My Babies!

New Pictures of Claire at 22 months

We were so fortunate to receive several more recent pictures of our daughter Claire this morning. I believe these pictures were taken around the time she was 22 months old (she's 23 months old right now). We already love her so much... with each new picture we receive our hearts melt just a little bit more. She got her hair cut short, but it's so stinking cute! Check these out!



How on earth are we going to wait 7 or 8 months to bring this little angel home? Seriously folks... the waiting before was hard... this is going to be almost unbearable. Knowing our daughter is growing up without us... there's just no way for that not to be gut wrenching. We're so thankful to have all of these pictures though... many families who adopt internationally only get one or two pictures and we have well over 20 right now, plus some video. Our adoption agency has been absolutely unbelievably awesome.

Introducing Claire Elizabeth Adkins

Here she is world, after 14 months and 1 week of waiting for a referral! We got the call yesterday morning and have been in constant prayer that God would grant us a peace to say "yes" if this was our Claire! We had originally said we would accept 0-12 months only, and Claire will be 2 next month, so this was not what we were expecting at all. After wrapping our heads around the fact that God's plans were not our plans, this evening we knew we were supposed to say yes, and a couple of hours later were able to get several pictures of our new baby girl!

There is a story to tell of how God showed his hand in all of this, but I'm so overwhelmed right now, I can't even begin to put it into words. I do know that now the hard part begins. Knowing who she is, seeing her face, and not being able to be with her! It will be several months before we can bring her home, so please keep us in prayer.

God is good. God is faithful. God keeps his promises.

Seattle/Vancouver Trip

Greg and I were able to get away on our own last week and explore Seattle and Vancouver. We had been to Seattle about six years ago during our 3-week trip out west, and loved it so much we were eager to go back. We wanted to go into Vancouver then, but the rental car company charged double if you left the country, so we decided to stick to the states. We were really excited to finally make it up there this time.

We flew into Seattle early Thursday morning and checked into the hotel. We ate a yummy lunch at Cheesecake Factory, explored Pike Place Market, looked at the beautiful flowers, ate some yummy cherries, and of course I made Greg take me to the original Starbucks. We went back to the hotel to rest, and ended up falling asleep way early (like 6:30 Seattle time, 9:30 our time.) It's those Sheraton beds! They are the best. We were also running on two hours of sleep and had been up since 3:30!

Friday we had breakfast by the water, and took a land/water tour of Seattle called, "Ride the Ducks." It was super fun. The tour vehicle turned into a boat and we got to see Seattle from the lake. We saw the house from "Sleepless in Seattle" and I also got to see Seattle Grace Hospital (for all you Grey's Anatomy fans), which is actually Fisher Plaza, not a hospital! After exploring Seattle a little more, we drove to Olympia, Washington for Greg's show, and ended up spending the night in a beautiful mansion on the Puget Sound.

Saturday we were treated to a yummy breakfast, and hung out until early afternoon at the house we stayed in. We then ate Thai food, and walked around Olympia. Greg had another show that night, and we drove back to Seattle pretty late. When we got back to Seattle, the hotel we were staying in was so busy, and we had to wait for our room to be cleaned, even though it was 10:30 at night! Apparently the desk clerk had been getting yelled at all night for them being so busy, but my sweet hubby was so nice about it that they upgraded our room to a beautiful "Executive Corner Suite" and gave us free room service breakfasts every morning we were there. The room was on corner overlooking the city, most of the walls were windows! It was such a great view! See...it's better to be nice than mean!

Sunday, we got up early and ate at Seattle's very own, Top Pot Doughnuts then we attended Mars Hill Church and heard Marc Driscoll teach. It was wonderful! After church we wandered around a market in Fremont and ate at a yummy Greek restaurant. We headed over to Ballard Locks to see the fish ladder and watch salmon swim upstream. It was so weird to watch them swim against the current, and sad! They barely got anywhere in the 30 minutes we watched them. What a sad life, to fight against the current for miles and miles just to get where you're going and die. Sniff...sniff! We explored the Seattle waterfront Sunday evening and went back to take a nap before dinner, and once again ended up falling asleep. We ended up waking up at 10 p.m. and had to order room service. The time adjustment was hard on us!

Monday, we got up early and ordered a yummy room service breakfast and headed into Vancouver up in Canada. We rented bikes and rode around Stanley Park, a huge, beautiful park right on the water. We saw hundreds of starfish all over the shore. It was an amazing sight! After biking, we headed to lunch and then drove around Vancouver. We ended up in a park with one of the most beautiful views of mountains that I've ever seen. It rivaled Glacier National Park, which to me is the most beautiful place I've seen! We then drove up a mountain near where the Winter Olympics will be and looked down on an amazing view of Vancouver. We were exhausted and headed back to Seattle pretty early to get all of our stuff packed up.

We made it home late Tuesday night after a crazy flight from Seattle to Memphis. Apparently there was a tornado over Kansas, which made for a very rough ride home! I'm already terrified of flying, despite of how often I seem to be flying lately, so I pretty much squeezed Greg's hand and prayed until we hit the ground in Memphis. Thankfully Memphis to Knoxville was short and smooth!

We had a great trip, but we missed Connor so much! We kept saying how much he would've loved everything we did, and regretted him not being there with us, although it's always good to get away alone. We are definitely looking forward to our family trip to the beach next weekend!!