The Hartland: Two Years and Going Strong

This is our two year anniversary blog update!

It's hard to believe that I've been doing this for two years already but in another way it just seems a part of my routine. I enjoy blogging, it's my version of scrapbooking. It is fun to go back and look at old posts and it helps to remind me of how we've grown as a family.

Speaking of growing as a family, Jason and I are in the beginning stages of adopting a child from Ethiopia! We have kept this news quiet for awhile just in case we felt a change of heart or if something came up to prevent us from this adventure. God made it clear to us over the past year and a half that this was the path He has called us to walk together as a family and we are eager to see what He has in store for us! We will update you through the blog as we continue on but at this moment we are wading through a sea of paperwork and official documentation and education that is required before we move on in our process.

We started out our summer with Vacation Bible School at our church. I volunteered on my days off and worked in the nursery with my mom. Emily volunteered and helped with the missions portion of the program. Both Ella and David attended and had a wonderful time! The Thursday evening of that week the children put on a program to show the parents what they had been learning all week and also performed a few songs. David went up to the front of the church, reluctantly, with the younger children and instead of singing spent the entire time sitting on the floor acting embarrassed. Ella on the other hand had a great time performing with the school aged kids!

Father's Day weekend we had a get together at my parent's house. My sisters, their husbands and children were also in attendance and we had fun time swimming and celebrating the fathers in our lives.

Hey Thom! Does this look familiar?!

The high flying Smelly boys!

This past week, Emily spent six days at a local camp volunteering and helping with the children there. The camp brings in inner city kids and puts on a camp for them and also lets them know the truth about God and how they need Him in their lives.

Emily and some of her girls

Meanwhile, Ella and David and I went to a nearby park that also includes a water play area and had a good time playing. The fun only lasted until some other child threw up in the water area and it had to close down for over a half hour while they cleaned up the mess and cycled the water through without anyone in it.

We had a busy Saturday this past weekend. We spent the day along with Jason's family having a garage sale! We had never done this before but it was great to go through the house and declutter and get rid of a lot of things that just didn't serve any purpose for us anymore. The sale was at Jason's parent's house which, if you ask me, was an ideal spot for a garage sale. They have a large tree in the front yard that kept us shaded all day! I was amazed at how many people showed up to the sale when it was scheduled to end! I guess people were just looking for a deal and believe me they got a deal! We made out pretty well with the sale of our "junk" and afterwards loaded up our trailer with the leftover and took them all to Goodwill.