Our Adoption Journey...

I thought it would be easier to document our adoption journey separately at www.bringingjeterhome.blogspot.com

We are China bound and cannot wait to bring home our son!

May fun...

May was a whirlwind!  We started the month with Hawaii and were full steam ahead with end of the year activities and the mid month - boarding a plane to China!  What an incredible month!

Random Belle - she loves laying on the trampoline!

Well why not make snow angels out of scraps of paper?!

One on one time with this beauty is priceless!

IHOP = happiness!

just playing with my girls!

Ryne's last day (because we were leaving for China and lucky girl missed the last 2 weeks of school)!

 Reese's last day...

 Reese has loved having Mrs. Beth!

I mean...this face is super hard to say no to!  ;)

 Eeeek!  We are on our way to CHINA!

End of the year for Reese...

Reese was the cutest 4 year old ever during her end of the year program.  She sang her heart out, did all the motions, and was so into it that she tripped once or twice!  ;)

selfie with my big girl!

look at her cute little "hi mom" wave!

Reese also had a really fun water day at school.  It happened to be super chilly, but the kids didn't mind too much!  ;)

 They also had train rides in the parking lot and I got to ride with Reese and her bestie - Matthew.

All the other kids were running around getting soaked and my girl was staying dry and a bit warmer by fishing!  

I can't believe the year is over!  Reese had a great few months of PreK and she is looking forward to coming back next year!

Hanging at the Ranch...

We drove to the Ranch Friday night to stay with Pops and GranJan in their new house (!) and help with some stuff the next day.  Their house turned out beautiful and the land is just gorgeous!  They are blessed for sure!

not a bad view to wake up too!

Ryne found a hard hat to wear while playing in the barn.  Safety first!

 We did a lot of playing while the guys worked on a fence...

 We had to head back Saturday night and of course stopped by our favorite pit stop on the way home!  ;)

We had so much fun at the Ranch and can't wait to spend many more weekends there!

Mother's Day weekend...

We got back from Hawaii on Friday afternoon.  We rolled up at the same time Ryne got home from school (a sweet friend brought her home every day while we were away).  We were so excited to see our girls!!  We visited with GranJan for awhile (who always does such an amazing job loving on our girls when we are away), then headed outside for some sprinkler fun!

 The next morning was Saturday…but Ryne treated me to breakfast in bed and this sweet little poem...

 we snuggled for a long time because jet lag.  ugh!

 then we were up, playing, putting together furniture, and making snow cones.  :)

 We tried to go to the pool but got their too late…so we played instead.

 The next morning I woke up to breakfast in bed again!  #spoiled

 We went to church (somehow didn't get an MD pic!), then hit the pool...

 I am so thankful for all my sweet little blessings this Mother's day!

It was such a great weekend loving on my girls and having sweet family time!

Hawaii!

My amazing and talented hubby won a trip to Hawaii for having such a great year at his job!  Unbelievably amazing!!!  We had such a great time and it was a beautiful resort.  Everything was so incredible.  Abbott knows how to travel!

We've arrived!  Exhausted but so excited!

As soon as we got off the bus and checked in we were surprised by some pretty awesome gifts!  They had several tables set up for us to pick out goodies.  First stop, some pretty awesome new sunglasses!  Then a cute beach tote and a wrapped item that we weren't suppose to open until we got to our room.

Off our balcony

We checked out our room (beautiful!) and opened the package to find…an iPad!  It came with a waterproof case and instructions to have fun and document it all!  We relaxed for a bit and then got cleaned up and headed down for dinner...

We noticed a line, so we jumped in it.  Turns out it was for some very high end flip-flops!  (think $150+).  A lot fancier than my usual yellow box flip flops!  ;)  We enjoyed a yummy meal out by the beach and I was able to meet some of Jeremy's co-workers.  After awhile (we were both about to fall asleep sitting up!), we headed back for bed.  

The next morning we were up bright and early for a kayak, hike, hipline adventure!

The hike and kayak were really fun…but the Zipline was amazing!  You were able to flip upside down, so that was a blast!

Jeremy filmed himself upside down!  Crazy man!

one of our awesome guides...

We headed back and relaxed for a bit before getting ready for Jeremy's team cocktail party followed by dinner with everyone there.  The cocktail party was in Jeremy's boss's boss's Pent house…not too shabby!

