How is life different?

LeRoy, IL

This was home for the last 8 years. We moved in when I was 20 weeks pregnant with Brynlee. This house holds all of our memories of our children. This was probably one of the hardest things to let go of. We absolutely loved our home. It wasn't perfect and we always had a project going on, but we loved it. I remember rocking Brynlee there our first night home from the hospital, I know exactly where I was when I realized I was pregnant with Boston, where I was when I got the call about our first foster placement, the call to go to the ER with Brynlee, coming home from Memphis in such relief to be HOME, and to see the work that so many did to finish our projects so Bryn wouldn't come home to dust and construction....every single memory is here. Good and bad.

The one thing I hated about living in LeRoy, is that most of our friends and family were at least 30 minutes away. Driving didn't really bother me until Brynlee was in treatment, all the trips to Peoria 1-3 times a week on top of enjoying time with friends and family, I began to despise driving. It was a lot on the kids too. They would say, "are there cornfields the WHOLE way?" haha! :)


Westcliffe, CO

Silver Cliff and Westcliffe are basically 2 towns in one, both are around 500 people (if I remember right) and you don't realize when you've entered Westcliffe from Silver Cliff. These 2 towns are nestled in between the Wet Mountains and the Sangre De Cristo Mountains. We live in the foot hills of the Sangre De Cristo mountains. To get anywhere other than Westcliffe/Silver Cliff, you have to drive through mountains. So 50 miles takes about a hour and 10 minutes. Not quite the same at cornfields that's for sure!  There is a grocery store in Westcliffe, and a few diner type restaurants, a pizza place, a bowling alley, a few shops, a coffee shop, a vet, a groomer, and I think 3 gas stations, the only "common" food place is Subway. The closest WalMart is over an hour away. That freaks a lot of the students out, but not us, we are used to small towns in the middle of nowhere!! ;)

Everyone is so friendly! It's very conservative, from what I am told, the most conservative area in Colorado. What a blessing that God has protected this area! There aren't many big houses, yards aren't manicured, but people seem very happy. It's refreshing!

This is entering Silver Cliff. (excuse the windshield) 

This is the view of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains from the bowling alley!

Horn Peak which is the most triangular peak is 13,450', we live below that peak at 9,000'

This is Horn road, going up to where we live.

And this is the entrance for the seminary off of Horn Rd.

And this is the seminary, typically called the lodge. This building contains a couple offices, the classroom (remember there are only 11 students and they all take every class together), a fellowship area with a kitchen, a couple bathrooms, and the laundry room. 

Standing on the lodge porch, that is our home! So you can see that Andrew is literally steps away from class!

 And this beautiful place is the chapel. 

All of the students live within a mile or 2, but most are a 2-3 minute walk. That has probably been the biggest adjustment for the kids. They are used to driving 30-60 minutes to see friends and family and now they walk. But being that close means that they think they need to spend every waking moment with the other kids here!! And there are so many kids, it's such a blessing! 

Life is different that's for sure. The "American dream" is to buy a big house and fill it. We did that, and I enjoyed it while we did it. Then before the move, we probably got rid of 2/3 of it. We donated van load after van load. It was sickening. I couldn't believe all that we had accumulated. I never would have considered myself materialistic, but the amount of stuff we had, proved otherwise. I remember one specific van load of stuff...loading it, crying out for forgiveness for filling my desires with stuff instead of Him. That's what we do, isn't it? 

So what has less stuff done for me? A WHOLE LOT! I can't even describe the relief in purging. Like a ton of bricks was lifted from me. It wasn't all easy. Sometimes I cried. I think we went through the kids' toys every month sometimes twice a month for 12 months. It got to the point that they would say, "how many do we need to get rid of today?" I felt like I was failing them. We had bought them all of these toys to entertain them when I was busy with laundry, dishes, cleaning, organizing....but as we got rid of them I saw that less toys meant less cleaning and organizing, therefore more time with them, which is really what they were desiring. So here we are. Our cabin is less than 700sq ft, with one bathroom! I know what you're thinking, THERE IS NO WAY! I know, because I thought that too! But everything fits! Everything has a "home", and when it's a mess, it takes about 30 seconds to clean up! I do laundry ONE day a week. That is quite an adjustment! But there is freedom in it! Only ONE DAY a week I worry about laundry, and the rest of the week, I don't even have to think about it! I was extremely concerned about this before moving, because I was CONSTANTLY doing laundry, either starting a load, switching it, folding it, or putting it away.... but focusing on it for one day is freeing. It's allowed me to be outside with the kids, or play candy land, because it's not even on my mind. I used to put all of the house work before them, shame on me. And now it can all be done while their getting shoes on....my "just a minute" that really took 30 minutes, really is just a minute now. 

