Such wonderful news!!!

If there are typo-s in this post, please understand that it's because I'm typing this with tears of joy in my eyes. Our friends Ron and Beth have FINALLY gotten the news they've been waiting so long to hear (almost 18 months, as a matter of fact). Today they received the information about the little girl--THEIR DAUGHTER--who they will be traveling to China to adopt. She is absolutely beautiful. Now I'm a little biased, but I LOVE the name they've chosen for her: Hope!! So now Hope and Hope will be running around Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Baldwin, WI, like they own the place!! Beth and Ron are at church almost as much as I am, so it will be a second home for Hope H as it is for Hope B. Hope H was born on June 13 of last year so she'll be around a year old when Ron and Beth travel to get her. They're not exactly sure of the travel dates yet, but usually it's within 4-8 weeks after getting their referral (which is what they received today). Please keep Beth, Ron and Hope in your prayers. Pray for safe travel and a relatively easy transition for all of them. Baby Hoot is no longer Baby Hoot. Baby Hoot is now Hope KeXuan Charlotte Heutmaker. Such wonderful news!! And we can't wait to meet her.

On a tragic note: today Hope and I went to feed the ducks and geese on the Kinni today. We found this great little spot when we went geocaching with Beth and Ron. It has a platform that you can walk out on and the geese/ducks just hang out there, waiting for people to throw bread, corn, etc. at them. So...we walked to the platform and when we got there I grabbed a piece of bread out of the bag to give it to Hope so she could throw it to the ducks. Well, she thought I was giving it to her to eat, so she immediately dropped her pico (Hope's word for pacifier) out of her mouth so she could put the bread in. Pico bounced on the platform and went right into the river. That was the last pico like it that we own. We have several others at home, but Hope likes this particular kind of pico. We've tried giving her the others before and she wanted nothing to do with them. And it's not like you can get these picos just any where. I've looked at every store and you can only find them at Target. We're about 15 minutes away from the nearest Target, so I knew there would be no Target run tonight...unless we were desperate. She asked for pico again when we got home, so I got out one of the others and she, fortunately, took right to it. YEAH!! Thank you, God!! Now I know that Hope is getting to the age where she shouldn't be using a pico much longer, but I have NO idea how to get her to not use it...so if you have any suggestions, PLEASE let me know!

I guess that's about it for now. I'm going back to Ron and Beth's blog so I can look at pictures of Hope Heutmaker again. She's absolutely adorable!! PLEASE take a second and check out Ron and Beth's blog so you can see the pictures, too. There is a link to their blog on our blog. You'll be able to figure out which link it is.

Thank you, Lord, for an amazing day!