The swing seat

Preston has now installed the swing seat.  I think Logan will be pretty excited when he wakes up and sees it.

New bunk beds

Here is the picture of Logan and Nathan's new bed.  Just a few more things (hanging the swing seat, putting up shelves and a new light, the under the bed seat) and then their room will be complete.

What do we do now?

We are in the waiting phase of our adoption.  We have finished every piece of paper work, which is a great feeling.  The timing is now up to the United States and Ukrainian governments.  So, what do we do now?  We are in fundraising mode and prepare our house mode.

Yesterday Nathan and Logan's new bed arrived.  Preston and I stayed up late and put it all together.  Right now they are sleeping in it, but I will put up a picture soon.   They both really like the beds and are excited.  There is even an additional bed for Owen to spend the night in their room.  We still need to get an oversized chair or couch to place under the loft.  We are planning to pick up a piece we like from IKEA the next time we make a trip to Atlanta.

Fundraising
We are still trying to raise $21,000.  We know God called us to adopt and He will provide all we need.
-Next Saturday, April 5th we are having an Adoption Bowling Fundraiser at Vestavia Bowl.  Bowling is from 10:00-12:00 and the cost is $10/person.  $6 of every person goes directly to our adoption.  We would love for you to join us and bring friends.  Our family loves bowling, especially our three sons, and are looking forward to a really fun morning.
-We are teaming up with Compelled Designs to sell beautiful handmade necklaces.  Each necklace is $24 with $12 going directly to support our adoption.  Each necklace has scripture on the back.  Please let us know if you are interested in purchasing one of these beautiful necklaces.  These also make great gifts.

- If you are a coffee lover or know someone who is, you can support our adoption through delicious coffee purchases.  One third of the total of your coffee purchase goes directly to our adoption.  https://justlovecoffee.com/about/beneficiary/thehitesadoption/
-If you are interested in just donating to our adoption you can check out our Pure Charity fundraising page at https://www.purecharity.com/hiteadoption

We appreciate everyone's support for our adoption! We have the best friends and family.  We can't wait to introduce you to the newest family member hopefully sometime this summer.

New York Trip

We had a fabulous surprise Spring Break trip to New York for Logan.  He loved everything and was so excited to be there!

My previous posts on the trip explain most of the things we did, but here are a few more photos from my camera instead of the iPhone.

Logan enjoys watching the tv show, Jessie.  On Jessie they had one of these state of liberty characters.  He was excited to see one in Central Park.

 By far Logan's favorite thing was the Statue of Liberty....we thought it would be.  He tried to see it from the plane, would ask where she was relative to our position in the city, etc.

 With our tickets we were able to go to the pedestal and through the museum.  We did not decide to take our trip far enough in advance to get crown tickets....hopefully next time.

 We rented bikes from Battery Park and road over the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges and then up to Central Park.  Biking is such a great way to see the city.

 We pre-arranged to meet Logan's 4k teacher, Mrs Traci.   Logan and Mrs Traci have always been really close and share a very special bond.  To this day, she is still his favorite teacher.  We met she and her son, Owen, in Central Park to play and then went to her church, where her husband is one of the pastors.  We really enjoyed hearing him preach.

 We also spent some time at the Natural History Museum.   All three of us loved it.  It was incredible. We also did the planetarium show, Dark Mater, which I highly recommend if you are going to be there.

 Logan is so strong he is holding up the whale.

 Grand Central Station!

 Top of the Rock....with the Statue of Liberty in the background.

 Right before leaving town we walked the High Line.  It is a park on an old elevated rail road area.  It was pretty fun.

 Logan sitting in one of the seating areas on the High Line.  They had some pretty cool different areas.