It's only been 2 weeks, so I'm sure I'll miss the space at some point, but today I choose to praise God for allowing me to focus on what really matters! 

Mondays are going to be my busy day....it's my laundry day (I have 12 minutes until I need to switch it over and start a new load, and the kids are both playing on their own, so I am attempting to finish this post that I started on Saturday)! ;) Homeschooling, Mondays are always the hardest getting everyone back into routine and it's typically the heaviest work load of the week. The seminary families also do recess with the kids from 10-11 everyday. Which is a great way to break up a homeschooling day! Mondays the women will have bible study from 2-4, and Monday nights the men play ultimate frisbee. Tuesdays we have our seminary potluck and fellowship! Wednesday afternoons we have chapel, and besides church on Sunday, that's all I really know about scheduled things during the week. 

Andrew is off to his first day! During the summer he'll have class from 8:30-11:30, and then on Wednesdays they stay at chapel to pick apart the sermon. The kids and I also started back to school today! Seems silly when everyone else just finished, but Brynlee finished in March, but continued to read and do math. She was off for 3 full weeks because of the move and we need some routine! We will probably go light for a while, but I am really looking forward to second grade with her, the theme for 2nd is Adventures in US History! I haven't been very consistent with Boston, so this could get interesting! ;)

Okay so I didn't make it, I had to switch the laundry before I finished! ;) The kids wanted to go outside so I on my way to switch the laundry I told them to clean up and I'd get clothes out when I got back and sure enough it was picked up before I even got back! And the thing is, they haven't mentioned one word about the things we left at Tanner's for when we are visiting or anything we got rid of! 

 We do have a few prayer requests:

   -- the adoption of our sweet miss to be finalized

   -- Ben and Nikki have a BIG court day tomorrow for their little miss, please pray for the judge and all that are involved in the case.

   -- Andrew's confidence. He does not have a long background in formal ministry where a lot of guys here do, but he's been leading bible studies for years and more importantly He's spent time growing his relationship with Christ. But I'd really appreciate prayers for him.

   -- Finances. Praise God that Andrew has been able to help a guy fix up his vacation house here, but that work ends this week, so please pray that God will open a door for work, we'd love for it to be something he can do from home, but he's applied a couple different places that were looking for full time help, which won't be possible right now, so even flexibility from employers. 

   -- continued prayers for adjusting!

   -- the closing on our house is supposed to be this week, so also prayers that it is completed with no problems!  

There is so much to talk about, but I will leave it at that for now!

A little about us, and how we got here!

