Happy May! We've been here a year already...

Wow, the first of May marks the one year anniversary of our move down here as a family. I just have to say that we have been so blessed. Andy has found a wonderful company with wonderful people to work for that are just like one big happy family. It's nice to go to work functions of his and have people come up and hug us both just like they have known us forever. This is going to turn out being the best job that he has ever had. He had his review and got his raise and they think he's wonderful and the raise that he got totally reflected that. We never expected the raise that he got. He's been expanding into other areas at work too and they tell him that there's more money out there to be had. I think in another year or so, he'll be making more than he ever did at Siren and that was the highest paying job that he's had yet. I'm not saying that to brag either...it's just nice to see that he's being paid what he's worth again and boy have we learned some things about money then and being debt free. :-) It's nice to see our prayers coming around full circle. I don't think it'll take more than a year to get us down to our debt free goal (well, everything but the house since we're building).

I'm still with Home Depot, but I'm going down to weekends only (if they approve it) the week after Mother's Day. If that's not approved, my last day will be the 11th. But, that gets me one step closer to my goal of returning home again full-time. Really the only thing keeping me there is the insurance that I have for Deidra and I since Andy's family plan at work is so expensive. I'm checking into individual policies though...so that all may change too. I absolutely cannot wait until we begin our foster/adopt journey with our placement(s). I make that plural as we have said that we would take 2-3 and we are open to sibling groups. So, we'll see what God has in store for us. We all are pretty excited about it.

Deidra has been doing awesome at kindergarten this year and is quite the sponge. I love listening to her read and how well she's doing with it. She graduates from kindergarten on the 16th and I get emotional just thinking about it. I am so very proud of her! She's one little girl with a very very big heart too and she can't wait until the kid(s) come to our house. I think she's going to make one very loving big sister. We try to prepare her as much as we can and she really is getting it. She's very excited.

We're still planning on building our house too...we're waiting for the final verdict to come from the landlord on whether we can really do a 6-month lease so that we can go soon and put the money down for the lot. I'm so excited about that!

God has really blessed us here and it really is neat to see all the things that we have prayed for over the past 2-3 years come full circle. We miss our family and friends back in MI...that's the only bad part. But, Texas has been wonderful and we don't regret the move. It's all been good...