TA is Finally on Its Way and the End to an Exhausting Week

"Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." Isaiah 41:10

It has been quite a week. We had a little snowfall on Tuesday so the boys were able to play out in it for a little while that day. It has been REALLY cold so places that the sun does not shine are still white. John's mother was taken to the hospital last Saturday and it was discovered that she was 100% blocked in one carotid artery and 75% in the other. Her heart was also in A-Fibrillation, meaning that the top part of her heart was beating too fast. They treated her A-Fib and discharged her on Monday and scheduled her to return to the hospital on Wednesday for a procedure in which a stent would be placed in carotid artery to allow blood to flow. Lorene has survived throat cancer, a mild heart attack and a series of TIA's. She is truly a miracle. They could not do the procedure on Wednesday because her heart went back into A-Fib. She was admitted and finally this afternoon, they were able to perform the procedure. It was a tense couple of hours as the risks were high of her throwing a clot and having a stroke. By the grace of God, she survived and is doing well. She is in the intensive care unit but things look good right now. I returned briefly to the office to shut down for the day as I was scheduled to be at work and happened to check my e-mail and had an e-mail from my agency stating that our Travel Approval (TA) was on its way and they should have it in-hand by Monday. Wow! What a great day! Our agency is tentatively looking for us to travel on March 20th. They are a small agency and have a backlog of families to travel due to the slowdown in everyone receiving their TA's. I have to trust that we will travel in the Lord's time but is seems so far away and I so long to bring our daughter home. I'll update next week when we know more. The New Day photographer must be on vacation as they have not updated with pictures this week so I will include pictures that I have collected recently. We are exhausted as we have spent quite a bit of time at the hospital this week and the weather is suppose to be considerably warmer this weekend as may be as high at 60 degrees so we are hoping for a relaxingly and enjoyable weekend!