Wednesday, February 1, 2012

so...i wrote this blog probably in May 2011 and just never uploaded it....MUCH has changed, and I will have to update on that soon, but here ya go for now...

hello! campise fam update :)

Well since the last post some dear dear friends hosted a house "almost" complete party and foster journey celebration party! It is indescribable the love we felt and feel from such amazing people! We feel honored to know and walk through life with the following friends that hosted this amazing party for us...The Allisons, The Bakers, The Beans, The Benaglios, The Bruyninckxs, The Halsells, and The Mullinses!!!!!!! My goodness can they host it up :) We love you all so much and are so grateful for yalls amazing friendships and support for us as we walk down this journey! Here are a few blog posts from Aimee and Brandie that have pics from the party!!!

http://thehalsells.blogspot.com/2011/04/campise-shower.html

http://oliveandpearlhandmade.blogspot.com/2011/04/aint-no-party-like-campise-party.html

Every detail of the party was just so special!! From the decorations, photo booth, food, drinks, and fun arts and crafts! We had so many amazing friends and family come all the way to the big T (Taylor) to celebrate with us! How blessed we feel! Thank you all sooo very much for coming to celebrate with us! Your love and prayer are appreciated more than you know and are absolutely felt!

The house is pretty much complete minus some finishing up in the kitchen! We still need to make upper cabinets, put on door fronts on lower cabinets, and put in backsplash, but other than that it is COMPLETE!! And honestly, I don't even care when the rest of the kitchen is complete it has just been such a blessed to have a workable kitchen and be able to walk around our house without shoes and most importantly being able to have friends over, so great!!!

On the fostering front...we have been officially licensed since February 15th, but still not kiddos yet. We know that the Lord has sweet sweet plans for our family, so we are just trusting that! We continue to pray protection over the kids that the Lord has in store for us and for protection over all kids in foster care actually. We are also praying for peace and patience as we wait and do not know the plans He has set out for us! We have had many calls and submitted our home study many times, but I guess it has not been in the Lord's timing yet.

A brief story of us coming to this point in our lives, okay let's be honest, it's me, Kathrin, it probably won't be brief :)!...We have always known we wanted to have children! We had briefly talked about adoption prior to getting married. I always thought, "maybe I would adopt one day" when growing up, but don't think that I honestly thought it would happen. How sweet the Lord's plans are because it honestly has been a journey that we feel lucky and blessed to be on. Challenging at times of course, but a true blessing. We began trying to have biological children in September of 2007 as we continue to try. Quite a few years back probably, 2 1/2 to 3 years ago the Lord began stirring in my heart about adoption. It was one sermon at our church (Austin Stone) that the Lord really captured my heart and adoption was more on the fore front on my mind! Then quite a few months after that we had gone to First Tuesday Prayer, which is the 1st Tuesday of every month where our church gathers for a time of singing and prayer. This particular month the theme of the prayer was orphans and wow did the Lord really capture my heart and he was really beginning to stir in David's as well!! From that point on we really starting talking more about orphans and what we thought that would look like in our lives personally. David was always open to it, but wasn't 100% sure initially if it was what the Lord was calling us specifically to it at the time. He kind of thought of it as "shouldn't everyone as believers be part of orphan care to some extent". (Which yes I feel like is true, whether it be assisting someone that is caring for the orphan, caring for the orphan, or financially supporting someone...anyways). But over the next months the Lord really captured David's heart about it being more specifically for us.

Our church started having these orphan care meetings (which have now turned into the For the Orphan Network) and we began attending those meetings. It is there that we really found out a little more about all avenues of taking care of orphans. We learned a little more about domestic adoption, international adoption, and foster care. Then a few months later our church for the first time had a sign up to go through training to become licensed as foster parents. We were not sure that we wanted to do foster care at this point, but wanted to learn more about it because it was a possibility. The classes were going to be held on Sundays for 6-8 weeks with an agency (different than whom we ended up going with). We signed up for the classes, then shortly after signing up for the class the earthquake hit in Haiti and our hearts were burdened. Another agency (our agency) Caring Family Network had a fast track opportunity to get licensed quickly just in case a few Haitian orphans were able to come to the US and our church wanted people to be equipped. Our agency knew going into this that the orphans may not even ever come to the US and if they did they did not know how it would look, but wanted to do the training to be ready in case.

