Goodbye July

I am having a hard time believing tomorrow is August 1. August has loomed in my mind as being very far away. For the last 6 months, before we even officially started the adoption process, August was our check point. August was going to be the month that everything was done and we began our official wait. August was THE month.

And here we are...ready to begin this new month and to finalize our paperchase. As of today we are just waiting for our I-171 from USCIS and then we can get everything certified, authenticated and on its way. On one hand I am thrilled that Cale and I have gotten our end of the deal finished with time to spare. On the other hand it's frustrating to be waiting on other people so we can move ahead. The Lord has been gracious to me and kept it far from my mind for the most part. There's nothing I can do to make it go faster so there is no need to stress and worry about it. I am certain in the Lord's perfect timing and have no doubt that His sovereignty covers the day that final piece of paper gets put in the mail to us. We will be ready and waiting...

In other news, we got an update from America World today that they met their goal of 10 referrals for July. While that in and of itself is fantastic news, what's even better is that the wait times are getting shorter for boys! Right now the estimated wait times are 5-7 months for an infant boy and 7-9 for an infant girl. If these time frames remain the same then it looks like we just might be adding a baby boy to our little family! Who knows but the Lord!

Track it

Who knew tracking numbers could be so exciting?! We got an email last night that our home study was on its way to USCIS! The first of many tracked packages...yippee!

-kate-

One step closer

Today we had our fourth and final meeting with our social worker. She was going to be in the area so we drove down to meet her and go over our home study and a few other items. It was a quick and easy meeting and part of me still can't believe that we are almost done with the whole paperchase process.

From here, our home study is being reviewed by our family coordinator and when she approves it will be on its way to USCIS. USCIS will then give us the okay in the form of the I-171H and then our dossier will be complete! Today we went to get a paper notarized and had our visa pictures taken so that means we only have ONE paper left to do in our dossier packet. And if I had been on top of it I would have done it when we were at the bank today! Oh well- we certainly have a few weeks of waiting ahead of us.

We are one step closer to bringing that baby home! Praise the Lord!

-kate-

Paperwork progression

The last week or so has been a flurry of paperwork activity. We got several things we had been waiting for in the mail that I then had to run around and get notarized. It's amazing to me that there are only a few things left on our big list of paperwork that we need to finalize. And most of them are out of our hands- we're just waiting on other people.

We also had some good news- our doctor's physicals were supposed to be notarized. When I made our appointments I made sure there was a notary in the office who could take care of this for us. Well, unfortunately, she quit the day before our blood work came back and thus, the papers were not notarized. We were trying to figure out an alternate solution and mentioned to our family coordinator the situation. She told us it was okay that it wasn't notarized and I was excited! I had run out of ideas of how to get this fixed and am so thankful that it's okay. And honestly- this has been our only real issue through our whole paperchase process. We are so thankful at how quickly and smoothly everything has come together.

We had an email from our social worker that she is going to send us a copy of our home study for review this week and then we will meet with her for the last time next week to finalize. We are thrilled that our August timeline seems to be a reality. Now we will still be waiting for one more piece of paper from USCIS, but I am believing that it's going to come quickly. Please, Lord!

-kate-

A night at the Blue Nile

Tonight we had our first Ethiopian dining experience. We ate dinner at the Blue Nile Restaurant, a little place on North High Street in Columbus. We sat in the traditional seating section and ate around the Mosseb (the common tray/plate). We had a combo meal which consisted of the following dishes:

- Doro Alicha: chicken legs and hard boiled eggs in a rich, tasty, not-too-spicy curry sauce.

- Key Fit Fit: lamb stew that was a bit spicy

- Fasolia Bekarot: potatoes, carrots, and string beans cooked in a curry-ish stew

- Cooked Cabbage

Of course, all of these dishes were served on injera, a crepe-like bread that was slightly sour tasting. We ate with our fingers, scooping the food with small pieces of injera. There was also a small portion of cheese (i think - it was somewhat neutral in taste) served. Here's a rather unappetizing picture of our meal; unfortunately we didn't think to take a picture of the meal before we started eating. Overall the meal was quite good and we enjoyed each of the entrees.

--cale