It's "official"!

We've made a decision on the name. We finally came to an agreement that Ava Lynn Hoa Dempsey will be her name. But for those who just can't wait to monogram (Ashlie!), she will go by Ava Lynn Dempsey. So there you have it. I wish I could hold her and say to her "Hi, Ava, I'm your mommy!" One day. Brian and I were daydreaming about that tonight over dinner. I was asking him if we were going to try to videotape the first moment we meet her. He said, and I agreed with him, that he just wants to be in the moment, not videoing the moment. Maybe our translator will be willing to do that for us. We'll see. But if not then we will always have it in our memories. That's special enough. Oh, I can't wait!!!!

What's in A Name?

Okay, everybody is wondering about the name. We are most likely to name her Ava. Before we got the picture, Brian and I never could nail it down. He didn't show too much enthusiasm over any of the ones on our list, so I wasn't sure for a long time what'd it be. I always like Ava the best. So when we got the picture and new documents I said that we need to decide on the name, and he told me that he likes Ava. Ava means, "like a bird", so that's pretty fitting, huh? So, unless we have a change of mind, which I doubt, that's what it will be. Sorry Jennifer. But you know Brian, he likes to keep his options open. So you never know, you never know. There is a document that has to be sent back out in in a couple of days and on it we have to write her American name. So soon it will be official and I'll let you know for sure.

I also wanted to explain the Vietnamese name. We read about this the other night b/c we didn't understand it at first. The first name, Nguyen, is actually the family name. And over 40% of the Vietnamese population have Nguyen as their family name (Interesting. Just one big happy family?). Her middle name, Thi, means "Poem", but this also is a VERY common middle name. It also distinguishes the gender of the baby. The last name, Hoa (pronounced Hwa), is her given name. It means "flower". (Brian bought her a pink fuzzy pj outfit that has "flower" written across it. So cute). So we may use Hoa as a second middle name. Right now we are thinking about Ava Lynn Hoa Dempsey. This full name would be on all her legal documents but for everyday use, school and such, she would just use Ava Lynn Dempsey. But as she gets older, if she wanted to use her Vietnamese name, there would be less difficulty since it would already be on her passport, and other legal documents. So that's the story there. Like I said, nothing is certain yet, but we're pretty sure. Clear as mud?

Introducing......Our Daughter

"For This Child I Prayed, and the Lord Has Granted Me What I Asked of Him." I Sam. 2:27


Here she is!!!! How long I've waited to see her!! How many hours did I sit and wonder what she was going to look like?!? It's a little surreal to look at her photo and know that she is meant to join our family. I sometimes still can't believe it. What a precious baby. I couldn't have dreamed of such a lovely little person. I find myself staring at her picture, looking it over and studying every little part of her. Her fingers look so long and her feet so small. Her hair is a riot! I love it. I just can't wait to hold her and kiss those sweet cheeks and lips. I want to know what it feels like to pick her up. I just sit back and imagine. I pray it won't be too long before we get to experience all these wonderful things.

It has been an incredible journey, and yet, I feel we're only half way there. Still much paperwork to do and of course, the trip to Vietnam. She seems so far away, sort of unobtainable. Do I dare dream of holding this precious girl? This is what one half of my brain thinks, but then, I can't help it- I am quickly drawn back into a state of imagining. I read my sister's blog entry tonight. She wrote much more eloquently than I could about my own journey to this point. It's strange, that all seems sort of distant from me now, the pain and the disappointment. I am all wrapped up in this baby now, this moment. It's a miraculous thing really. God has been faithful. He's walked with us through it all and drawn us to this place and to this child. There was a lot He wanted to teach me about Himself and a lot of things I need to learn about who I am. I've come out of it more aware of who I am in Him. So I'm thankful. I am thankful that it took what it did to get me here, to get us here. It was hard. It hurt. But God was there and never left. It's usually the painful things that open us up to learning, isn't it? Sometimes I think, "Okay, I think I've learned enough for a while!"! But though we want the grace of relief He faithfully gives the grace of refinement. God is gloriously discontent to leave us in our present state. He wants more for us. And so He does exactly what is needed. And that is how we learn who He is. We get to experience His faithfulness and see just how He works things out, better than we could've imagined. And even though it's not the way in which we thought it'd come, or in the time we thought, we get to see that it is good. And so then, the next time we begin to question, we can reflect back on His faithfulness in the past, and our faith then gets bolstered. We remember what we've learned, what we've seen. This is how faith grows.

These are the lyrics to a song that I listened to and thought about a lot through the last few years. I found it to be incredibly encouraging. These are just the first couple of verses.

Be Still My Soul


"Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.

Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.

Leave to thy God to order and provide;

In every change, He faithful will remain.

Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend

Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.



Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake

To guide the future, as He has the past.

Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;

All now mysterious shall be bright at last.

Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know

His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below."

It's so reassuring. He has it all in His hands, the past, the future, and even now, as we wait, He holds our precious girl in His hands. We can't hold her, or soothe her tears, but He is the Comforter. He sees her. He loves her. He will hold her for us. Be still my soul.

