Dolphin Encounter

Sydney has been saying that she wants to be a dolphin trainer for quite a while now.  Then, the movie "Dolphin Tale" came out a few months ago. (Great movie, by the way!)  She was hooked even more!  She just loved the dolphin named Winter that lives in Clearwater, Florida.  Matt discovered that he had a trade show to go to in Tampa, which is close to Clearwater, so we decided that she had to go see Winter.  You weren't able to get in the water with Winter, but you could get in with Panama.  Winter was in the water right next to us.  We had paid for two of us to swim, so I decided I would like to try it.  I wanted to back out several times.  I wasn't sure I would like it at all.  Fish totally gross me out and it was freezing that day.  But, I was brave and did it anyway.  They had wetsuits for us to wear and putting that on was a treat, let me tell ya!  Ask Matt sometime how I got that stupid thing on.  Lol!  It was all worth it in the end.  Dolphins are pretty sweet. They actually seem pretty happy, loving, and obedient!  It didn't seem gross to me at all, and Sydney loved every second of it!!

Sydney was so excited for this day to come!

That smile on her face says it all.

The trainer had us do the signals to make Panama do different tricks.

She seems like such a happy dolphin!

And we made her splash at the end.  We got pretty wet and it was cold that day!

Sydney with the trainer.

Waiting

I don't know if there is another three year old that "gets" adoption better than Callie. She is so excited for her sister. She talks about her all the time to anyone who will listen! Tonight when I was rocking Callie, she grabbed my phone and said lets sing to Emma too. (Emma is my wallpaper on my phone.) So, we sang Emma several songs as Callie cradled her like a baby in her arms. It was so sweet. Then, she would talk to her and tell her that we were her family and we wanted to come and get her. She gave her lots of kisses and had me kiss her also. When I was putting Callie in bed she said, "Mommy, Emma is part of our family. She is an Allmand. I want to go get her now. She needs to be with us." (break my heart!)  I told her that we should be able to go get her when it is summer time. She seemed excited and satisfied with that, but then said, "Ok. Let's go get her tomorrow!"  Uugh. I wish baby girl!

Waiting is sooo hard! Every day I have the song in my head, "Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord, we will wait upon the Lord, we will wait upon the Lord...our God, your reign forever, our HOPE, our strong deliverer! You are the everlasting God...." I am so glad I have hope in Him and that He is in control, even when I don't understand it.  I keep thinking that He really wants me to be a strong person 'cause I have done a lot of waiting! She will be worth all the wait, though! :)

Isaiah 40:31  But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

God's plan, not mine

What a strange last couple of days it has been! It definitely didn't go as I expected it. I guess God has different plans for our lives then what we sometimes plan. Matt took off work and Sydney took off school so we could go to Omaha to have my LASIK eye surgery on Friday. We went into the doctor on Friday morning all ready to have my surgery. One fun thing is that when we were going to pay for the surgery, she asked if we had insurance that offered a discount or an eye plan or something. I said no, but if you want to give me a discount just for being nice that would be ok. She said sure, just pretend that you told me your insurance offers a discount and gave me $550 off!! They did all the tests and stuff that I needed for surgery and then we just started waiting and waiting. There weren't too many people waiting with us, but then all of a sudden, they were putting a bunch of people out in the waiting room again. Even people that had already had their Valium! I was wondering what was going on, and then started hearing people say that the machine wasn't working. Sure enough, they were calling people back in to reschedule their surgeries. She said that this rarely happens, but did offer me an additional $200 off for the inconvenience. It was such a strange feeling the rest of the day because I was totally prepared to have surgery and not be shopping the rest of the day!

We decided at about 5:00 that we should probably get home instead of stay the night because of the blizzard they were predicting. So, we packed everything in a hurry and headed out the door. Callie, it seemed around that time starting running a fever. We had to stop to get gas and thought we could get some ibuprofen there to help Callie.  Of course they didn't have ibuprofen, so we went on to the next gas station to get some. That is when Callie "tossed her cookies" for the first time. We just turned right back around and headed back to my moms house. Thankfully, cause Callie got sick many times after that!

It seemed so strange. Why were we even in omaha? I was supposed to have surgery, but that didn't happen. We tried to leave, but that didn't happen either. I can't help but think that God wanted us  to go to Omaha....and He wanted us to stay there. I don't know if He was protecting us from something or what, but I trust that He had a plan for us and we were where we were supposed to be.


Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.  Proverbs 3:5-6