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!! :)