We're 2 and 0!

My gymnastics team, Premier Gymnastics Level 4, had their second meet of the season today. We got first place again with a fabulous score of 113.05, ahead of the second place team by .065. All of the girls were great today, but I would like to recognize and congratulate my top scoring girls in each event: Vault, Sarah L. 9.75 (highest individual score of the meet!); Bars, Brooke S. 9.3; Beam, Alexis H. and Brooke S. 9.5; and Floor, Madeline W. 9.55.

I'm very proud of the entire team and I'm looking forward to our next meet!

Lady bug, lady bug fly away home

My house is inundated with these little lady bugs. More accurately, I believe they are called Asian beetles. They were purportedly imported into the United States some years ago to control pests in soy bean fields. The local wisdom is that the soy bean harvest drives them out of the bean fields and into the houses of poor unsuspecting homeowners. Now they are pests in Midwestern houses. We have hundreds of them in our house. Every day I clean up their little bug carcasses, and the next day there are a zillion more. This photo is of one of the little beauties posing in a bowl of gourds on my kitchen counter. Sure, they're pretty, but they also bite! May they all die soon. RIP.

It's in DC!

Our dossier was sent to the courier in Washington, DC yesterday for authentication at the State Department. We are getting closer...

Just because they're cute

I'm putting these pictures of my pets up because they were victims of the accidental deletion. They're so darn cute and lovable that they deserve a spot on my blog. My doggies are Bridget, Bobby and Bruno. They are shown here cuddling in their dog cabinet, which is a crate I had built into our kitchen cabinets.

In the second picture, Bridget is lazing around with our two cats, Lucy (the black one) and Harry.

Here we are again!

Okay, so like an idiot, I somehow managed to delete an entire category of posts from my blog... all of the ones marked "family". Sorry family. :( So I'm going to repost some of the stuff.

We are the Spears family...Tom, Paula and our three teenage children Kenneth, Emily and Anna. We live in a rural area of Nebraska, near Omaha. We just moved here about 10 months ago after living in the suburbs of west Omaha for 10 years. We love our new house on the lake and all it's wildlife, but it is quite inconvenient in many ways and has been a big adjustment.

Some of the family interests are church, pets, marathon running, taekwondo, gymnastics, diving, reading, video games, cheerleading, shopping, jet-skiing and fishing. We don't all enjoy each of these activities equally. :)

I am a part-time gymnastics coach and a full-time mom. I'm thinking I should add some additional computer training into my list of interests so that I don't delete anything else.

Sigh. What an idiot.

Ack! I deleted a bunch of posts!

I just accidentally deleted about half of my posts. Major tears! If anyone knows how to get them back, please tell me.

A bad day for Emily

My poor baby. As you may know, we are a gymnastics family. I am a coach, and both of my daughters are or have been gymnasts. (Tom and Kenneth get quite tired of gymnastics conversations.) Anna quit in February after sustaining several broken bones in her hand/arm: she's dislocated an elbow (required a cast), broken a finger and hand bone (required a cast), broken her thumb (required a cast) and the final straw was a stress fracture in her wrist just one week after getting a cast removed. So she moved on to high school cheerleading and diving and is very happy.

Emily, however, is sticking it out for one last year of competition before going to college next fall. Today was a "show day" at Premier; a deadline day for the optional gymnasts to demonstrate certain skills for the upcoming meet season. Alas, while warming up her front tumbling pass, Emily managed to roll both ankles. After a couple of hours in the ER, the verdict is a nasty sprain of her right ankle; at least there is nothing broken and no cast required. But my girl is on crutches for the week and who knows how long it will take to get the ankle back to full strength? She now has two bad ankles... Her first meet is New Year's weekend and includes a much anticipated New Year's Eve trip to Times Square in NYC. So please say a quick prayer that Emily will heal well and quickly. She's worked so hard for almost six years!

Way to go, Premier Gymnastics Level 4's!

This is just a shout out to my great level 4 team at Premier Gymnastics... you girls rock the gym! We had our first meet of the 2008 season today and got first place with a team score of 110.0! That's a great way to start off our season. Congratulations Jessica, Madeline, Isabel, Alexis, Brooke, Sarah, Jaime, Emma, Kassidy, Sammi, Regan, Lauren, Emily, Caroline and Rylee!

I am so proud of all of you!

The I 171 H is here!

Have you ever seen the movie "The Jerk"? I love that part where Steve Martin runs from the mailbox screaming "The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here! I'm SOMEBODY!"

That's sort of how I felt today... the I-171 H is here! The I-171 H is here! We're on our way to becoming parents again!

For those of you not in the loop on adoption documentation, this is THE golden ticket. We are now approved by the U.S. government to bring a foreign born orphan into the United States as our adopted child. This is the last piece of paper we needed to complete our dossier to send to Ethiopia.

