Well, here we go......we have started the adoption process. Actually we started about a month ago but I am just now getting around to starting a blog.
Let me tell you a little bit about our family. Right now the Bodine family consists of Tracy (me), Darren, my wonderful husband, Hannah our 14 year old beautiful daughter, Luke, our handsome 10 year old and Owen our sweet 6 year old.  We are hoping to adopt a little girl from Ethiopia.

When we first talked about adoption it was back before Owen was born.....it was just a quick conversation about adopting if we didn't get pregnant. Then we were blessed with Owen and didn't really talk about it again. Until we went to Juarez, Mexico on a mission trip with our church. Again, another conversation.....but it didn't really lead to anything. We have friends that have adopted and fostered and the conversation came up again. Then lately, all around us we keep getting redirected back to the adoption conversation. Darren has given me podcasts about it, I have watched tv shows about it. Then our church decided to do another mission trip to Haiti to an orphanage. I researched it and fell in love.  I knew my heart was ready for another baby. Then my friend and business partner, Jennifer,  showed up at work one day and said that she was seriously thinking about adopting from Ethiopia. Wow. Again, God was bringing me back around to adopting.  I starting doing a TON of research about adoptions. The Haiti government is pretty iffy right now and I steered away from Haiti.....Ethiopia kept coming up.  Jennifer has friends who have adopted from ET, friends of friends and so forth. I was so weird how I just kept running into people who are or have adopted from Ethiopia.
While researching a home study program, I came across a blog, clicked on it and low and behold it was friends of ours from college. They have 6 adopted children, 2 domestic and 4 from Ethiopia. I contacted her that night and we talked for hours. The next day there was a huge article about adoption in the paper.  God was seriously giving me every sign. I sat down one night, asked Darren if he would want to adopt  and he said "Yes". Easy as that. I about fell over. He then proceeds to tell me he has been thinking about it too.  Believe it or not..it all just fell into place.
Many friends and family were shocked when we told them. Yes, it seems fast but it is so right. I feel it down to the tips of my toes. We are so sure that this is what God has lead us to do. We now there will be struggles, we know our lives are going to turn upside down, we know this will change everything. But that's ok. We are so excited about bringing a new child into our home.
I'm sure as this blog continues, I will tell you more about the "why's".  I'm going to attach some of those reasons (borrowed from another friends blog). The personal "why's" will come later.
We hope you will be along for the ride.....it might be a bit of a roller coaster...but it should be fun.
Check in often and see what's new.