So, we signed up and the journey begins!!!!! We were honored to be taking the class with some dear friends. It was so amazing how the Lord aligned the hearts of us already close friends. It is amazing to see how the Lord knitted our lives together from the beginning and that He knew all along we would be walking this journey together; oh Lord you are so good!! So, we signed up for the classes that would begin the next week with friends Aaron and Shauna Mullins and Brad and Rachael Allison. We also met some great friends going through the classes. So, it was 3 days of classes ALL day. So, we were finished with the classes in less than 2 weeks. What a crazy but amazing journey! Our friendship grew deeper with the Allisons and Mullinses and we met new friends as well. We have become such great friends with people from our agency, we feel so blessed to be part of the CFN family! So, we were done with classes by February of 2010, but we had to still get lots of paperwork finished and most of all we had to finish the House. We had to get a home inspection by the county and our agency and a fire inspection, and well...with wholes into the ground we had a LONG way to go.

Fast forwarding A LOT we finally became licensed February 15th, 2011! It took us a long while to get the house ready which was really our only delay, but we finally were able to have the house ready enough to pass inspections. There were 6 families that went through training with us and out of the families, 4 of us are officially licensed. 2 families with precious foster babies and 2 of us waiting. So, during all of the journey the Mullinses have moved to Taylor. Seriously, how crazy is that the Lord knew all along that we would be such great friends with them, both sharing the blessing of fostering and eventually living in the same stinkin city, so very cool!!! They moved to Taylor from Round Rock, so our drive time went from 35 minutes to less than 1 minute. We are now in walking distance, .2 miles to be exact. Oh man and there kiddos, Dave and I could go on forever about how precious their kids are!! A now precious 2 year old boy and a beautiful 1 year old girl!! The Allisons were blessed with their sweet little biological son February 15th, the day we were officially licensed! So, they are put fostering on hold for a bit, but their hearts are in line with caring for orphans! They love helping and serving within the foster care community!

So, this is a clip-it of our fostering journey thus far! We continue to try to have biological children as well! We feel very strongly lead to foster care! We will continue to pursue both and if both happen we will be doubly blessed.

We love you guys and just wanted to give your guys an update with some update pictures!!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Changes...

Way Past Due for an Update...sorry friends and fam :)

Where to begin.........????

Well, for starters the house has come a long long way since the last post and is really beginning to feel homey! We are truly enjoying the house! First and foremost...If it weren't for the help of dear friends and family, the house would not be in its current state. A special thanks to:
Mom and Dad Elbel
Aaron Mullins
Cal Benaglio
Brad Allison
Brad Bean
Michael Bruyninckx
Evan Michner
Matt Halsell
and of course.....Big D

Since the last post the following is complete:
1. dining and living room walls skim coated for smoothness
2. sheetrock complete in all rooms (walls and ceilings)
3. ALL floors refinished
4. trim complete in all rooms
5. crown molding hung in dining and living
6. ALL rooms (except hallway) painted
7. Kitchen almost complete! Such a sweet husband and dear friends we have, listen to this story...

So...a few months back D was planning on "finishing up some sheetrock" on the house over the weekend. Aaron Mullins was supposed to "go to Houston" to help his aunt and uncle build and shed and therefore "Shauna needed me to stay with her and kiddos to help out" since Aaron would be gone. I definitely wanted to help Shauna out and hang with the kiddos, but kind of felt bad that David was home by himself all weekend slaving on the house. The whole weekend went by and I believed all of our friends lies...Liars...all liars (in this case i ended up be thankful for the lies :) So, little, very little to my knowledge, Aaron Mullins, Brad Allison, and Cal Benaglio all stayed pretty much the entire weekend at our house working on our Kitchen!!!! The change that took place over three days was ridiculous. All 4 of those boys did ALOT of lying to me throughout the weekend, but I'm over it! I am soooo incredibly grateful for ALL of their hard work! It's ridiculous what kind of TRUE community we have been blessed with!! The lies and the fact that I believed all of the lies is hilarious (well...not too surprising though i must admit, thanks mom I get that from you:) The BIG reveal happened on Sunday after church. This is how it went down... I was taking a Get Trained (GT) class at church (classes they offer at church each semester, covering different topics) with Shauna. Shauna "had" to leave early from class because her little guy was "sick". So, even all the gals in our GT class were in on this. I stayed through the end of class then decided to go to the grocery store on the way home to grab a few things! And if you didn't know, I HEART the grocery story, so needless to say I was there at least an hour i believe. Clearly= still oblivious. I finally made it home, opened the door, initially saw D, then saw Shauna standing there videoing me and then saw the AMAZINGNESS of the kitchen! I was truly in shock. I may post the video at some point, but it is quite embarrassing!!!