A few awesome things not pictured in this post.
-We saw Matilda the musical.  It was fabulous.  Preston and I both think it is one of our top favorites and we have seen lots of broadway shows.
-We went to the Whitney.  Preston was so excited to be there for the Biennial and Logan loved the HUGE elevator they have there.  It was definitely the largest I have ever seen.
-We took a few bus tours and learned some neat things about the city: 14,000 cabs, 31,000 police officers, 18,0000 firefighters, the most expensive room per night is at the Four Seasons for $21,000., Brown Box homes sold for $500 in the early 1980s and how they go for about $3,000,000.
-We met our friend Mrs Judy and her family for dinner at the famous John's Pizza.  We knew Mrs Judy from our trip to Lebanon.  Logan really attached to her on the trip and when he saw her again he attached immediately to her again.  We also had the rare opportunity to have a tour through the Bloomberg office where her husband Tim works.  It was great spending time with them.

Spring break trip # 1 day 2

Most of my pictures are still on my camera so I will post those after we return home.  Today we went to the Statue of Liberty.  Logan was so excited he was running to get there.  We rented bikes and biked from Battery Park over the Brooklyn and Manhatten bridges to Central Park.  We met Logan's 4k teacher Mrs Traci...who Logan absolutely adores...at Central Park.  He played there with her son and we then went to the evening church service at her church.  We enjoyed hearing her husband preach.  It was a great day! 

Spring break trip #1

Our surprise trip with Logan is to NYC.  We are having a blast!

Adoption update and spring break trip

This week was full of adoption work.  Wednesday my medical form was completed, Thursday my finger prints were taken again and I think they passed this time and today we signed all the papers for our dossier.  Now we are just waiting for our approaved USCIS fingerprinting and then the apostling of our dossier packet by the state of Alabama.  Hopefully we will have all of this complete in the next few weeks.

We are now fully enjoying spring break.  We are looking forward to our end of the week trip to Auburn and have booked a hotel with an indoor pool.  The boys and I will get good use of it while Preston is in meeting.  We have now started our first trip.  For those of you who were wondering who it could be and where we might be going here is a clue.

Zoo field trip

The boys had a fun field trip to the zoo today.  They really enjoyed the train ride, carousel ride, riding their bikes and just hanging out with all of their friends.  Here are a few pictures.

adoption update/prayer request, surprise trip, welcoming a very speciallady to the Bowden family and more

We have a very exciting next two weeks ahead of us....very busy but very exciting.

Let's start with prayer request.  On Wednesday I have my doctor appointment for the dossier.  Just pray everything goes smoothly, mainly with the doctor filling out all the paper work in a timely manner.  On Thursday I have my immigration fingerprints again.  They were not good enough last time, so I have to do them again.  Please pray they will take this time and for the person doing them to have the patients to keep trying until he gets them right.

Now for the fun things: tomorrow I will be on a field trip at the zoo with Nathan and Owen.  I know we will all have a blast!  A week from Thursday, the 27th, we will be in Atlanta welcoming and meeting our friends', Jennifer and Michael, daughter Hosanna.  We are so excited!!!!  Another exciting date is this Friday, the 21st.  We are signing all of our dossier paperwork!!  That seems like a big moment too.

Preston and I have decided to take one child per year on a SURPRISE trip just for them.  This will be in addition to our family vacations and our summer mission work.  We just thought it would be great bonding time for each child.  Our first trip will begin this Friday night.  This trip will last until Tuesday. You will have to stay tuned to see who is going this year and where it will be.  A few ideas thrown around are Owen to an NBA basketball game, Nathan to the CN Tower in Toranto to ride the elevator numerous times, Logan to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Nathan to the Golden Gate Bridge to drive on it and the San Francisco hills over and over, Owen to Disneyland, Logan to the Statue of Liberty, Owen to a Major League Baseball spring training game in Florida, Logan to Big Ben and Nathan to Seattle, WA seaport to see all the boats and cranes receiving and sending out their big international shipments.

Monday, Monday, Monday

Monday Logan had the day off for teacher work day.  We had a wonderful morning together hiking in the backyard, playing and picnicking at the park and then going to the zoo after Nathan and Owen were finished with school.