Painting, Day one

Just a quick note to give you an update on our project and thank you for your thoughts and prayers -- and help.   First of all, let me clarify -- several of you have asked me if there are specific children.  The answer is no -- we are just beginning the process, but the home visit comes early in the process as well, and we are trying to get the house ready for children.  As most of you know, the house is very old and the outside hasn't been painted in about 15 years, so it is looking in very bad shape.  Several of you have also asked what I meant by family set -- that refers to a set of siblings who are currently in foster care and would like to be adopted together.  We are hoping for 2-4 children, age range infant - 13 years.  There are several sets on the online database right now that match our specifications.   Secondly, the update.  Today we had my dad (Bobby) and my sister (Shanda) and my brother-in-law (Stephen) helping Shane and me. We got a late start, as we had a few things still to get ready.  We rented a lift to help with the upper part of the South wall.  Shane used it, with some help from my dad and Stephen, to scrape the upper area, and to replace some siding on that wall.  Stephen and Daddy sanded and scraped the front wall of the house.  Shanda was on KP part of the time, helped with sanding and scraping, put the power paint sprayer together, and is in process of helping us move some plants that need to be relocated.  Daddy also helped me prune my hostas so that we could get to the foundation.  I did some KP (kitchen patrol) as well, gophered for Shane, and pressure washed the foundation.  I got about half-way around the foundation today, and hope to finish tomorrow, weather permitting.   God blessed us with good weather, which ceased as soon as we stopped work -- then we had a TERRIBLE storm.  It is still raining at 10:30 pm, so tomorrow may be relegated mostly to scraping -- afraid it may be too wet to pressure wash or to paint -- maybe in the afternoon it will dry enough to get some painting started. Shanda and Stephen will be back with us, and maybe Daddy for part of the time -- a couple of friends are supposed to stop by and help as well.   Thank you so much for all your prayers and thoughts and for the help given and the help promised.  I may not have time or feel like updating every night, but I'll try to keep everyone posted.  Please continue in your prayers for us as we go through this process (the painting and the remodeling and the adoption.)   Blessings, Tonnye and Shane