For those of you who are intending to meet in Cumberland on the weekend of October 19th, Ray and I just made our reservations @ the ever popular Cumberland Motel. Best get your reservations in soon! We will be arriving late again due to work stuff. Tricia and Kyle are coming with us! Looking forward to seeing as many of the rest of the Cootses as possible.
News about Amelia--she has been accepted @ Midwestern Children's Village and will start tomorrow. She isn't exactly thrilled but knows that this is an opportunity to make some changes in her life. We are relieved but sad that in the myriad of things that we have tried to do to guide her nothing has worked to this point. We are both very impressed with the program and the environment. She is supervised 24/7 and is in a group home situation. She has house parents with 2 young children, a dog and a cat. We won't have any face to face contact for the first 30 days but are allowed to have phone calls, weekly. Visits will take place at the facility once the 30 days are up. I will post her address and such once we meet with them tomorrow and find out who she can get correspondence from. There is no e-mail, only the "snail" variety. We will be providing her with stamps and addresses for the family and such. Those of you who are in the witness protection program will need to let us know which alias you're using and if the address we give out is a "safe" house or not.
We'll start out with 2 hour visits on campus. Her behavior and progress will determine the visits off campus and at home. The average stay is 9-12 months for exceptional kids who really try. I have no expectations at this point. I just want to see her make an effort to have a better life. So that's it for now. You're all in OUR prayers as I know that none of you are without your own burdens and problems but are still blessed to have one another to crack on. I know it's how you show "the love."
