Although it seems as though we just got here, it is already time to leave! We always have very mixed feelings at this time. We're certainly looking forward to seeing everyone at home, but we hate leaving our loved ones behind here. We need to be out by early tomorrow morning so we are going to get lots of stuff done today in preparation for that Luke and Maddie have been with us for about ten days now which has been fantastic. Luke only has a half day of school today, so, after we pick him up we're going to Arby's for lunch and then just hang out for the afternoon. They always have church services for youth on Wed. evenings, so we'll take them there and say goodbye. Their mom will pick them up. Clint is in San Diego, CA right now for a training session and his flight is coming in this evening, after she picks up Luke and Maddie, Molly is going to pick Clint up at the airport. We plan to stop over at Clint & Molly's before leaving tomorrow so that we can say goodbye to them.

We went with Luke and Maddie to Carlsbad Caverns this past weekend. It was wonderful! What an incredible sight! Clint has free motel nights coming because of all those nights he stayed in New Jersey, so he very generously got us free nights at a wonderful motel. We appreciated it very, very much. We got quite a few pictures at the caverns as well as on the way there at some historical spots.

I'm not sure exactly what time we'll leave Los Lunas tomorrow after visiting with Clint & Molly, but, at this time, we plan to be home by late Saturday afternoon or early evening. Molly is having a great deal of pain, seemingly all over her body and no one seems to know why, so please keep her in your prayers.

Take care everyone!

Home Study #3

We met on Tuesday with Karine for our last home study. We didn't quite get through all the questions and answers, but we're close enough to do the last part over the phone. At this point we have a few paperwork items to take care of, we need to finish our family book, and then we just wait for the okay from New Horizons.

We asked them not to circulate our family book until July, because we think Nicky should get a few more months to mature, and we could also use a few more months to save some money. But as we head into these final months of preparation, we want to say thanks to our families for your thoughts and prayers. We have been praying nightly for our baby to be and her mother.

Another day another attempt at sending photos.

N.M. pictures

We wanted to share a few pictures with anyone interested.

Annual Cruit Family Picnic

Jenny asked me to post this message from Alyson so everybody would know the time and place of this year's family picnic.

Hi all - We are planning to meet on Saturday, May 24th, as usual, at Round Lake Park in Eden Prairie any time after 10am. The reservation goes through 3pm...we are welcome to stay beyond that time, we just need to exit the building by then. Pray for a nice, warm day!
Looking forward to a great turnout! Love, Alyson

New Mexico comments

Hi Everyone! I'm trying to post something on the blog, but I made a mistake and created a new blog! Both Joe & I thought it was posted, but then we realized our mistake, so here I go again with a fresh attempt! We really want to send pictures of our house here, some of the antiques in the house, and also our yard,etc., but we can't figure out how to do that. We'll send them at some point though, we just need some direction, I guess. We've been having a good year here. Besides having a very nice home, the weather has been wonderful. It's pretty much warm and sunny every day! It gets windy fairly often, but it's not too bad. Happily, we've seen quite a lot of Luke and Maddie, for which we're very grateful. Unfortunately, we haven't seen as much of Clint, but he's got a lot going on. He's very excited about his new job in Farmington because it's more of a regular job with regular hours, the salary is significantly higher, and it's secure. With his current position there's a continuing threat that it's going to close down and Clint didn't feel secure at all there. We went with Luke and Maddie to an historical site one day last week (they were on Easter break) of a mission from the 1600's. There were ruins of the church and surrounding buildings, etc which supported the people of that time in that community. A Fransiscan priest had started it and, later another Fransiscan priest joined him there to live among and convert the Indians. It was really interesting. The day following the mission trip we all took a train called the Rail Runner to Albequerque. The Rail Runner makes several runs per day between here and Albequerque, stopping at various small towns on the way. After arriving in Albequerque, we rode a free bus called Rapid Ride to the Aquarium and other attractions in that area. It was a lot of fun. We ate dinner at a restaurant in the Aquarium which was bordered on two sides with part of the Aquarium, so,while we ate, we could view many varieties of fish swimming around, including sharks, and some rather unusual looking turtles! We enjoyed it. Yesterday Joe and I got some wonderful news about Luke. Clint and Molly went to a conference about Luke and they learned he's getting B's in all his subjects except math where he is getting a C plus. This is mainstream classroom work, not special ed. and he's doing ninth grade work. We were overjoyed to hear that! It's a real answer to prayer! Luke and Maddie are coming to Minnesota this summer from July 15th to August 5th. Their parents are driving them to Dallas for their flight because it's so much cheaper and it's easy to get a nonstop flight. We had a very enjoyable lunch with Clint this past Tuesday and we're meeting him again tomorrow for lunch. We have to get our time in with him because he'll be leaving for Farmington and the new job which begins April 21st. Molly and Luke and Maddie will be here in Belen until Luke's school year is finished at the end of May. Well, I'd better close. We'll try to send photos soon!