mY LiFe mY cRaZy LiFe!!

Okay, so I looked at the date of my last post October 30, 2009 for a split second I thought to myself, "why on earth has it been so long" then I remembered what has been going on in my life...Here is a little recap just to bring you up to speed...At the time of my last post my husband Darren and I had just returned from visiting Madi in China, she was there teaching English, it was amazing. We LOVED China, especially the Great Wall, but what we loved the most was spending time with Madi!!! On November 3, 2009 our then 17 year old daughter Chloe was in a terrible auto accident and broke her femur. It was an awful accident, the car was totalled and we were just grateful that she survived, but the next couple of months were extremely difficult, we had to have home care nurses and physical therapists. Madi returned home right before Christmas Yippee!! January 2010 brought about the most devastating earth quake of all time to the impoverished island nation of Haiti. about the middle of January I found myself in the middle of the ravaged country of Haiti advocating on behalf of over 50 adoptive families to be able to
process the necessary paperwork to escort the children out of Haiti and to the loving arms of their families!! With God's help Team Hope was successful. In the midst of bringing the orphans home, I was able to bring three amazing little Haitian girls home to stay for awhile, Gaelle, Guesrie and Gloria Mardy. These girls are the daughters of Marjorie and Guesno Mardy, they were able to return home with me to the states only because they already had passports and visa's. They were able to seek refuge from the heart ache of their family and their country. In December the girls youngest brother Gardy had been kidnapped for ransom, and as of this time he has not been safely returned (although we continue to have faith and pray for him). The girls were able to stay for 6 months. We will always love these girls as our own family and pray that God will protect them and bless them. February we took a short family trip, with the Mardy girls to Oregon where my sister Kathy was married on Valentines day. We enjoyed lots of fun with my family in Oregon, stopped on our way home to visit a beautiful Oregon treasure Multnomah falls and the Columbia river gorge.
March brought on a lovely knee surgery from a most spectacular fall in Haiti on the rescue trip where I tore my meniscus, Madi turned 20. April was a trip to Baltimore for the Joint Council Conference, great workshops and thanks to my husband for tagging along! Chloe turned 18 and Grayson turned 15. May was a trip to Orlando for a Skywest conference for Darren, and yes I had to join him:-) Then Chloe's graduation from high school, even after being home schooled for 3 months, she did it! We are so proud of her, and yes she is recovering well and in another year or so she will get the rod and all the screws and bolts out of her leg. From January to Now, things have been over the top crazy busy for Haitian Roots, in May Isson traveled to Haiti to purchase the land where we will build a school and partner with Bel Haiti to build an orphanage. For a while we were a little unclear on the size of property we actually purchased, but we know now...8 acres. We also teamed up with University of Utah architecture students and an architectural firm, Common studios who decided to do a project where students from the U would design our children's village for us. Very exciting...which brings us to June, a trip to Haiti with Haitian Roots (Shannon our head planner and coordinator) Bel Haiti, U of U students and professors and our wonderful associates from Common studios. I also stayed an additional week in Haiti with Tom and Rebecca from Joint Council on International Children's services. Also in June the Wasatch picnic! And a family trip to Bear Lake with the Mardy girls joined by their brother Gus and their mom. Gentry buys a home during this period of time and we actually start the renovations that we are doing our selves. July starts off with the Foyer reunion, Girls camp (me the camp director) and ends with the Most exciting news of all.. my oldest son asked his darling girl friend Vanesa to be his bride and she said YES! So December 18, the first of our 6 children will marry. August comes screaming in with several trips to the hospital and ending in surgery due to the lovely kidney stones I have been blessed to have. And now we are back to school which is hard to understand because I want to know what happened to summer!!! So this is a VERY brief recap of the last 10 months of my life...my crazy life!! But my heart is full of gratitude, for my relationship with God, family, friends, a beautiful home, my health (even though it seems poor lately) And a job that allows me to meet the most amazing people and share in their adoption journey's. My love goes out to all of you that touch my life for good! I hate to think of what my life would be without you in it.