of our time there!, babysat our kiddos endless times, and spent a lot of time with us- she put up with a LOT!) waving out her window.

I would love to say it has been a bed of roses, but that would be a lie.....so here goes....

We arrived after dark..don't remember the time, but as we stepped into our temporary rental home......we noticed we had no air conditioning in 1/2 the house.

Then as the boys were in the tub upstairs.....a waterfall of rain came through the ceiling the next morning- anybody remember the movie Money Pit???

Then when we went to get online- no internet (still don't have it, we are borrowing......) even after it had been requested to be installed a full 10 days before we arrived!  And they have talked with the housing managers many times!!!! ugh!!!

And the tv's here are tiny!!!  Good thing we don't care.....and their cable isn't hooked up, no worries there the only show we wanted to watch was the Duggars anyway.  Oh well...

Then we went to visit one of my cousins- Heidi, Mark, Mckenna, & baby Jessa......and someone who works for them had their dog in the yard- that bumped Matthew and split his gums and chipped his tooth.

Then the next day as we were sending daddy on his 2nd flight home in a week to bring down our Suburban (which was waiting at the airport for him) traffic was CRAZY!!!  As in stopped.....and he ran like crazy - and caught his flight- Thank goodness!!!!

So are we ready to throw in the towel?  NO WAY!!!!!  Because you see......we have gotten to visit with my cousin's family, my aunt Jane, and Jessa & Joanna are already close buds.  You should have seen them hugging!!!!  TOO CUTE!!!  But did either of us have a camera- no.....sad days......sorry.  AND we had a GREAT time hanging out!  We have sooo craved that for such a long time!  And tomorrow we are hanging out again!!!  And we have said things like isn't it great we get to be so close now and our kiddos get to have fun playing together.  And when Abigail & Mckenna were holding the babies- Jessa & Joanna- too cute (again no camera), but what a beautiful thing!

Let me tell you we have just moved, and are looking forward to meeting some great bloggy friends, and facebook friends!!!!  WE CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  :)  The good news is our AC is fixed, and there is no longer water coming down through the ceiling either.....and the best part was we had safe travels!!!

 AND TODAY WAS JOSHUA, SARAH, & ELIZABETH'S 3RD ADOPTION DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  When I think of the almost 3 years we had to wait to adopt them after they were placed with us through foster care.......all the court dates, the weekly visits, the heartache- I WOULD DO IT AGAIN IN A HEARTBEAT!  Because I just love them sooo very very very much!!!!!!!!

 So it was fun to spoil them today with presents, remembering the day we got to stand up in court and say- yes your honor we want to be their mommy and daddy forever!  We know this is irrevocable, and we know the vast responsibilities, and YES!!!!!!  WE WANT THEM TO BE OUR CHILDREN FOREVER!!!!  Nothing more powerful than that!!!!

 I mean who would want to miss this???

 and this??

 and this.....

 and this....

 I mean I could seriously gobble them up!!!

 and this handsome young man put together this complex lego firetruck in record time!

 Then we decided it was time for the park- there is a state park 15 minutes up the road. 

 The boys showing off their tat's

 Oh yeah, Abigail's tat on her neck and even Joanna had a tat too :)

 Oh yeah, Abigail had one on her ankle too.

 The girls butterflies on their faces and on their shoulders too.  Too cute!

 And since the famous chef Jason just arrived back yesterday- totally exhausted from yet his 3rd trip to FL from Louisiana in a week and a half.....we let Dairy Queen make the cake this time- YUMMY!  And the young lady who checked us out at DQ was adopted herself!!!!  How awesome is that?

 Look at those adorable faces.......

And daddy & Joanna.......

Thank you sooo very very much for all of your prayers and love sent to us!!!!!!!  We sooo very very very much appreciated them all.  As we catch our breath.....I will definitely be back to blogging more.  I have missed my crazy blogging world....so give me time to catch up with you all :)

I just realized this is my first post from Florida - since our move :)  he he he .....too fun!