What a truly blessed gal I am to have one amazing hubs and such dear dear friends who were such great liars and such HARDWORKERS that were willing to slave, even spending the night at our house, to bless us in this way! We love you fellas and your wives too! Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We will pay you back with our labor soon enough!
{ side note: 2 out of 3 of those families (mullins and benaglios)are moving to the big T (aka Taylor) and we cannot be more excited!!! We are working on those Allisons ;) }

here is the list of what they complete in that weekends
• purchased counter tops, paint for cabinets, rented a sprayer
• leveled the flooring in order to install flooring
• installed almost all of cork flooring
• painted all lower cabinets
• placed lower cabinets Dave and Aaron made
• Installed the butcher block counter tops
• Made island counter top and placed the sink in it
• ALL This = ONE Surprised and Happy Gal



8. We unpacked some kitchen boxes and brought in our china cabinet that we bought at Roomservice Vintage in Austin!
9. Central Heat and A/C
10. Tore down a shed
11. Cleaned up backyard
12. Had the house repainted
13. Put in a vent hood (D found on craigslist)
14. Made stair railings for front and back of the house
15. Moved into the master bedroom so....
16. We could began decorating the.....KIDDOS room!!

So, more exciting and new Campise Family News!!! We will expand our family soon!!! We are beginning our journey of becoming foster parents! We became officially licensed as foster parents on February 15th! We are so excited and of course a little nervous as well to see what the Lord has in store for our family! We are licensed as a foster/adopt family through Caring Family Network, Handle with Care (we really love our agency). Basically, what that means is if the kid/kiddos (we are licensed for up to 2) parental rights are terminated either while in our care or before entering our care that we would be open for adoption. It has been a roller coaster thus far, but we are trusting in the Lord's Sovereignty! We have gotten a few calls from our agency so far, but a kid/kiddos has not been placed in our home yet. More as to how the Lord has lead us down this path to come! So, next post we could possibly be sharing that a child/children have entered our home! We will not be able to share pictures online of the children to protect them and their families (unless we end up adopting), but will be able to share a little bit of information with you all about them!

Here is a link to pictures of the house progress! I cannot figure out how to make it a hyperlink, sorry. You will have to copy and paste in into your browser. I'll add more soon and pics of the kiddo room!!

https://picasaweb.google.com/campises/HousePics?authkey=Gv1sRgCPHfku7NsKKh7AE#

We love you all!!!!

Friday, July 16, 2010

craftin'

So...the cute lil headbands that Meryl was wearing (in previous post) were created by my dearest friend, Aimee- Meryl's momma!!! She has an awesome website

http://oliveandpearlhandmade.blogspot.com

ALSO, she has a shop on ETSY!!!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/aimsshoppe



Check them out...they're awesome!!

She is ONE TALENTED lady...auhmazing she is!!

So, Aim inspired Shauna and I to get crafty the weekend of july 4th!! Here are some of our fun crafties!

ALSO, we had a fun surprise shower for a sweet friend, Lauren, from our community group who is due with her 2nd little munchkin, a little girl, Shelby! Shauna taught the girls from our group how to make stencils from freezer paper that you then iron on the onsie and paint away...genius! We had a blast and I think Lauren will have some cute onsies. We also made a few headbands for Shelby!

Crafting in sooo much...oh summer...how fun you are!







We are movin' now!

Wow...so we busted it on the house this past weekend, thanks to my AMAZING folks! My mom and dad graciously came to Taylor on Saturday to help us work on the house. We were sooo productive, it was awesome!!

What we accomplished...
• mom and I cleaned out the dining room to make it easier to continue working and took items back to storage (we refilled up our storage shed :)
• dad tore down the Styrofoam ceiling tiles and took out the stables that were holding it up in order to prep for sheet rock. So...side note...dad is super organized and clean so he was putting the staples very nicely into a cup he crafted to hang on the ladder to put all of the staples he tore off the wall. Well...then here comes D a little while later (he had to go to a plumping repair call) to help dad and he starts just ripping out the staples and throwing them on the floor!! dad was like..."if I would have known I could do that...I would have been done by now :)". I appreciated the neatness of dad, but big D had different plans...oh silly Dave!
• D opened up the door way going into the kitchen. I LOVE it...it really opens up the space.
• D widened the door to our "eventual" master bedroom
• We started skim coating the walls in the dining room (we are making the already existing "heavily textured" sheetrock smooth)
• mom was very motivated to clean up behind the boys and organize things, so that was very helpful! We cleared out the master bedroom as well so they sheet rocking can begin soon! We also cleaned up the livable living room, cleanest that room has ever been!

