I can't believe it's been so long since I last updated the blog, but so much has happened!

Shortly after the last blog post, Nicky and I decided to look into foster caring. It's something that's been in the back of my mind for years, but it's never been the right time to think about it seriously. We talked it through, and it felt like a good option for us - I'd been considering a change in career for a while but we couldn't afford for me to go back to uni to retrain, I wanted to have a job where I was really making a difference, and because we still very much want our own children, we wanted a financial situation where at least one of us was able to be at home full time. After having a couple of telephone conversations and one 3-hour home visit with the fostering team at our local council (where we asked a LOT of questions), we realised that it would be perfect for us.

Things started moving quite quickly from that point - within a month we were starting the 6-week 'Skills to Foster' training course, we met our social worker, and we're now halfway through the assessment process. Our social worker says that with the lifestyle and routine we live now, it's almost like we have children already so they'll fit right in! We've applied to foster up to three siblings between 0-8 years, but our social worker has mostly been focussing on newborns during our discussions, so we'll see what happens. Everyone has been very positive throughout the process, and our families couldn't be more supportive of our decision.

At the moment we're looking at going to panel in December, so we may have a child/children with us for Christmas!

The other major piece of news is that Nicky and I got married! We've now been married just over 3 weeks, and it's amazing. We couldn't have had a more perfect day, everyone was so lovely and it all ran smoothly.

As we had such a big holiday earlier in the year when we went to Japan, China and Canada, we decided to take the dog and go on a short break to the Isle of Wight for our honeymoon. It was definitely the right choice, so restful - exactly what we needed after our stressful year! We rented a wooden hut at the bottom of someone's garden, which had free range ex-battery chickens roaming around and backed onto open fields. We went on long walks, had cream teas, explored little towns and had fish and chips on the beach! Both we and Milly thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!

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