Want Your Picture Taken?

We have a current fundraiser being put on by 

Dotty's SIMPLY YOU Photography

https://www.facebook.com/pg/dottyssimplyyou/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1851025971868770

She does an awesome job and will be donating a portion of the money to our family adoption of a little girl from Ecuador.

Our family 

She captured each persons personality perfectly

Harmony is not shy, but she kind of looks a little
shy here

You can see Hope's shyness in this picture

Micah's ready to face the world

She even got Aaron to smile a real smile

Brianna's sassiness  (in a good way)

So if you are looking for somewhere to get some family pictures, graduation

pictures, newborn, maternity or whatever suits your fancy, she does an 

awesome job bringing out the best in you.

Thank you so much for checking this out and sharing it with others.

The Velie's

Share your Story | mySTORY

Share your Story | mySTORY

Adoption At it's Best....

Can you believe that a year has gone by already....

We have been extremely busy with fundraising, school, 4-H, parenting, grand-parenting, 

graduations, new grand-babies, gardening, birthdays, milestones,

painting, helping support other adoptions, thrift  sales, craft shows, bake sales,Church, sickness, and death.

Our adoption process has been coming along smoothly, but slowly.  We are currently  

waiting for the placement of our child, hoping it will be this month.  The money on the 

other hand is only a little over half.  We do have a matching grant of $3000.00.  You will hear 

more about that in the near future.  We have had a lot of interesting people helping us out in many different ways, you will also hear more about that.  Sorry for the long interval, but I have been enjoying this past year as much as possible trying to slow things down to not miss life and enjoy 

what God has given me, trying to let God be in control of this adoption and my life.  That

is not always easy, but very necessary.

One of many craft and bake sales (I think people like our candy)

Celebrating in the mist of sadness

Mixed emotions

Another graduate

First thrift sale of the season

2nd sale of the season

Look who turned 16

Grand baby #9

Let the gardening begin

A very hot craft and candy sale (candy stayed in cooler)

This girl loves her little garden

Grand baby #10 (I got the privilege of being present)

All grandmas helpers

Lord blessed us with a family that very much needed help (and they still do)

That is a little taste of our last year, this year is quite similar.  

Stay tuned for the rest of the story.

We are so excited to announce a Raffle!

Donated by Dave and Cheryl Olesen

Owners of Deer Trail Cabins

1 free night stay or $150.00 towards a longer stay.

http://www.deertrailcabins.com/

Here are all the details about this lovely place. Check it out!

Deer Trail Cabins One Night Getaway

$5.00 a ticket

The raffle is until July 31st

If you are the winner you set the date of your stay at your convenience!!!

It sounds like a very fun place to stay, very relaxing.

Please feel free to use our pay pal with a little note of how many tickets or you can contact me, Mary Brainard, or Brianna Velie. Whatever works best for you.

Please share this however you would like, we appreciate your efforts in supporting our mission of adoption.

"Patiently Waiting"

I know it may seem long and draw out, and it is. But everything in Gods timing. Some days I feel as if I am getting nothing done and others...tons.  

What has been going on....well working on lining up some fundraisers.  We have a online fundraiser called flip give that is running continuously.  We also currently have an on-line Jamberry fundraiser going on that the consultant is giving her full commission to the adoption. Check it out on facebook. Harmony had one craft and bake sale that was awesome.

People are donating items for thrift sales and helping with baking and offering to do fundraisers it is overwhelming how generous people are.

On another note we are waiting on getting our homestudy done.  We need a little more money to get that accomplished.

Yesterday while working on sending out some letters I was reading all the notes from those that supported us with Ales adoption and came across this envelope with money in it.  Wow thank you Lord for all these encouraging words and the gift of money from a few years ago. It made me realize all things in Gods timing.

We will be serving a lunch this weekend for an auction in Jump River, come by and visit us.

It has been a long time........

Well the last two or so years have been very busy and full of so many learning and growing experiences.  I have hardly had time to think or sit down and write, but things are slowing down some.  I said some.