After dinner and visiting, we headed back to our room to get ready for the next early morning.  

I started the day with "Breakfast with the President".  It was just for guest but I was actually really surprised because not many people showed up.  They showed a little video to talk more about who Abbott is as a company and then the President talked for a bit.  People filed out pretty quickly but  was chatting with a lady when non other than the President sat down at our table.  He was such an amazing, down to earth guy.  They actually lived in China (working with Abbott) for several years so he was excited when I told him we were adopting (and leaving in about 10 days to get our son!) and offered lots of advice.  After chatting for about 30 minutes we all had to leave for our next activities.  We had already been given a little treat for coming (cookies at everyone's place setting) but we were also all given an envelope.  I opened it on the way back to the room and it had a $75 room credit as a "thank you" for attending.  Score!

I changed clothes and we headed down for the bus for our excursion.  We opted for the "day of service" on this day and it was the coolest experience.  We were busy the whole time so didn't get many pictures.  We drove to a local school and were greeted by all the students doing their usual morning chants.  It was pretty neat. We had to respond with a chat to enter and then they gave us permission by putting lays on everyone.  Once inside the school grounds we were working on building, cleaning, and painting tables.  Abbott had already bought/delivered a huge canopy tent for them to eat lunch under as well as a bunch of stand-up umbrellas for different areas.  We spent the morning working and had the best time.  

After we got back to our rooms we found two envelopes (one for each of us) with $200 visas in them as a "Thank You" for choosing to do a day of service instead of another activity.  So they basically paid for us to do another activity…so unexpected and nice!

We headed to find some lunch and we were able to FaceTime our girls will waiting for food.  It was a 7 hour time difference so that made planning a little hard!

After lunch we got cleaned up and just hung out in the room for a bit before we had to get ready for dinner.  I read and Jeremy snuck pictures!  

Then we walked around the resort a little bit and stopped by to pick up a "gift" that you had to sign for. We took it back to the room where J was thrilled to find an Apple Watch!  He was so pumped and may or may not have tried to rub it in a little that there was only one!  ;)

We headed down to dinner and stopped for a quick picture of the beautiful birds...

After dinner and visiting we retreated for the night.  

The best morning was a little crazy.  We got travel approval before we left, but couldn't book our flights to China until our appts were made at the Consulate.  Of course that happened while we were in Hawaii so Jeremy spent the morning scrambling to get flights approved (by our coordinator) and booked before our early morning tee time!  

Smiling because we are about to golf in a beautiful place and have booked flights to CHINA!!!

So for a first time golfer…this course was unbelievable!  I probably should just never golf again because really there is no way to compete with this!  ;)

So all in all I was awful…but I did have a few good shots and this one I got closest to the pin!  Woohoo!

After golfing we met up with a bunch for Jeremy's team at a Cabana that they rented and hung out for awhile.  Then it was time to get ready for our last dinner...

we snagged a selfie with the President and his lovely wife!

two of Jeremy's favorites...

Love this guy!

The next morning we went on a little hike of our own...

Then we relaxed in a hammock...

Trying to delay packing to leave...

After slowly accepting the fact that we had to leave, we packed, dressed, and said goodbye to our beautiful room...

Thankfully we had booked massages (thanks Abbott for the Visas!) to soften the blow!

After that we enjoy their spa for awhile and then walked to what we thought was a close shopping center (it was actually like 2 miles in the scorching sun!).  After hanging out down there was walked back because we couldn't find a cab!  lol!  Then we enjoyed the Spa again (mainly for the showers!) before loading on a bus to take us to the airport!

That night was spent trying to sleep on the plane and then we enjoyed the morning at the airport trying to cancel flights (because we got an email while on that overnight flight that on appt didn't happen and it would be another week before we could travel.  Big bummer to "wake-up" too…but their is a reason for everything!

After boarding a shorter (3-ish hour flight) to Houston we tried to sleep some more but weren't successful.  Then we landed, grabbed bags, jumped in the car, and made it home right as a friend was dropping Ryne off from school!  We were trying to make it to pick her up but pulled in our neighborhood at 3:05.  It was so so great to get both my girls in my arms!

The week spent in Hawaii was beyond amazing!  It was honestly a dream come true because we have wanted to go to Hawaii since we couldn't honeymoon there!  ha!  It was the perfect way to get away together and relax before all the craziness happens!  Now bring on China and getting our boy!