Good night sweet girl. We love you and we will see you soon.

A White Christmas

Has it been 2 weeks since my last blog entry? yikes! Time flies! So finally I am going to post some pictures from our Christmas in New York. We had a great time. We got to stay for 6 days which is our longest visit yet. We had to make up some time for not being able to go the last few years. It had been 3 years since we'd been able to go for Christmas! Too long. So we got there Christmas Day, well, evening. There was snow on the ground-how beautiful. It didn't actually snow though until the night before we left. But I got to see a lot of it. So, I think maybe that's my first white Christmas ever! How fun!

So we got lots of time with the kids. They were thrilled to have their uncle Brian there to climb around on like a jungle gym. He's got a lot more energy than I do! They have grown so much! Sarah is turning into a beautiful young girl. She would just sit with me and have these grown-up conversations with me. Silas was just wild as ever but sweet as can be! He's got quite a wit that one. He gave a painting for Christmas that he did all by himself of a "chicken or rooster swimming in milk". It's really does look just like that too! We spent lots of time playing games and many hours playing one of Brian's favorites...monopoly. Jennifer was a good competitor for him. She won one and he won another. I never won. I was really just there to learn. That's my excuse anyway! I'm terrible at that game. Fun times. AND I finally got to see Brian's parents newly remodeled kitchen, and living room. They completely redid them--new floors, cabinets, carpet, appliance, furniture--the works. They did it maybe 2 or so years ago and I hadn't gotten to see until now. It's beautiful! They did a great job on it, and it looks completely different!

So all in all, a great trip. We got some good pictures of the snow from the last night there. It snowed maybe 5 inches that night so the drive to the airport was GORGEOUS! New, fresh, clean snow. Love it. The picture of the barn is of their big back yard, and the small tree is in the front yard. The spruce (I think it's a spruce!) is in their side yard. The snow just made everything look so peaceful. Enjoy the pics!

I'm going to do another entry from Christmas in Athens. That way, everybody can see the pictures from that too. Maybe it won't be 2 weeks before that gets done!

Vegas, Baby!

So, I'm catching up on my blogs, here. I have several things I haven't written about yet that I intend to, so bear with me. I'm a little behind from our travelling and other unexpected things that popped up. So, at the beginning of December Jack told Brian that he had tickets for the rodeo final in Vegas. Brian and Jack had talked about Vegas before because Jack goes every once in a while and Brian has always wanted to go. So Jack called Brian and asked if we might want to go. He said that if I went that Sherry would go too. I was not sure that I wanted to go. I've just never had much desire to see it. But in the end, I decided to go and I'm glad that I did. We had a great time! It was definitely something to see! We stayed at Bally's which is connected up to the Paris, which is where Jack and Sherry stayed. Across the street is the Bellagio which is next to Caesar's Palace. We walked over there one night to see the Christmas lights they have up and to see the shopping areas. The Christmas decorations were so cool! They had these huge reindeer covered in pecan shells that went up from floor to ceiling to look like they were taking off in flight. I'll put some pictures up of those. The shopping in Caesar's palace hotel was unbelievable. Big time designer shops. The shops were ones I'd heard of but didn't bother going in b/c I knew they were way out of my price range. But it was fun to walk through. There were big statues as part of the water fountains and every once in a while they would start to move and talk. Yes, in Vegas, you even get to see a show while you shop. We walked around and went into several different hotels while we were there just to check them out. They are something else. Just incredible. Each one was so different. Sherry and I did some Christmas shopping while the guys did there thing. We also got to see the musical The Producers which starred Tony Danza (he's got a great voice by the way). The rodeo was fun too actually. We really had a good time and guess who performed there at the rodeo?.......Who else but Lee Greenwood! We heard him sing, "God bless the USA", of course. Brian was so thrilled about that (I say this with great sarcasm!). Boy, That crowd was all into him! It was one patriotic crowd let me tell ya. It was a Lee Greenwood fest!!

I was surprised actually by how much fun I had. There was so much to do. We only skimmed the surface, so I'm sure we'll head back one day. Overall, a surprisingly wonderful trip.

A New Year

The first day of a new year....so strange. It sorta feels like I just skipped over 2007. It's sort of like a dream! It seems like it flew by. I'll have to get my daily calendar out and remind myself of all that happened. I didn't have time to reflect much today as we just got back from New York and I spent the day unpacking and cleaning and doing laundry. But here we are in a New Year despite the flurry. Every year I think "what will this new year hold?". I spend a little time dreaming about it and wondering and realizing that the past year held things I could never have thought of. And so I suppose this year will be the same. I will sit and wonder and dream, all the time knowing that God has a plan that exceeds my own. It will hold fun, exciting times, new things, sad things, and in the midst of it all.... there He is. He will be there, with me as I walk the days of this year. I am so thankful that I can count on that. Nothing else is sure. But this I know...God loves me and He is with me. So as I think of the next year and what may come, my thoughts don't need to be worrisome ones b/c I know He holds my days in His hands. I can dream and rest in His promise to be with me always...."And SURELY goodness AND mercy will follow me all the days of my life...."