Andrew and I have been together for 14 years and married 9. What an adventurous 9 years it has been. We welcomed our first child, a daughter, Brynlee Drew, 18 months into our marriage. She's always been dramatic.... a true girl, she wears her emotions on her sleeves, a free spririt, if you will. When she was 15 months old, we attempted to have another child and the pregnancy was cut short. I never knew the heartache of a miscarriage could be so severe. Now, I can praise God for the ability to relate to others that have to go through the same loss. And I can see the joy in the fact that one day I will be able to meet the child that was taken before I had the privilege to hold him/her. Soon after we lost that pregnancy, I found out I was pregnant again. Our rainbow baby was a son, Boston Alec. I had a rough pregnancy with him, but he has always proven to be a rainbow baby. He always brings sunshine in the storms. While I was pregnant with him, I felt God leading me to foster care. It was a long process, but when Brynlee was 3 and Boston was 1, and I was still working as a nurse, we welcomed our first placement;  2 boys, ages 4 and 2, in November 2013. I felt like we were operating a zoo. It was a madhouse day in and day out. God taught me SO much about my selfishness through it. We had the boys just 4 months, everyday more chaotic than the last, when Brynlee (age 4) was diagnosed with leukemia. If your heart has ever been ripped from your chest and you watched someone stomp on it......that is what I felt. We were sent to Memphis, TN where she began treatment. I remember vividly 2 of our first conversations in Memphis. One, if we have to sell everything and move, that is what we will do. And the second, Andrew and I made a deal. He had been battling the desire to be in ministry full time for over a year and my heart was broken to have to leave behind our 2 boys that were in foster care and I desired so much to add to our family....so we promised each other that we would not talk about seminary, or adding to our family until treatment was over 2 years and 9 months later. We made it a little over a year before both of those came back into conversations. We prayed for 6-9 months. In September 2015, Andrew was struggling again. He was able to contact many pastors in the area and amazing Godly friends to get advice as to whether his desire was selfish or a true calling from God. In November 2015, I was told about a little girl, just 4 weeks old that may need a family. Her mom was unsure as to if she was ready to be a mom. I was asked to keep the little girl to give her mommy a break, and a chance to decide whether or not she could put her daughter first. Of course we said yes, but the mother decided not to take us up on the offer, and one week later the infant was placed into DCFS custody, and just 5 days later we met this precious girl! She came into our lives on December 12, 2015. My dad met her and immediately he said, "this is your daughter, I know it". I remember thinking how nuts he was, we were just helping her great aunt. 6 weeks later, she moved into our home, and she was only there 4 weeks when Andrew came home and said, "I need to talk to you about something." I already knew that it was about seminary so before he had the chance to tell me, I said, "I know it's time"  I don't know why, but God had completely prepared my heart, I was very against it in the months prior because I knew that for us, seminary meant moving.....maybe even selling everything to do it. (we were willing to do it when Brynlee got sick, were we willing to do it because it's "just" what God wanted?) It meant another scary road when we were still in the midst of the greatest trial of our lives, a child with cancer. But He was molding me, working on me, so that when the time came, I knew it was nothing I did. Only He could have softened me. We began looking for seminaries that night. We had a list of criteria. The website HAD to mention wives and children, the seminary had to be family oriented, and to our amazement only about 4 out of about 15 that we looked at said anything about family. We immediately tossed out any university because of the atmosphere. We really thought we had too high of expectations, and then Andrew said, "Carlee this is it". He played a video and I burst out laughing and said, "no way!" In my defense the video had to be from the 80's. ;) He again said, "this is it". He called the next day....he talked with the dean of students and president of this school of just 12 students. The dean of students was a father to 8 and said if you are looking for a family environment you won't find what is offered here anywhere else. Andrew applied in March and on April 5, 2016 he was officially accepted. We visited in August. I felt so out of my league, I mean they drink their goats milk and live off their animals. And me.... I can't even eat deer meat, let alone rabbits. I talked to one of my best friends because I had no idea how to tell Andrew how afraid I was because to him, this, was the coolest place on the earth. That night, they had potluck and God gave me Nikki. Nikki was a gift! We had met her husband Ben earlier in the day and he went home to tell her that we were visiting, at potluck she ran up to me, hugged me and said, "God brought you here for me" she had been through recent heartache from an adoption that fell through and she needed a friend to relate to life as a foster mom. God perfectly wove our meeting time and place to when we both needed it most. She too struggles to keep a plant alive! ;) She calmed my fears and made me excited for a life in Colorado. We formally committed to coming, a start date in May 2017 and put a deposit on a cabin here at the school. Nikki's husband Ben graduated in December and will now be one of Andrew's teachers! We still had no idea how life was going to work out. Our peanut in foster care was still in foster care and we were no where close to moving to adoption. Everyone involved in her case said that if rights were not terminated by early December there would be no way for us to move with her. So we continued to pray for God to close doors, whether it be closing the door to Colorado or closing the door to adoption. As much as it pained our hearts to think of life without our 3rd child, we wanted His Will. Brynlee finished her treatment for leukemia in October and December came and went with no news about adoption. January 27th we had a hearing and to our amazement, the states attorney was so on top of it that they did 4 hearings in one; to adjudicate, terminate, find best interest, and place our little girl up for adoption! We were still told there was no way that the adoption would be at a place for us to move in May so we prayed a ton that it would just happen in His timeline and if we needed to put Colorado on hold we would, our daughter was much more important. I bugged our case worker and attorney weekly, sometimes 3 times a week. (I'm sure they loved me!;)) 3 days before the move we went to our final adoption hearing. The judge approved the adoption and now we just wait for DCFS to approve the subsidy requests. 

So on May 13th at 9pm, we jumped in the car with a trailer attached, 3 adults, 3 kids, and 2 dogs and drove 16 hours to our new home in Westcliffe, CO.  Dad and Tanner followed around 2am with the moving truck. Technically, the kids and I are on a 6 week vacation, that's how we had to work it to bring our little little with! 

So that's a very fast version of our life the last 9 years, but wanted to give a little background in one, really long paragraph.

More coming very soon!! :)