Lori Florida

Got 20 minutes???  Grab your lunch and sit down with these gems.... (click over to the full site if you're in a reader or mobile device!) A Christmas Adoption Story via Ordinary Hero (5 minutes) Now click here to watch  I Like Adoption  (6 minutes) And finally... To Ethiopia and Back (9 minutes) You're welcome!!  Hope you had kleenex nearby!

Happy Tuesday everyone!!  It's been one week to the day that I've been carrying around pictures in my purse of two sweet, brown-faced girls and calling them my daughters....that seems like a perfectly good reason for a celebration!! How 'bout celebrating my girls with me while you get ready to celebrate Jesus birth!  I have a suspicion that many of you just clicked over here from some shopping site you were on, trying to take advantage of the last few days that you don't have to pay an arm and a leg to have the friendly UPS man deliver your purchases!  Since you're shopping anyways.....check out our Amazon link!  I've stocked it with some of my favorite reads from over the last year....books that will feed and challenge the souls of your loved ones.   Amazon.com Widgets Using this link, or the one on the upper left hand corner of the blog, to enter the Amazon site will set the Amazon elves in motion on behalf of our girls!  There won't be a...

Ready to have your mind blown?   Have we got a referral story for you!  It's a like a book with a plot that sucks you in right from the start, leaving you gritty-eyed from endless "just-one-more-chapter" nights.  You mean to put the book down and sleep like a normal person...but then the last paragraph of each chapter makes your eyes go wide and steals all willpower except for the "page turning" kind.  One twist in the plot after another that you COULDN'T SEE COMING....twists that are the best satisfaction a plot could offer.  It's better than what you hoped was coming and leaves you amazed at the writer's craft.  Ever read a book like that?? I have.  I LOOOVE them.  The past few weeks have shown me that I SUPER LOOOOVE living that kind of plot! A good story has to start at the beginning.....Once upon a time, God stirred our hearts in an undeniable way and called us to respond to His orphaned children by making a few of them Floridas...

TREAT EVERYONE YOU KNOW TO A FROSTY AT WENDY'S!! * Wendy's will donate $.50 per frosty purchase over the Father's Day weekend to the Dave Thomas Foundation and Wendy's Wonderful Kids! FYI - This is a video from years past so the dates are wrong...it's really June 16 &17, 2012, Father's Day Weekend! WHEN YOU'RE THERE, CHECK IN @ http://treatitforward.wendys.com/ *Wendy's will donate another $.50 per check in... TWEET LIKE CRAZY! *Follow me @lori_florida and retweet #TreatItFwd and Wendy's will donate another $.50 for each RT! BUY A FROSTY KEY FOB! *My local Wendy's is selling these cute Frosty Key Fobs for $1.  $1 supports the Dave Thomas Foundation to help kids in Foster Care and you get a FREE JR FROSTY with every purchase you make from now till Christmas!!  It's a win/win!  Check with your Wendy's to see if they're participating....or just drive to my Wendy's! ...

Scott told me today that our adoption fund has $8,000 in it waiting for the next bill.  WHAT?!  How does this keep happening??  I know I've been slow to keep posting every gift that keeps raining down on our heads.....they've just keep coming...some little and some big....but I had NO IDEA the balance had risen to $8,000 !!   We MUST praise God when He brings Himself to our attention like that!  And I feel like I MUST renew my commitment to celebrate each evidence of His hand as He moves His people to gather up the ransom for our little people.  Watch the Floodgates Ledger ....it will be updated soon to reflect the current graciousness of God!!  The money has stopped occupying my mind...now it's my babies that I can't stop thinking about. Our status right now is the "dreadful wait."  I've read over and over again on adoption blogs about how the real hard work of adoption begins as the paperwork is done and you're waiting on a referra...

There was a girl...who met a boy.  He politely offered a handshake under his nicely feathered hair.  Later that year, in the middle school gym, the girl gulped as she got up her nerve to ask for one of his green polo school pictures.  He gave it with a wish for "good luck with the guys" inscribed upon the back. A friendship began.  For the next couple years, the message on the back of the school pictures remained the same.  The girl cheered for his team, watched as he folded his warm-ups and politely placed them under his chair, and hoped....and she might admit, schemed a little, to get noticed as more than a friend. His attention magically fell on her near the beginning of her 16th year...the angels sang and the sunbeams shone.  School pictures from that time on had a new message...one of love and commitment. School pictures gave way to formal pictures, engagement pictures and finally, 20 years ago, wedding pictures. It's felt like a lifetime an...

