We are meeting with our RFC on Thursday. Yay! I think that it was a blessing that we didn't get called until now because I am still working and it would just be too stressful worrying if we might get a call before I'm done.

We picked up some sheets for our crib, toddler bed, & twin bed today. We figured that we should at least have somewhere for them to sleep. We can get other stuff later when we get a call. Andrew and I took a nice little vacation this weekend. We spent some time just swimming, shopping, hiking, relaxing, & watching movies.

We watched "Waiting for Superman". A very sad and interesting documentary about the school system in the U.S. It is really sad how bad our school system is. I would recommend it to anyone. After we watched it, we looked up our school district information. Fortunately, we have a pretty good elementary school and our district seems to be pretty good. I'm still thinking that a little bit of homeschooling isn't the worst idea. We'll see I guess.

I'm starting to get a little anxious. We have been licensed for a month now and nothing has happened. We are supposed to have a Resource Family Consultant come and interview us because they will be the one to actually make the placement and we haven't heard from anyone. I called last week to see what was going on and they said that they were just really backed up with work. With the economic downturn they had to downsize quite a bit. Is there anything that the economy hasn't effected?

So I guess I will just wait until about a week before I stop working to get really worried. I just don't want to be waiting at home for very long. I have a lot of projects that I want to get done around the house, but I just really want to get started. I think what I am really worried about is that we have been licensed for a month and because our RFC hasn't interviewed us we could be overlooked for a placement that could really be a great match.

We got our license!!! Now we just wait for a phone call. We get 24 hours notice and then we get started. They told us that the first few weeks are the hardest. We just need to be there for them and let them know that they are safe and that they will get everything that they need. After a while, they will start trusting us. I'm not sure that I will ever do anything more rewarding than being a foster parent.

St. George trip

Andrew and I went down to St. George this weekend to run the 5k. We had initially intended to run the half marathon but because of classes and sickness we were unable to prepare and train. But that's okay, we both did better this time than our last 5k. I finished in 29.55 min. and Andrew finished in 24. something. : ) I can't remember. I finished 9th in my age group and Andrew finished 11th in his age group.
It was really fun and we are excited to run the St. George Marathon in October. Well... excited isn't the word, but I am excited to say that I have run the St. George Marathon. And now I have to do it because I have put it on my blog and I can't take it back.
We are actually going to be running a couple of half-marathons this year to get ready for it. My sister, Sara, said that she would run the half-marathon in June with me, so now she has to because it's also on the blog. : ) ( Your welcome Sara )

Our home study went really well tonight. She said that our house was almost ready. We just have a few things to finish up and then our house will be great. We weren't really sure what to expect. She scheduled 3 hours to come and talk to us. It took about 20 minutes to finish the house walk through and then we spent the rest of the time talking about our up bringing and what our families were like growing up.

She said that we could be licensed for 3 kids. (Which is all you can have at one time) So we decided to get licensed for 2 kids to start off with. It will probably take about a week or so for her to type it up and then she will send it in and we could be licensed before the end of January.

We are going to wait until my birthday in March to start taking kids though, we figured that would be best financially. I can't believe that we are getting so close.

Andrew and I are getting ready for our home study. It is next Tuesday and we are so excited to get that done because that is the last thing that needs to happen before we can get our license. It feels like we have been talking about doing foster care forever now, at least a couple of years. Once we started going through the process it seemed to go pretty fast. We started taking our classes in December and we were able to graduate in only 3 weeks. It was really great that Andrew was able to go to all of the classes with me. It was really nice to be able to talk about what we had learned to that we would both be on the same page.

Some of the classes were really hard to sit through. It is sad to think about what these kids have to go through, but we were able to learn what we can do to at least help them through it. The most important thing that I learned in the class is to just remember why we wanted to do this in the first place. We wanted to help kids. It can't be about us.

Yay! I figured it out!

I finally figured out how to add a post to the blog! I am really excited to start posting some updates on how things are going with our little family. A few big changes recently. Andrew bought me a home back in July and we are finally starting to feel like it is ours. I've almost got all of the painting done that needed to get done.
We just finished up our Foster Parent classes in December and now we are just waiting for our home study. We will probably be licensed by the end of February. I'm planning on working up until my birthday just so we can save a little bit.
We are really looking forward to being able to help the kids that come into our lives. We learned so much in our classes and we feel like we are as prepared as we can be. We know that it will be hard but it doesn't make sense to not do it.
I'll post more soon.