We still have Three married children, but a few more grandchildren...make that a total of eight.  Brianna has moved out and is going to school full time.  Aaron has graduated and works in the woods full time.  Micah is still a student and works when he can on a farm (he prefers that over anything else).  Hope is still in school and is still very much in love with all her animals, she has added a few new ones to the family.  Harmony is still Harmony....she loves to craft.  And Alejandra is also enrolled in school full time in 2nd grade.  She has grown and changed so much.  She is also taking piano lessons and has a few therapies every week, so I am still a little busy.

You will hopefully be hearing from us on a regular basis as time allows.....

Tail End

Well, well, well.  I seriously never thought we would get this far, there were times that I felt it would never happen.  This week we have been very busy every day with legal stuff and paperwork.  Don't forget the rain, there has been rain everyday as well so we have not done much outside. Ale is doing very well this week.  We are so very proud of her.

This was taken this week at a little cafe by the passport office, Maria had to get something stamped and we had a 15 min.  We thought we would have some juice... well we each got a little breakfast.  We are unsure how that happened, I just ordered jugo.  It was very good and only cost $8:00 including the extra water.

Web are pretty much ready to go, packed and waiting for our trip to Guayaquil. 

Happy Birthday

Well I wanted to hwve her home for her 10th birthday, but we din not quite make it.  At least we had her with us.

Her is a picture of our little girls long before we knew her, but God did and he brought us here to bring her home and give her a family.

This was a difficult day for Ale, but we tried to make the best of it.  Her sisters called and sang happy birthday along with her nephew Austin, she loved it!

I painted her toes for her, another thing that she loves...

We took her for pizza and ice cream, which had a play ground, all things that she loves.  She went to bed without her gifts and kind of forgot about the whole birthday thing.

She woke up all ready to finish the birthday celebration, I guess that is one way to spread out the fun.  She has thoroughly enjoyed her kitchen as she calls it.  She plays with mami and papi and her animals. 

We are so glad God brought us together and we are looking forward to sharing many birthdays together.

As We Continue on This Journey Called Adoption

And now to get on with what we came here to do.  It has taken a lot longer than we ever thought or planned, but we know that God's plans are the ones that really matter.

Waiting for court to begin, we later found out we cannot take pictures in the room.

This is the group that worked so hard to make this happen, we were all so excited.

The proud parents of Alejandra Faith Velie

Dad was now ready for another adventure, Andrea, our house guest was going to market so we tagged along.
when we were getting ready to go on the bus there was no room for our faithful guide.  Oh well we only got off one stop after we were supposed too and found her right away.  She  took us to a nice cafe and off shopping for a few gifts.

 Ecovia... standing room only like sardines.

Another trip to Carolina... we saw these daring young men with straps all over the place, we thought this might be something Aaron might want to try.

Ale loved taking pictures of  them...

 And mami and papi

On out way home dad was ready to try shawarma (it has been a while since he was sick) but instead we found this place it was awesome.

Ale has picked up were Harmony left off with the mimes. We found him that morning before he finished putting on his face and he even said hola, I was shocked.

Ale and mami decided to try the kabobs since dad was not along, they were very delicious.  Now dad wants to try them too. 

Sunday afternoon at Metropolitan, we found llamas.

Ale was not to sure of them, but we talked her through it.

This park does not have as much going on, but it sure does have a view...

Again we see these guys stretching there ropes across this deep ravine...

 But it never really amounted to much, we gave up and left.

I will miss the view of the mountains as I walk around  home.

 On  yet another walk around Quito we found some lovely flowers and Ale wanted them in her hair.

While dad stopped to watch traffic and people, Ale took advantage of time to blow bubbles.  We found out she loves and I mean loves to blow bubbles.

While waiting on some of our legal work we took Ale and found a bench and someone was selling.. you guessed it.... bubbles.  Dad found some kind of bread to snack on.

 Enjoying her bubble blowing time.  We found this is a very good way to keep her occupied.

 Walking home from one of our appt.  Mommy is getting pretty good at selfies

Ale wanted a picture of mami and papi kissing, and she just could not get the perfect on, so she said.

Then she wanted one of me and her and for some reason papi could not do it, so mami had to do it herself.

Ale loves the mountains too.

Are time here is coming to an end, there are many things I will miss, but because of the extended stay and the family being all seperated, we are all the more ready and excited to head on home and get our family together to start our new life together.