Because of everything....and because of nothing. Yesterday was the 1 year anniversary of my backpack of stories .  Seems like a proper time to break the silence in celebration. It's been a year since we announced to the world that we heard God calling and we were ready to say "yes"....shout "YES!" It's been a year that we've been grieving for our brothers and sisters and babies in Africa.  We've been grieving for our own hearts too.  Since our eyes have been opened , we've become appalled at the selfishness and indifference we found in our own hearts.  It had kept us blissfully ignorant for the first 40 years of our lives.  That has been the deepest grieving and is teaching us desperate repentance. We will not live the same, regardless of what that means to our comfort or "American-ness."  My heart can't stand it anymore. It's been a year of cathartic writing.  This blog has been like a "plate of awesome with bodaci...

Mother may I, please pretty please...take 5 large steps toward Africa?  The answer this week was YES!  2012 has been marked by loads of paperwork.  That stack of documents needing notary and state seals had me jumping up and down impatiently itchy for it to be my turn to stretch my legs toward the finish line. Our state sealing was done a week ago Friday.  Scott and I used his day off for a big "Secretary of State" date.  State sealing is only done at some of the bigger branches so we headed out of suburbia to a large, diverse waiting room.  This seemed a likely opportunity to broaden my horizons and meet someone outside of my nice little bubble world.  I was ready to reach out to someone on the margins....so I prayed all the way there for eyes that would be open to the right empty seat for while I was waiting.  For more on that  tension that I've been processing lately, read here . Here's how it went...  When we arrived, c...

I'm not totally sure what's burning yet, but something is.  I can smell it in the wind, it's making my throat scratchy.  Our house is surrounded by woods, tall trees that attract wild turkey, deer and opossums o'plenty.  Our back yard also attracts the neighbor's run away Eskimo dog.  I think he thinks our dog is cute.  I know when there's a presence in our woods.  I know, because she knows, Moxie our dog.  Her body language changes....ears perk up, tail stiffens, and she gets that far-away focused look in her eyes.  Well,  there's a rustling in the forest, friends.  I know something's out there, smokin'....just haven't been able to stare it straight in the face yet. I spent Sunday nauseous, physically nauseous people.  I was sick to my stomach all day because of what I've been reading.  My heart's churning and my head's on overdrive.  I feel something coming, sense the winds of God moving, fanning this fire He's st...

"How's the adoption going?  How much longer till you get those babies?"  It's a question I get a couple times every week.....because people remember and people care.  Answering the question is good for me.... it helps me remember that things are happening and wheels are turning, even when it feels painfully slow. It's been a while since I've given you all a straight up update about how the paperwork's going.  In my last adoption post I explained my dossier log-jam.  The amount of paperwork and detailed instructions have a potential for error greater than if I tried to pass the bar exam without studying.  It froze me.  After I got over the overwhelming desire to just take a nap, I got started.  I've been gathering, signing, notarizing and scanning through the requirements.  It's almost  done. Our adoption agency is pretty high tech....they've got an online adoption portal to answer my questions and double-check my documents. ...

A firstborn's birthday is really two holidays in one.  There's the celebration of the birth of the baby....and the celebration of the birth of a mother.  Both... life-changing, earth-shattering, cosmos-shifting events...equal in magnitude.  But the spotlight of celebration centers on the child.  There's something in the birth of the Momma that's content to be the holder, the arms that cradle, the person who throws the parties and ponders the memories. I became a Momma 17 years and 4 days ago.  But enough about me....let me tell you about the star of the show.  His name was Riley Kent Florida.  The day he was born was like a dream....because he was a dream. From the day the knot was tied I was ready to be a Momma.  But, alas, waiting had to be endured until the student teaching and degrees were finished and responsibilities were met.  The plan was to wait until we were firmly settled into a job with a paycheck.  It wasn't m...