We are all on cloud nine here at the Spears household. It's so nice to have something happen! Now on to more waiting...

And by the way, we recently did get the new Ashland, Nebraska phone book with our new listing... I'm SOMEBODY!

Tagged

Seven random/weird facts about me:

1. I have a 3rd degree black belt in taekwondo.


2. All animals love me.


3. My feet are so ticklish, I can't even stand to touch them myself.


4. I can cross one eye... either one.


5. I once got two traffic tickets in one day.


6. It took me a whole year to switch from regular Coke to Diet.


7. I like to annoy my family by talking like a pirate.

I was tagged by Steffany, her blog is at http://toliveloveandlaughtoday.blogspot.com/.

I really don't have seven bloggers to tag, but here is one and if I come up with more, I'll post about it.

Kristen http://christianchick-kristen.blogspot.com/ (because I've known you FOREVER)

Pie In The Face

Let me begin by saying I have nothing adoption oriented to talk about today.

So, on to other news. Yesterday was the annual pep rally at Premier Gymnastics, where I coach the level 3 and level 4 teams. After some skits and cheers by each of the teams, we have the highlight of the evening for the kids which is the "pie the coach raffle", a fundraiser for the booster club. I guess getting pied in the face may have its charms, but they have been lost on me for a couple of years. Of course, I'm always ready to see others get a pie in the face! Here, for example, are a couple of photos of beloved oldest daughter Emily taking a hit from one of her teammates. As a part- time coach (on her day off from practice), she is fair game in the high stakes of pie the coach. Note the enthusiasm with which Emily's teammate smears the pie all over her face and head. These were yummy pies, too. Emily's featured jello, whipped cream and green peppers.

I was feeling pretty good at the end of the evening. There are usually eight pies, and all of the raffle pies were done. I was pie-free for the first time in four years. The last pie is coaches choice. Usually, we pie the senior gymnasts if we have one... Emily. However, I was tricked! The coaches opted to pie the senior gymnast's mother this year, since the gymnast already got hers. My pie was red jello, whipped cream and broccoli. I didn't know about the broccoli until I found some in my shower after washing my hair

Well, it's probably my last pie in the face. And gosh, that actually makes me a little sad.

Why adopt? Why Ethiopia?

I just love kids. Love, love, love kids! I grew up in a family of five children, and my own family of three children always seemed, well, small. Tom has just one brother, so he did not agree with me on this issue. As my children grew older, I really have yearned for another child. However, Tom was firm that we were done with babies. I was sad...but then one day we were at a benefit dinner for a local children's welfare agency, and when I sighed mournfully about needing another child I sensed that Tom wasn't against a child per se, it was a baby he didn't want to deal with. Once this light bulb went on, there was no stopping me!

I began to research foster/adoption and decided it wasn't for us. International adoption seemed like a good way for us to go as "older" parents. As I looked at various programs, I was drawn to Ethiopia. The people there have a proud and rich history. There is so much poverty and disease that millions of children are left as orphans despite the efforts of their countrymen who want so much to care for them... there are so many; it is a daunting task. The government has put into place a relatively speedy and efficient adoption process. Perfect for us 40-somethings who don't want to be 50-somethings by the time our child is placed with us. Tom and I both have an affection for Africa and I felt it was in this place that God wanted us to find our next child.

I began to request information from various agencies and I prayed a lot that God would help me know what to do, and that Tom would be receptive. I decided that I would broach the subject during our summer vacation cruise in Mexico. I was pleasantly surprised that Tom was immediately enthusiastic! Of course, this could have been because I chose to bring the subject up immediately after a martini tasting session... But no, he told me that he had actually been thinking about adoption some too. Imagine that! I see the hand of God at work.

We chose our agency, Carolina Hope, and began filling out paperwork as soon as we got home. After some discussion, we agreed that the best fit for our family would be a girl in the 2-4 year age range. Our children were very excited to hear that we would be adopting a little sister. Anna was even quick to reassure us that she wouldn't mind sharing her brand new room! (Which is good, because that was our plan!) Emily and Kenneth were happy too.

We know that there will be trials ahead as what is called in the adoption lingo "a conspicuous family". Meaning a transracial one, basically. And there is a large age gap between our current baby who is 14 years old and the preschooler we hope to bring home soon. But everyone is so eager to embrace the challenges and shower our new daughter/sister with love.

Now, the paperwork is done and we just sit and wait. Wait for USCIS approval, wait for the dossier to be authenticated, wait for an eventual referral. But it's a delicious wait; kind of like we are waiting for the best Christmas present ever...only more so. :)

My first ever blog post!

I have decided to make a blog about our Ethiopian adoption primarily as something to do to keep my mind occupied while we are "waiting". Not that there isn't plenty of other stuff I could do, like unpack some of the boxes we still have sitting around from our move nine months age... Anyway, here is the first post! And I did it all by myself!