Prom 2012

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Rebecca began dating a junior in March. They talked about the prom, but decided to wait and go the next year. About 2 weeks before the prom, he decided he DID want to go, so we went on a very quick hunt to find a dress. We were very lucky to find one at the first place we visited. The best part, it had been marked down to $99. She asked her godsister, Margaret, to come down and do her makeup. Granna also came and joined in the fun. We went and had her hair done in a "waterfall" braid. She was beautiful. We met some of Andrew's friend at "The Red Door" for pictures. After pictures, they headed to California Dreaming for dinner and then the dance. After the dance, they went to Frankie's Fun Park for some supervised fun.

Adoption Day

The day we have been waiting for finally arrived.  After 2 years of riding the DSS roller coaster, we were able to adopt our three precious children.  Here's how the story began:

Ethan, the youngest, was in my classroom 2 years ago.  At the time, he and his two sisters, Mali and Kimmy, were in the local children's shelter.  I immediately fell in love with him and threw the football with him everyday on the playground.  A social worker called me at the beginning of March to see how he was doing academically.  I asked what their plan was and she said it had just changed to adoption.  I immediately said "My husband and I want them." She put me in contact with the licenseing  department and we got the ball rolling.  It took us until August to get through all of the red tape.  They were finally place with us on August 25th.  At that time, their plan was reunification with their father.

We loved having them as part of our family.  It just seemed right.  Rebecca was thrilled about having siblings.  Around January of 2011, the father completed his "plan" and the children began weekend visitations with him.  It was very difficult for all of us.  By the end of February, they returned to him permanently.  Saying goodbye was one of the most difficult things I've ever done in my life.  It really took it's toll on Rebecca.  We decided to relinquish our foster care license.

Fast forward to mid August.  I was in my classroom getting everything ready for the new school year and I received a phone call from the office secretary.  She said "You're not going to believe this, but he social worker is enrolling the children."  After I gained my composure, I went to the office and spoke with her.  She said they were back in care.  I told her we wanted them back and asked what we needed to do to get our license.  After a week, they were returned to our home.  The first day of school was different for me.  No offense to the parents of my students, but I was most excited about seeing my babies after 6 months.  Rebecca came with me and Eric joined us a few minutes later.  What a joy it was to see their beautiful faces once again.  They immediately asked if they could come back to our house.

At the time they returned, their paternal grandfather wanted custody.  He lives in Kansas.  After a few months, we received word that his house was not approved for him to have custody.  What a sigh of relief.  The father's rights were terminated in January.  The mother had not had a certain hearing at that time, so we had to wait for those hoops to be jumped through before they could be legally free.

We received a phone call during spring break from the adoption worker.  She shared that she had been in a meeting that morning and they were going to move very quickly to speed up the adoption of these three precious children.  The adoption department was trying to meet a quota by the end of their fiscal year-June 30th.  They needed our children to help meet that statistic.  We were happy to oblige.  You see, it doesn't normally work that fast.  After the children become legally free, it can take months for their case to be put on the docket for finalization.  This is one time that being a statistic played in our favor. The mother's rights were terminated May 7th and they became legally free on June 8th.  What a relief.

We are so fortunate to have such amazing family and friends.  They were there with us through the ups and downs of the adoption process.  We couldn't have done it without you.  So...without further ado....here is our expanded family:

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All Stars

Rebecca kept us busy in the winter months with her all star cheerleading. We had a great time traveling to Savannah and Myrtle Beach. The kids loved the indoor pool in Savannah and we were fortunate to have someone let us stay at their beach house for 4 days when we went to Myrtle Beach. We have amazing families and friends!! The Savannah trip was like a blast from the past for me. I was determined to find "the fountain". We finally found it after dark, so we didn't get out and go up to it. For some reason the kids didn't find it as interesting as me. : ) They did, however, enjoy River Street. Their favorite part...the candy shop. I have to say that I ate some of the best caramel corn I've every put in my mouth. Their pralines are to die for, too.

The cheerleaders making signs for their doors

 Riverstreet Yummies

From My LIttle Corner

Well...I have been asked by several to please update my blog. The problem I've had with that is the fact that we have 3 special members of our family that are not allowed to be on the internet until the adoption is final. We are 2 days away from that glorious day!! It's hard to blog about your family when half of it can't be in the pictures. But...I will try to give you a glimpse into our lives over the past six months. You can bet there will be a special post on Thursday about our forever family.

