Hallelujah!

Hallelujah! We finally have some good news to share. We received our I-171H today!!! Hooray!!! We are so excited we can hardly stand it! Mike and I went out tonight to celebrate...nothing too fancy, just tacos:-) They were the best I have ever had (good news makes all things better, including already yummy food:-)

We are going to get the remainder of our paperwork notarized in the morning, then we will be ready to mail our dossier to our agency and they will send it on to Nepal for us!

Hallelujah!

Blue

So, Mike and I are a little blue:-( We still have not received our corrected I-171H! We are somewhat frustrated...to say the least. We really wish we had something exciting to share, but that is just not the case...maybe tomorrow...or the day after that...or...

We will continue to focus on the positives and hope for some good news on our horizon. Thanks for checking in on us...we appreciate your thoughts and prayers so much!

Waiting

Waiting...waiting...waiting...that is our life at this moment. We are still waiting for the correct version of our I-171H to arrive. It is so frustrating, yet I know God's timing is perfect. Knowing and waiting don't always get along so well in my world:-)
It's a process...especially for me;-)

Fall Break is in full swing and Mike and I have both enjoyed our week together. We've mostly worked on projects around the house, but there is so much more to do!

On a very happy note...we have a SERIOUS praise!!!!! It has been 2 years since Mike had brain surgery for his seizure condition. He has been seizure free since October 2007!!!! He is considered (by medical professionals) to be healed when he passes the two year mark. Mike's faith never waivered and he put all his trust and faith in God to heal him. We are so thankful for this blessing in our lives...so thankful!!!!

Thanks to all who check in on us!

What's in a name?

Great news:-)We received our I-171H!!!! Bad news:-( My name is incorrect!!!!
No worries...our awesome caseworker, Miss H., has taken care of it and the corrected document should be on its way to our house. Hooray! We are so close to completing this part of our journey...I am so excited!
In other news...tomorrow is the last day for students for six WHOLE days! Now, don't misunderstand me...I love the little children, but I am very excited about having some time off to do some things around our house that have been put on hold for far too long. Actually, the kiddos are really starting to get super cute. We have been blogging at school and their comments are so interesting (and sometimes funny;-) We had an awesome day today. They just worked their little hearts out!
Mike is taking off next week too; I am looking forward to spending some quality time with my sweetie:-)
Thanks to all who check in on us! We really appreciate it!

Southern Nights

They say "no news is good news", so I guess there is plenty of good news out there;-) We don't have any new info, which seems to be the case everywhere. Some of the families who have traveled to Nepal are either home, traveling, or getting ready to return home. Congratulations to all of them!
We had our second class last night and it was great. Miss H., our wonderful social worker, is one of the facilitators. We talked about attachment and bonding issues...tons of valuable information and we are trying to gather as much info as possible to help us help our Little One make the transition.
School is going well, but it is so difficult to believe it is almost October! The weather has been incredible here and we've been taking the kiddos out to enjoy the fabulous sunshine.
Mike and I went to see Glen Campbell (yes, Glen Campbell) on Saturday night. It was great!!!! I've always loved his songs and he sounded absolutely fantastic. Mike picked some awesome seats and we had so much fun on our Southern "date" night!

LOST!

So, Mike and I have been waiting, waiting, waiting for our I-171H (paperwork) to come so we can complete our dossier and send it on its way to our agency. We should have received it last week...well, we didn't. We called our awesome caseworker, Miss H., and she found out that our homestudy has been lost! What?!!!
Of course, we were very frustrated and a little bit anxious, (Miss H. re-sent our homestudy and our paperwork should be arriving within 2 weeks! Yay!)but now we see that everything that happens is God's perfect timing. Two of our sweet friends sent us a message about God's perfect timing and they are so right! These little "bumps" are extremely frustrating (especially for those of us who are impatient;-)but I believe that this is part of the plan.

We are looking forward to a quiet weekend. I have been under the weather with the worst sinus infection EVER! Hopefully, I will begin to bounce back this weekend and maybe even make an attempt to clean up around the house and make Mike some dinner. I know he'll be excited about that:-)

P.S. - I read about this precious family (The Sullivans) on Kelly's Korner blog the other night. I went to their blog and read almost every entry...incredible faith and very touching. If you get a chance, please check out their blog and pray for them.

More this and that (or I don't know what to call this post)

So, I checked our little ticker and today it has been 7 months since our journey to adopt began. It seems like so much longer...probably because we talked about adoption long before we made our final decision. I am so excited about becoming a parent! And, I am so excited our children will be from Nepal! After we decided to adopt, we immediately got online and ordered about a half dozen books on Nepal. Now, I must be honest and admit that Mike is more "research oriented" than I am. I tend to just jump right in and learn as I go:-)...anyway, we have been reading about the festival of Dasain, which occurs after the monsoon in late September or early October. From what we have read, this is the most important festival in Nepal and it lasts for several days (10, I think) and everything shuts down. There are many rituals during this festival and different events or activities occur on different days - this festival is currently going on in Nepal!

We are still waiting on our I-171H, which is very important paperwork that we need to complete our dossier. We are eager to get this paperwork and hope it comes quickly!

We just found out today that another couple at our church is also adopting from Nepal. We don't know them personally, but we have a mutual friend. They have already received a referral for their son, so we are very excited for them and very excited someone in our church family will also have ties to Nepal. What a blessing!

One of the families currently in Nepal should be returning to the states this week. We wish safe (and speedy) travel as they return home with their daughter.

Well, that is all I can think of...for now;-)