Summer is over..

Well, it has been an interesting summer.
Mattie left back in May to go back down to her mother's for the summer and the school year. We will see her again at Christmas. A few weeks later, Brie showed up with all of her stuff and then about a week later, one of her friends came up to visit as well. They kept us busy. It was an unusually hot and dry summer, which was nice, and it really didn't start raining at all until just last week. Just in time for the Fair :) as usual..
Brie bought herself a "new" car and then her friend left near the end of July. Brie then packed back up and headed off for Fairbanks, as she planned on going to school up there this year. She wanted to go up early so she could find a job and get all settled and had found a place to live, at least for a while.. but, she also broke up with her boyfriend just before she left... so.. about a week ago, she decided she was going to take some time off after all and just work for a while, so she moved _back_ down here and has sort of moved back in with us, at least for now, though she has spent most of her time back over at her older sister's. Who knows what the next few months will bring for her.
We had an emergency foster placement this month. We got a little 3 year old (day after her birthday...) and her 7 month old (and teething..) little brother. I, of course, can't go into detail about their situation, but it was sad. They have since been moved to their grandparents (along with an older sibling that had been on vacation with the grandparents when things happened..) and that will be helpful for the children. But we miss them.
We did get our foster care license renewed. Yay. It's good now for the next 2 years, we just have to make sure we keep up on on "classes." We shouldn't have any problem with that. lol. We went a bit overboard last year in our training, so we'll just keep up with that. We have asked to move to pre-adoptive placements only, so maybe we'll get some kids we can adopt soon. It's just been getting very hard on me to keep sending them back. At any rate, we'll see what happens next.

April

Well, Tom is back to work.. yay! He is really enjoying the new job, so we're all happy.
I'm going to be very busy the next month and a half or so.. One of our neighbors has to go out of state for a while to help her parents with some medical issues. She didn't want to take her kids with her as that wouldn't be helpful for her parents as they recover, so I will be watching them during the day while dad is at work.
So I'm gonna be busy keeping them busy and on task with their home schooling (a simplified version anyway...)
So not sure how much time I will have for blog updates for a bit.. but I will try...
We're also getting ready for the end of the school year. M will be going back down to her mom's and then a few weeks later B2 will be coming up for the summer and then will be headed to Fairbanks for school. And it looks like B1 and her little family will be moving. They've found a place a bit more remote, which is what they want, so they will be moving out there and renting out the house they have now. And who knows when our next foster placement will happen or when we might get an adoption option.. so who knows what will be going on. :)
This is also going to put a wee bit of a damper on some of my family history research and post pone some of the training I'm taking for my calling as a ward family history consultant, but.. I'll be doing what I can there as well.

Back to work!

Yay! So happy to be able to say that Hubby's first week back at work is done! woohoo!!
So very glad to be able to look forward to a steady income that will actually pay the bills.
We've also been taking some adoption classes through the local OCS offices and their affiliates. Lots of good information, and lots of depressing information. *sigh* But we press onward.
This past weekend was also General Conference for our Church. We missed all of the Saturday sessions because of one of the adoption classes, but Tom was able to make it to the Priesthood session in the evening and we were able to see both of the Sunday sessions. We're going to be catching up on the Saturday sessions this week. Lots of good messages there as well.
It was a hard weekend for me emotionally. Friday was the 10th anniversary of my father's sudden death, so having lots of emotionally charged topics from Conference and our class, combined with the huge emotional release of Hubby finally having work again and no longer surviving on stress and trying not to worry... well, I was a bit of an emotional mess this weekend.
In the midst of all of this emotional turmoil, Hubby decided that maybe we needed to boost our odds and look back into working with LDS Family Services about traditional domestic adoption. So I've contacted them this week and we will be having our first meeting with them on Friday. I'm excited and nervous, and still more then a bit emotional this week. I just want to be "mommy" so badly. Money is still going to be tight for a while. Months of unemployment have taken their toll and we were really only just recovering from last year's bout of unemployment (and emergency septic repair..) so, I've set up a fund raising web page to help raise some money to cover our upcoming expenses. The link is up there at the top. Any contributions will be welcome.

fostering update

Things had ben going very well. Ok, was still too darn cold and my truck still didn't much want to start (has warmed up today though, we're actually above 0 again..) but things had been going well.
Last wednesday I had finally gotten her home school material, and thursday we'd gotten started back in. We had appointments set for her and had found a way to get her excited about reading - which is the subject she has the most trouble with and hated doing..
Then friday night I got the call... they would be coming in about an hour to get her. OCS had decided she needed to be moved. All they would tell me was that it was "case related" and had nothing to do with me, but that I wasn't allowed to contact her mother about the move that night.
I know at least one of her siblings was also moved.
This has just devistated me. If I had had any doubts about my ability to handle fostering in general before, they were totally confirmed now. I simply can not deal with the seperation issues that can crop up. At least not right now. To get attached emotionally to a child that at any moment can be simply taken away.. I just can't deal with that.