Monday, May 21, 2018

6 Months "Home"


It is crazy how fast time flies. I cannot believe that we have been home in the US for 6 months already. We endured the coldest and snowiest winter we have had in recent memory and were missing Cebu a little more after we got 30 inches of snow dumped on us in April!!! We are glad it melted quickly though :) A lot has happened in the last 6 months but also on some levels nothing at all. I will try to update y’all on as much as I can remember :) I know some of you have been wondering what’s been happening with the Schulz clan… 

House: We are home owners again!! We have been renting the last 6 months and are so grateful for the place and space. We have had fun in the country and roaming many acres. We move into the new place the first weekend of June. It is in the city of Sturgeon Bay (and for you locals, we will be “westsiders” this time!). We are grateful for the home that the Lord has provided for us. It is “big enough” for our family now​ and also has plenty of room should​ the Lord allow​ our family to grow in the future. (But not too big someone has to clean it, am I right!). 



Children: We finished up our 2nd year of homeschool a couple of weeks ago AND SURVIVED!!!! We are super grateful for the homeschool experience and are glad that we were able to do it well. The kids all enjoyed being homeschooled and I LOVED watching them grow. 

   
     Isaac will be attending 8th grade at Sturgeon Bay public school next year. It is still up in the air for Carter and Mady on where they will attend
​, they both WANT to be homeschooled again next year, 
so we are praying about what next year looks like for them. It literally changes from going back to school to being home schooled every other day.
    
     Mady is enjoying softball this spring and is already talking about doing it again next year she loves it so much! We are glad that she has found something that she can enjoy to do with a team. 

     The boys are not playing a spring sport but are going to enjoy some golf lessons, soccer camp, and some strawberry picking this summer. Both boys are excited and cannot wait for soccer again this fall. They have really missed being on a competitive team the last 2 years. 


Jake: He has been learning up a storm at his new gig at Therma Tron X here in town. He is loving the challenge of learning a new job and he also loves being back in manufacturing. He spent all of April and half of May in South Carolina at a job installation and loved being hands on. The lucky duck was able to enjoy beautiful weather while his family froze in WI ;) We are grateful that his trip was a great learning experience, but oh so glad to have him back home with us! 

Adoption: Ugg. Well, we don’t really have any update yet. We have been at a stand still since we heard the ​"​no"​ in February. Our agency has agreed to appeal the "​no"​ decision for us this August, so we have held out hope that we still have a chance with our girl. We are not sure how that is going to end up​,​ but we are grateful that the Lord does. We keep praying that “our girl” will indeed, be our daughter soon. 

     Somedays we miss her so bad it hurts. It is hard to breath a lot of the time. The promises that the Lord has for us, he also promises for her and he loves her way more then we could ever imagine, so for that, we keep on keeping on. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers during this process. To say it is a frustrating process, is such an understatement. 

     We do have all of the Philippine adoption paperwork completed and our dossier is complete as well. We are now just waiting on August to get here before our agency will send it to the Philippines for us.

     Again, thank you for your prayers, it means so much to us to know we have so many in our corner. Our God is a God of miracles and we are trusting Him for one in this case too. We know He can move mountains and we cannot wait to see how He is glorified on the other end of this crazy adoption journey of ours!! Please continue to pray for our girl and the others that are at the shelter waiting for their forever families.

FUNdraiser: We were able to raise a little over $1300 in our fundraiser with ONE MISSION. THANK YOU to everyone who donated towards our travel expenses. That gets us at least 1 ticket, hopefully 2 depending on airline prices once we are actually able to travel. If you wanted to help with that but didn’t get the chance, we will be doing something else once it gets a little closer to travel time as well. Stay tuned for that and thank you for your consideration towards helping with our adoption :) 

Family Fun: We are having so much fun reconnecting with friends and family. It’s so nice to have our “tribe” close again. We have a few camping trips scheduled for this summer. We are excited to be able to enjoy God’s beautiful creation together as a family and also with friends! Our first trip is here in Door County over Memorial Day weekend. I am not sure of the exact number but there will be 30+ of us laughing the weekend away and praising the Lord for godly friends. (if you are in the Door County/Peninsula State Park area on Saturday, come say HI to all of us!! Sites 562-569ish)

I believe that is our life in a nutshell. We are committed to keeping everyone in the loop as far as the adoption goes, so stay tuned to the blog for updates (or you can ask us if you see us out and about. We love to share how God is working in our lives!).
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We love you all!!  ~ Pam and fam