Our African Love Story

Ok, so we are home....back to PA--THANK GOD! Pensacola was, well, the beach. In the winter. Far from town. Far from people. I need neighborhoods, cars, people, stores to walk to, etc.... I am so happy we are home, still shocked Doug got stationed at Willow Grove but not complaining.

A lot has happened this past month. First, Doug graduated from flight surgery school. .. But only after he grew a hideous mustache that i had to be seen in public with for at least 6 weeks. Was awful, trust me. Anyway, so he had a great graduation at the naval aviation museum in Pensacola...

We left the morning after this photo, travelled Fl, AL, GA, SC, NC, VA, WV, MD, to PA. There might be one or two more in there. Anyway, we finally saw green trees in WV and felt we were approaching the northeast, which just felt so good. Molly, our beloved greyhound, travelled in the back of my car...here was her position for the total 20 hours:


















We had great luck finding a place to stay in WV. As it turns out, the one hotel we called had a history buff working at the front desk--he loves military so he waved our pet fee and gave us suite at the regular rate. What a peach! Made our night...highly recommend Hampton Inn--who would have known it would be such a comfy night's rest after such a long haul?

Ok, so we finally got to our new house 20+ hours after leaving. Here we are finally arriving at our new home.....



















Molly was psyched too!











THEN...IT TOOK 3 WEEKS FOR OUR FURNITURE TO ARRIVE~and the Guggers WAITED AGAIN! All adoptive families can you please support me when i say, I think my patience is running out. This was not an easy 3 weeks, we bounced around from parents to in laws to siblings houses. All of my work clothes were in my car. And then...our stuff arrived! and then, we had a slumber party with my sister, her two daughers Mia and Eva, our sister in law Aunt Courtney, and our great friend Amity and her daughers Adelaide and Amelia.....

There was ice cream:There was face painting....And of course, there was spa night with Aunt Courtney:
And Finally, Everyone has to fall asleep watching Princess Ella at a slumber party:


I can't express our absolute joy of being home with our family and friends after living far away for several years. The chance that we got stationed in willow grove was slim! Very Slim! We are psyched. We celebrated Father's Day the next day with all of our parents, including my sister's in laws as well...here are the Guys!

And then, Doug went to the middle east for work, where he is now. Actually, he's on his way back and is currently in Ireland, tomorrow night he'll be back in the States officially. He only went for two weeks, but accompanied a squadron being deployed to Afghanistan and I know he too will go before long. We are very proud of our patriot who is happy to be serving his country!

Ok, so this was June. What a month. We are almost at 7 months on our wait and needless to say, it has flown by recently. More to come on becoming parents....we have A LOT to do now that we are getting settled. We anticipate our referral perhaps within the next 1-2 months (we hope)...and again, we have A LOT to do. It's nursery painting, planning time. We want to wait on some of the specifics to see the age(s) of the children and whether we will have boy(s) or girl(s).....MORE TO COME SOON! HOLY COW!