Now what?????

Rita went to her first parade and LOVED it!!! At the beginning she was shy about getting the candy but by the end of the parade she was shouting at the people walking in the parade "Throw me candy!!"
The girls totally enjoyed VBS (Paul was too young and Andrew was too cool for VBS this year).
"Girls, you're supposed to be singing, not primping."
Short stuff knew all of her moves (Audrey is still so tiny, she is a year older than the kids that she is standing next to).
Paul was less than thrilled with the VBS closing program. Every night when the girls were getting ready for VBS he would say "My bible school too, my bible school too." Sorry sweetie, you'll have to wait until next year.


Before you read about our latest drama.....you have to check out these three blogs. At this point in my life I can't imagine adopting again....so I will continue to live vicariously through some amazing families. It is so obvious that these families have chosen to put God's will first in their life and they are the ones being blessed: http://smilesandtrials.blogspot.com/ (family in the Ukraine now adopting their 11th child) , my cyber friend, Carla, who is waiting to head back to Vietnam for #9 http://eightisenoughfornow.blogspot.com/ and my other cyber friend who is waiting for #8 http://www.ourjourneytojade.com/web/do/site/home?ID=199650 ( this family adopted Paul's best friend from Chenzhou almost 2 years ago..miss Jocelyn).

We just found out this week that Rita was denied open enrollment at Ft. Recovery. We are absolutely devastated and did NOT anticipate this at all. Now Ted and I have so many decisions to make. Please pray for us as we decided if we should reapply and try to convince the superintendent that she is not as big as financial risk as what he thinks (this was his reason for choosing to deny her enrollment). Should we start house hunting in FR? We've been thinking about this for a year but we love our home so much....just wish we didn't live out in the middle of nowhere. Do we send Rita to Celina for a year, let her catch up there and then reapply to FR? The superintendent is fully aware that next year we'll have the other 4 kids at FR but Rita is denied. Audrey and Paul are only enrolled in the preschool which doesn't mean that they are enrolled in the school system yet......are we going to have to worry about Paul being denied enrollment in the future because of his special needs?? Everyone is between a rock and a hard place....we are NOT being discriminated against because we DON'T live in the district so we have no rights until the child is enrolled. Once the child is enrolled they receive the same care that a FR resident would.....but the superintendent has the right to DENY the initial enrollment. Ted and I have decided to step back for a few days, catch our breath and see where God leads us. As Pastor Kelly said when I shared the situation during Wed. night prayer meeting he said "Ted and Alison did not travel all of the way around the world to bring Rita home only to have her separated from her brothers and sisters at school." For my friends that live out of state and don't know what I am talking about....we live fairly far out in the country. We live in one school district but actually are much closer to another school district. We sent Andrew and Natalie to Celina our home SD until Andrew finished 2nd grade. They had a long bus ride, we had to have someone at the house when the did get off of the bus, plus Andrew's behavior needs weren't being met the way we had hoped. So last year we chose to open enroll to FR district...it's closer, our babysitter of 10 years lives in the same district so the kids have a short bus ride to and from her house, my mom lives right in FR and she helped us out with alot of school activities...plus Ted and I are both FR graduates. When we enrolled we knew full and well that enrollment was based by student and not by family so we knew that there was the slight chance that our younger kids could be denied.....but we didn't really expect this to happen. So just pray for us and I'll keep everyone up to date on what we decide this summer.