New Year's Project

Eric and I have a long standing joke about a New Year's project. Usually it is done on New Year's Eve. Not this year. We held out until New Year's Day.

I have become addicted to Pinterest. I think I follow it more than Facebook. I love getting new ideas for decorating, teaching, recipes, and crafts. I pin a project I wanted to do to help eliminate the clutter in our kitchen. Here is a picture of what I found on Pinterest:It comes from this blog:

http://delightfulorder.blogspot.com/p/organizing.html

Here is our version:

Eric getting it started:

The Final Product

I am so proud of it. I can't wait to put it to use when we go back to school.

Happy New Year

We spent a fun evening at home on New Year's Eve. Eric worked on the fire pit so we could roast marshmallows. The kids had a blast getting them toasty brown. Their favorite part was eating the s'mores. After that, we went out front and Rebecca took over as the firework queen. Our neighborhood is supposed to have an ordinance prohibiting fireworks in the sky. Being the rule followers that we are, all of ours were low on the ground. There were some neighbors around the corner that were shooting some major fireworks. The kids could have cared less about those. They were excited about their small ones. Just goes to show you-bigger isn't always better.

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Christmas 2012

This Christmas was a little different. With 4 children, it is very difficult to travel at Christmas. We decided we would go to Donna's on the Thursday before Christmas and come home on Christmas Eve. My mom and dad were going to come Christmas Eve day and my sister and family on Christmas day.

Unfortunately, my Brother in law, Anthony, was admitted to the hospital on the Monday before Christmas with gallbladder problems. He was in the hospital all week and had his gallbladder removed on Friday. Mom, dad and I met in Asheville on Friday to have our Christmas with the Griffins. The best present...Anthony was released on Saturday and the surgery went well.

Christmas with 4 children is wild. There were presents everywhere. Our floor was one big heap of wrapping paper by the time we finished opening gifts. Below is a slideshow of a few of the pictures. (We can't post pictures of the foster kids so these are very limited.)

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Saluda Shoals Lights At Christmas

We started what I hope to be a new tradition this year. We went to Saluda Shoals to see the Christmas lights. We were very lucky because there was not a wait. We were able to go around it twice. We even got out and rode the tubes down the "slope". That was fun!! Here are a few of my favorite displays:

Santa and Me

I was able to get Rebecca to go see Santa another year. : ) It helped having the other kids there to get her to do it. I'll take it however I can get it.

Competition Season

It's competition season at the Liles' house. Our Saturday's are filled with a lot of cheerleading. I LOVE it!! Yesterday, Rebecca's high school squad took first place at their competition. They have faced a lot of obstacles along the way, but pulled it together on the floor. I am so proud of them.

I am coaching the middle school squad again this year. Our squad has been doing amazingly well this year. We have scored the highest of any other squads at our school.

Safety First

Eric has had a rough year with driving. He has been caught talking on his cell phone while driving a few times. He has had 2 speeding tickets. He forgot to put his truck in park and it rolled into a ditch. He was called before the safetycommittee at work last week for all of the incidents. (He usually serves on this committee.) They had pictures of the truck in the ditch and him talking on thephone. All of the guys he works with had a great time pulling his chain. One of them recommended that he have to wear a motorcycle helmet when driving. I came up with the idea of him wearing a bicycle helmet. I bought him one and used my cricut to cut out vinyl to decorate it.

Eric thought he needed something on the back. He suggested the number 88. Rebecca came up with is on the back.

He had the office laughing all day. Hopefully, he has learned his lesson.

Let's Go T-Wolves

Rebecca is cheering on the varsity squad this year. We are all enjoying Friday nights under the lights!! So far the T-Wolves are 2-0. Rebecca LOVES it all!! Her favorite part is dancing with the band.

High Schooler

Well...it's here. Where did the time go? Rebecca started high school this past Wednesday. She said her first day was scary. She was scared an upperclassman would dump her in a trash can. She was happy that didn't happen. : ) She loves her teachers and looks forward to Friday Night Football.

I started my 25th year of teaching.

