Houseworth family minus one

Hello everyone-
The Houseworth contingent (Mama plus kids) is now in Tennessee visiting with Oma and Opa. It's COLD here! :) Daniel's plane arrived safely in the big sandbox, after an unexpected layover in Germany partially due to the European Union rules about "quiet zones" with no takeoffs after 10:00 p.m. I don't know why I find that funny, but I do. We're enjoying some down time, although I am trying to do some bare bones schooling while we're here.

Our last few days as a family were much busier than we wanted them to be, and in hindsight, we should not have tried to do househunting while we were there. It made for unhappy children who would rather have been playing with Daddy. (Well, it's not like the weather cooperated with that, since it was cold and rainy almost the whole time.) Part of our frustration came from finding the perfect house, only to realize that our timing was all off - there is no way we can get that house because of when we would be moving.

OH!!! How silly of me not to say up front that Daniel got the job he applied for in North Carolina!!! I had complete confidence in him, but he started to become negative after he didn't hear for awhile. Still, he found out within a week and a half, which I thought was pretty good. It's nice to know the outcome before he left, so that we know how to prepare before he comes home. We'll be moving shortly after he returns. It's exciting to think of new beginnings. We must really like beginnings, since we've had so many of them! :)

I have much more to write, but I need to get the children up from their naps. It's actually warm enough today for me to brave going outside with them, so we'll be heading out for some fresh air.
I hope you all are well!
Love,
Casey
p.s. no pictures until I return from Tennessee!

A New Houseworth Record

We are packed, the van is packed, the fridge is clean, the laundry is done, and all of this was accomplished BEFORE 12:00 a.m. the night before a trip. It's some kind of record, at least in our household. We're now contemplating whether we'll drive straight through to Ft. Bragg or stop in Savannah as planned.

In any case, we covet your prayers for a safe journey. We'll have several days together as a family before Daniel leaves, so we're all looking forward to that.

I plan to take lots of pictures on the trip, and I'll post them upon our return. Thanks for all your emails and comments; it's been wonderful to hear from all of you!
Much Love,
Casey

p.s. Thanks again, Mom - the comment about my grammar is now making me paranoid about my sentence structure when I'm supposed to be blogging from a stream-of-consciousness perspective. You're quenching my creative processes!!

Comments anyone?

I've been informed that our blog may not be allowing you to post comments (thanks, Mom, and sorry!). I hope this problem will be resolved, as I don't know how to fix it. :) Did I mention I'm new to blogging?!

Well, we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off today trying to get ready for the trip up to North Carolina to say goodbye to Daniel. We did get everything done, though. The girls are looking forward to the trip, especially Abigail, who LOVES to stay in hotels. Being Florida girls, they naturally thought that they would be swimming at every hotel where we stay. Ha! They are in for a rude awakening when they feel the first draft of cold air.

And good news! Our adoption is now back in progress. We were waiting, and waiting, and WAITING for a response to an email we sent to the director of the orphanage in Port-au-Prince. Daniel finally just called him today, and he told us he's been able to read his email but not respond to any messages. Phew...I thought we offended him or something. Anyway, our dossier will be sent to the Miami Haitian consulate tomorrow for "authentication" (whatever that means other than costing us more money) and then sent down to Haiti to begin the LONG process of going through their system. We should know who the kids are in about two months, though!!! This is so exciting. For those we haven't told, we're expecting to adopt a boy/girl sibling set from Haiti. From the time that we receive the referral (when we know who our kids are) the wait time until we can travel to pick them up is about 9 months-1 year. The Haitian government is not...um...entirely stable, so the wait time has been extended by about three months because of their problems. I think - I hope - I PRAY - it will be worth it. It will be hard to know who the kids are without being able to go get them! :)

Well, I have more laundry to do before we can call it quits tonight. I do have a bowl of Moose Tracks frozen yogurt waiting for me right now, though.

Hope ya'll have a good night!

More practice

I will be posting more up-to-date news, but right now I'm just playing around while figuring out this whole blog thing, so I thought I'd post some pictures from the older girls' trip to the Nutcracker with Daddy. They had a wonderful evening. Cora was slightly disappointed to find out before they went that she wouldn't actually be getting on stage to dance with the ballerinas.

And one more...

I still haven't figured out how to post a picture beside our blog title (without downloading something that I don't really want to download), but I'll try posting a picture of the kids, Daniel, and Roscoe the basset hound on steroids as they sat on our lanai yesterday eating lunch. For those of you stuck in the frozen hinterlands up north...just don't look at the picture. Better yet, come visit us!

Red letter day

Well, we made the self-imposed deadline...just barely. Daniel decided that Shiloh should really learn to ride a bike without training wheels before she turned seven (at the end of this month), but we didn't think it was going to happen since he leaves shortly for Iraq. He wanted to be the one to teach her. However, he had a couple of days off since he didn't attend a conference in Colorado Springs as originally planned, so he decided to give it a try and at least get her started. He ran around the block about five times yesterday, but things were not looking any more promising at the end of the session than they did at the beginning. Shiloh was discouraged. Today, he put her on her old (smaller) bike with the training wheels off, gave her a push, and off she went!!! It just "clicked." After that, Daniel didn't have to run around the block with her; he just had to watch from a distance to remind her not to run into trashcans. All in all, it's an exhilarating and sobering experience to see your firstborn taking such a huge step in life.

Hello Family and Friends!
Well, we still don't know how a telephone works, but hey...we have a blog! :) We thought this would be a good way to periodically update everyone with pictures and anecdotes about our crazy, chaotic lives. Since we've moved so much in our ten+ years of marriage, we've left so many friends behind all over the world, and we would love to keep in touch with all of you. Please feel free to write in with comments and notes. There will be no thought-provoking, profound dissertations on life and theology (unless Daniel gets ahold of the blog), but it will be fun and (hopefully) filled with pictures.
Much Love,
Casey and Daniel