They sure are troopers! We could NOT have accomplished ALL of that in one day without them, no way. THANK YOU mom and dad...we LOVE you guys soo much!! We ended the evening on a fun note though!! Mike and Aimee (who just moved to Austin...we are beside ourselves about that) came to big T (taylor) to eat dinner with us and so my folks could meet their precious lil munchkin, Meryl!!! My parents were very excited to finally meet her! Meryl B is lovin her momma right now, so wasn't so sure about going to my mom at first, but she quickly warmed up to my mom, with a lil foot ticklin' She is just precious...we love her...oh and Mike and Aim of course ;)

I tried to capture pictures of the work we did yesterday, with the help of mom, BUT unfortunately all the pictures we thought we captured...we didn't. Oh how I LOVE my not so savvy tech mom...oh dear momma!!! I don't know what you did, but for some reason all those pics you took with my iphone camera are somehow NOT on my iphone...oops :) Well have to teach you those fun iphone tricks one day momma since you have now joined the world of iphoners :)

Oh...and we bought an old Chambers range for our kitch! We (especially dave) is soo excited about this. I think it is going to look awesome, although, it is in need of a DEEP clean!

Tomorrow one of our amazing friends, Aaron Mullins, has gotten together a group of guys to help D work on the house!! We are beyond excited and grateful for their help! We will post pics of that soon!

Things are a movin'...Yeah!!!










Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Fun Fan!




We put in this fan in our bedroom. We ended up really liking it!




Well, I know that I have mentioned my husbands mad skills, but here is another picture to prove his amazingness....






He rescued me from my smoking car :)! This is D fixing my car a few weeks ago in the Auto Zone parking lot! It is running well now, thank you Dave!

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Well Hello!

Hey All...Sorry it has been soooo long since we have updated the blog. And by sooo long I mean, over a year...ridiculous. Well, we have not posted in a LONG time partly because not ALOT had changed with the house situation, but things are beginning to progress!!

Since last blog the following has changed...

-David and our very generous friend, Matt Davenport, moved the back door of the house (in case we decide to add on). They ripped out the back of the house and put in back together in no time...amazing!

- David and Matt did a little rewiring in the kitch and put in a few can lights!

- Dave is going to make our kitchen cabinets. He made his initial/trial cabinet a couple of months ago and it LOOKS amazing. I am so impressed...once again his talent confirmed! The initial cabinet made was for our kitchen sink. We went ahead and put it in...so nice to be able to wash a few dishes in a kitchen sink instead of the pedestal sink :) He is in the process of making the rest of the cabinets!

- This past Sunday, David and a dear friend, Brad Allison, raised up part of the floor in our kitchen that used to be the back porch. They busted it out in a few hours! Thank you for all of your hard work and stink...oh I mean sweat :)
- We also had the entire house rewired! We now have can lights in the kitchen as well!
These pictures were all taken from my phone, so are not the best quality. I cant find the charger to my phone. They are also out of order, but stinkin blogger is hard to deal with when imputing pictures. I have not gotten in down yet...well I guess I have not had practice in over a year. Maybe I should practice more often :) I'll see what I can do...
Great work Dave...I love you!! Cant wait for the house to be DONE. We are already planning a MASSIVE BASH for when this house is finished!!!!!







Saturday, May 9, 2009

We now live in a Bedroom...Yeah!!!





































All of David's hard work has finally paid off and has allowed us to have a beautiful bedroom!!! So we are no longer hanging out, sleeping, and eating in one room...we have a room to hang out in AND to sleep in now! I have posted some picture of the process of the room, from hanging the sheetrock, to the finished product! We have to give a shout out to Mr. Noack for assisting Dave in the tapping and floating process! He came and helped give Dave some pointers and ways to make the process go faster, so thank you soooo much Mr. Noack for your willingness to help and for sharing your talent with us!! Also, we want to thank Brad Allison for assisting Dave in putting on the final touches of the bedroom...Thank you Brad for all of your help and mad painting skills!!!



The next steps....




The remodeling of the kitchen is now officially underway! Matt Halsell came from the Big D and Brad Allison came as well last weekend to help Dave begin ripping out the cabinets and wall in the kitchen as well as begin putting up sheetrock! I think they realized it would be hard work, but I actually think it was a beating, so THANK YOU guys so much for all of your muscles and sweat!! Dave said the process went some much faster having Matt and Brad help out! Matt took some really great picts from their process, but I still need to get them from Matt. I will post picts as soon as I get them!




So...we are officially kitchenless for who knows how long??? I am trying to be realistic and say probably 6 months of so??? BUT...no worries because Chef Molly Peck to the rescue! Our dear friend Molly has recently started her own business. She is an amazing chef, and when I say amazing I mean...TASTY, YUMMY, HEALTHY FOOD!!! She currently offers one meal a week including a main dish, sides, and an scrumptious dessert! Molly will deliver the food to your house in Austin and surrounding cities (well...we dont make her deliver all the way to Taylor bc we live stinkin far, so we pick it up)! She also offers many others services such as catering, personal chef services, cooking classes, etc! She truly is talented...check out her website http://thevanillaorchid.com/ So, we still get to eat really amazing meals without a kitchen...Perfect! Thank you Molly for all of your hard work!!