Carnival Cruise-Day 3

Day 3 of our cruise started off with a glitch. Wednesday was supposed to be a stop in Cozumel, Mexico. However, Tropical Storm Dan decided it wasn't meant to be. We were awakened by the sounds of our cruise director, Marky Mark, that due to the tropical storm, we were being rerouted to Freeport, Bahamas. We were VERY disappointed about not going to Cozumel. It was the the reason we chose this particular cruise. However, when life gives you lemons, we make lemonade. We were happy that we would get to visit another tropical place. Eric and I had visited Freeport on our first cruise. But it would be a first for Rebecca. Due to the change in plans, we spent Wednesday at sea. We ate a late breakfast(along with the other 2000 passengers). We decided to look at pictures from the night before, visit the casino, and check out the gift shops. Along the way, we got asked to play in a game of Family Feud with some other families. It was quite amusing. Both teams "won" and were awarded a very nice, 24K plastic ship on a stick. : ) Rebecca decided she wanted to go swimming, so she went back to the room to change. Eric and I wandered around. We went to the Dynasty Lounge and played bingo and watched the Newly Wed Game. When we returned to the room, we found Rebecca sound asleep. She never made it to the pool. We ate dinner in the dining room again. After dinner, we went back to the Dynasty Lounge and watched Minute to win it and a reverse scavenger hunt. We went to the pool area for the Monster Party, but Rebecca wasn't feeling good, so we called it a night.

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Parasailing in Key West

Before we ever left for our trip, Rebecca and I spent hours researching the cruise and excursions we could take. One that really interested she and Eric was parasailing. I, on the other hand, was not interested at all!! We booked the excursion after we boarded the ship. We decided they should do it first thing so we could spend the rest of the time in Key West doing some shopping/sight seeing.
We met the guide when we got off the ship. She put us on the "train" to take us into town to meet another guide. There were 4 others going on the parasailing excursion. I watched Eric and Rebecca ride off on their adventure and I walked around Mallory Square. Here are the pictures one of the guides took of Eric and Rebecca's adventure on the wild side:

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Carnival Cruise-Day 2

Our first full day started off with a port in Key West, Florida. None of us had ever been there before. The boat ported at the Naval base. We had to take a "train" to the center of town. Eric and Rebecca had an early appointment to go parasailing early that morning. While they went parasailing, I walked around a few of the shops. We met back up and walked around town. Rebecca got a henna tattoo. We ate at Sloppy Joe's bar. I tried their signature sloppy joe. It was yummy. We found Jimmy Buffet's original Margaritaville restaurant. Since we had already eaten, we went to the gift shop and bought t-shirts. It was really hot, but we enjoyed the excursion. The most interesting fact I learned was that US Hwy. 1 begins in Key West. Hwy. 1 runs through Lexington County. Tuesday night was Cruise Elegant night for dinner. We all got dressed up and enjoyed a delicious meal. We caught the tail end of a show and then called it a night.

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Carnival Cruise-Day 1

We went on our first family cruise last week. What a wonderful vacation. Here is a slideshow of our first day.

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The $5000 Smile

Before:

After:

After 2 years and 8 months, she was finally able to eat corn on the cob. It was the only food she wasn't allowed to eat that she actually didn't eat. She's not too excited about the retainer, but her smile sure is pretty.

Bunnies Spotted

It is a joke in our house about Eric seeing bunnies everywhere. Before he was diagnosed as bi-polar, he was seeing bunnies everywhere. All but what time was his illusions due to the illness.

Tonight while he was grilling, he noticed a small family of bunnies living in an overgrown area near the pool. He was able to pick one up and let us pet it. We actually found their "nest". Two of them found hiding places so we wouldn't get them. Rebecca took some lettuce out to them. We'll check in the morning and see if they ate any.

The Baby Bunny

Trying to Get Away

Little Girls Cheer Clinic

It all started 3 years ago when I forced Rebecca to go to the high school cheerleader's little girl clinic. She did not want to go, but I insisted. She left on Saturday loving cheerleading and we enrolled her in a tumbling class the next month. Here is a picture of her at the clinic in 2008. She is the one on the front row in the teal shorts.

Fast forward 3 years, cheering on the middle school squad for 2 years, and an all star team for 1 year. She is now a varsity cheerleader at the high school. She was one of 36 girls that got to do the teaching at the clinic this year. Here we are together on the last day.

The Varsity Squad and Coaches

Rebecca and 8 & 9 Year Olds

She had a blast. If I do say so myself, she was a great leader. Way to go, Rebecca. I am so proud of you.