Sad story

This whole journey has been filled with many ups and downs. The littlest things can make or break our days. I've done so well with being patient up until this point. Now, I struggle. I know patience is the lesson that is being taught here. I called to see if I could check on the status of our fingerprints. When we sent these in, our agency had told us that adoption takes priority. The other couple working with our case worker got theirs back in 6 weeks. I thought it had been 7 weeks, but it WILL be 7 the beginning of next week. We have been hopefully checking the mail day after day thinking it could be any day. Well--the news I got today on the phone was VERY disappointing. She said they don't even get put into the system until 10 weeks into the process. Sad! Here we have been waiting for them to come in the mail and we have 3 more weeks before we will even be in the system. What a blow!! It is disheartening. I know that everything happens for a reason. I know that all of this is part of God's plan. However...it still makes me sad. I thought we were so close to being able to get on the wait list. Instead...we wait longer. The process of international adoption is either paperwork or waiting. I know in the end it will be well worth it. Now it just seems so far away.

Ho-hum

It has been 7 weeks now since we sent in our fingerprints. Turn around time is 6-13 weeks. I don't really know how to feel about this. One minute I am calm and think it is all part of "the plan." The next minute I am frustrated b/c we are SOOOO ready. I know PATIENCE!!! I do know that it is all happening like it is supposed to. I've been so good at being patient. Now I'm getting a little antsy as we just want to take the next step. We are so close yet so far away. We have everything ready to send in our Dossier. All we need is our fingerprint results to be added to our Home Study so our HS can be added to our dossier. So things in the adoption world are.....wait, wait, and wait some more.

Stump removed! :)

About 7 years ago, we had to cut down a huge tree in our back yard b/c it had Dutch Elm Disease. We had made the stump the center of a flower bed since it was so big. Now that we are adding on, we need the dumb thing removed. (or have it as the night stand) Well--today we had a very determined neighbor that thought a tractor with duals could pull it out. The first attempt and the chain broke without the stump even budging. We then had the one of the City guys bring the pay loader. One pushed and one pulled. We weren't sure if that was going to do it. Finally it was successful!!!! Thanks to Justin, Shane, Lawerence, Jon, and Stan for your help. It was pulled out by the roots so we don't need to wait to have the stump ground out. :) Jason will be filling in the hole and we hope to have cement poured by next week. We are so thankful for people being so willing to help out. We appreciate it so much!

Travel shots

We have to get certain shots in order to travel to Ethiopia. We will not be traveling any time soon, but I wanted to get these shots taken care of. With both of us being teachers, it is much easier to do it now during the summer. We will have to go to Sioux Falls for these shots. There are only 4 clinics in SD that even give these shots. (3 in SF and one in Rapid) We were hoping that we could get these shots when we went to SF for our fingerprinting appointment. I called one of the places today to see how far in advance we would need an appointment. They are currently booking for July! I don't know how much warning we will get for our fingerprinting appointment, but I don't think it will be that long. I was kind of disheartened thinking we would have to make 2 trips to SF. (4 hours one way times 2...yuck) I called another one of the numbers I had. There you don't need appointments!! YIPPEE!!! I love getting good news and love it when things work out! :) I was able to leave a voicemail with the main nurse. I told her that we would need shots for Ethiopia. I told her I'd let her know when we know that we were coming. God provides for us once again! I didn't even have time to get myself into a tizzy. :)

Approved!!!

Our Home Study was APPROVED!! (pending fingerprint results) Yippee!!! So, now we just wait for the fingerprints to come back so the date can be added to the Home Study. It would be awesome if our prints came back before next Friday as that is the last day our case worker is working. I'm not counting on that though. It took 6 weeks for the other couple she was working with to get results back. I think we are only at 3. Time will tell. What is meant to be will be!

Home Study revisions

I got an email from our case worker yesterday. Since she is going on maternity leave after next week, she is trying to get our Home Study finalized. The date our fingerprint results come back will have to be included in our Home Study. Our case worker will come into the office to add the fingerprint date, run copies, notarize all of them, and drop them in the mail. How nice of her to do when she is on maternity leave. Anyway--she had sent our Home Study to AGCI for approval. They needed more information about a few things. We got right on it and sent it to her. She was going to make the revisions as soon as she could and get it sent back to our agency.

The construction begins (kind of)

We have made the decision to add a bedroom on to our house. We could always have our girls share a bedroom, but that doesn't sound fun with them being the ages that they are. So--Jason now has "building a bedroom onto the house" as a summer project. He tore off the siding of the back part of the house for the new addition. We have a huge tree stump that needs to be removed. We had the tree cut down a long time ago, but didn't want to pay to have the stump removed. Well--now we must get the stump removed unless we want it for a night stand. :) We thought we were going to be able to pull or push it out. No luck. So now it will have to be cut out and then ground. Bummer. :( Jason removed the sidewalk from that side of the house too. So--the progress has started, but it will be slow. Someone is coming on Monday to give us a quote for cement. Jason is going to try to do most of the work himself. He has many other commitments in June so we'll see how far or how fast he progresses. Thanks bunches to Justin and Sarah for allowing us to use your tractor. That sure has made it much easier. We are truly blessed with great friends. Stay tuned for more construction updates. :)