Wee Weekend Away

We decided on Friday to take a spur of the moment camping trip. We really didn't have much time last year to see Virginia and with possible children on the way we decided to go for it. It was nice to see a different part of the state and it reminded us how much fun camping is. We had our first Smores of the summer and probably our last. We went swimming in the lake, talked until late into the night and went on a short hike. It was well worth the driving time. Next summer we really want to hit the Appalachians as they are said to be amazing.

I told Ben to stand still so I could focus the camera on him for a self timer shot and he then stayed frozen for the actual picture - big nerd:).


I am a bit of a pyromaniac and love fire. It is so beautiful.

Pictures from our small hike.

The science geek in me couldn't resist. I have seen these nests everywhere but finally saw what was inside them.



The lake we camped near to and cooled off in.

You have GOT to be kidding me

Ok if you read two posts down you will see me ranting at the VA State Police for returning my fingerprints. I resent them with a money order for the amount and a letter BEGGING them to call me if anything else was wrong NOT to mail it back. I checked the mail today and honestly could not believe my eyes. They had sent the finger prints back, minus the money order for the SAME reason - that our credit card was declined. DUH the letter told them why and I had paid in full so why was I getting this back. I was ready to blow a gasket. I almost got in my car and drove the 1 1/2 hours up there to meet in person the insane person processing this paperwork. I then remembered that I had a phone number so I thought I would try that first. I got the head of the department. I told him up front that I was REALLY upset. He was great and turns out had spent two years in the Army in Eritrea the country next to Ethiopia. He and a friend and traveled all over Ethiopia. He was really excited for us that we were adopting from there. He says that it will only take 48 hours for him to get this processed. I hope so or they will have me doing a one man protest outside their door.

One thing I have found in this whole deal is that there are two types of people working in government jobs. 10% of them really know their jobs, care about helping you and are super efficient. 90% are clueless, incompetent, rude and unhelpful. I had to call a different government agency last week to ask for help. They asked my name and said they would call me back. When they called back they said, "May I please speak to M-O-I-R_A?" I am not kidding they didn't even try to say my name just spelled it out to me.

I am off to the Post Office to mail my forms to the VA State police for the third, yes third time. This is the ONLY piece of paperwork we are waiting for to finish our dossier!! Hope this time next week we have good news on this end. Believe it or not I am writing this post with a smile as it is so absurd you have to laugh. The motto of adoption is that there is no such thing s a smooth adoption. I am living proof of that:).

Good News

Alright so after a frustrating adoption week last week, we have had a great week this week. We are waiting on ONE item to complete our dossier. Then we will mail that to Washington DC for approval before it goes to Ethiopia. This could all be done in less than a month:).

Tuesday, we got an email from our agency asking us if we are still interested in the two brothers we had originally heard about. We said we were still interested and they said they won't show the kids profile to anyone else while we finish our paperwork. They then emailed us the kid's profiles and some other pictures. They are beautiful children. They are one and three years old. They are both healthy and doing well. We still have a long ways to go but God willing these little ones will be joining our family in the fall. We will post pictures when and/if we get an official referral. This happens after we are cleared in Ethiopia. Ben is trying his best to temper my excitement but I am not sure if he can. I know it will be devastating if this falls through but I also am trying to just enjoy the moment and the possibilities.

Frustration

Last Friday I realized our credit card number had been stolen and was being used to charge items on line. I cancelled the card all pleased with myself for catching this so quickly. Today this brilliance came to bite me in the butt. We are really only waiting for three more papers to get us cleared to send our dossier in. I figured it would all be done by next week. Well today I got a whole packet sent back. We had used our credit card to pay for our police fingerprinting clearance. As it took them awhile to enter the charge it got declined because I had cancelled the card. Instead of calling me at the phone number sent with the packet they sent the whole packet back to me. How nice of them. Now I have to resend it and wait another two weeks to get it back. Frustration is not the easiest emotion for me to deal with and the adoption process is full of it. I know half the things I am doing are because there are sickos out there who do bad things to kids. Now because of some greedy thief stealing my credit card, I am behind another week. Hmmmm I think I should be put in charge of the prison system. I have some punishments in mind for those who make the rest of us suffer.

Surprise Visit from Mom!!

Last Tuesday my dad called me at 11 am to tell me my mom was arriving that night at midnight for a week. Yippee!! They had been talking about her coming out, but I didn't think it would happen. We have had a great time just enjoying summer together. We were both aware that if the adoption goes through, this will be our last kidless visit together and we really tried to make the most of it. We went shopping, saw Mamma Mia, ate lunch in little cafes, did water color painting, played Boggle, read books, cleaned out my closet(yuck), did yard work, went site seeing and even managed to get to the beach. Poor Ben had to work but we enjoyed watching the Olympics with him in the evening. Here are some of our adventures together.

One day we drove to downtown Norfolk and caught this tiny ferry to Portsmouth. It only costs a dollar. I had heard that Portsmouth has some pretty cool old parts and it didn't let us down. This also happens to be about 10 minutes from where Ben works so he came and met us for lunch.

Here is the ferry landing on Norfolk Side.

We stopped for coffee on the other side and I had to laugh at this sign.

Lunch with Lt. Commander Leppard:)

Some of the cool old buildings in historic Portsmouth.




Mom in Olde Town Portsmouth

The ferry landing on Portsmouth side.

Mom with Norfolk in the distance. This is a 10 minute ferry ride so even mom and I managed not to get sea sick.

Mom's second day here we went and got our toes done. This is them looking good at the beach. This beach is only 5 minutes drive from the house. We have had the best weather while she was here so it was fun to get out and enjoy it.




Tomorrow she leaves and I am already sad, but as this was an unexpected visit I can't get too bummed out. I'll get to see her again soon when I go to CA in October to meet my newest niece.

Lt. Commander Ben Leppard

August 4th 2008 Ben got promoted.

This was pretty neat as I have not yet been a part of a promotion ceremony for him. He was a Lt. but just got promoted to Lt. Commander. This is different from Army, Airforce and Marine ranking systems. Basically he is the 4th officer rank you can get. It is a big deal. First he took an oath of office of sorts.... (I don't know the technical name.)

Then I got take the Lt. rank device off. It was two silver bars. I then put on the Lt. Commander device.

Here is a picture of Lt. Commander Leppard. If you zoom in the picture you can see the gold oak leaf on the right collar of his shirt. I thought the oak leaf was a star but I was quickly reminded that only Admirals get stars. Not there yet are we?!?!?:)

Adoption Education

Thanks for all the encouragement along the way. I thought I would give you a quick education on the international adoption scene. The term you will learn in this post is dossier. I put a link to the official definition.

My definition is this. A pile of papers that prove who you are, that you make a decent wage and are not criminals. This pile must be notarized, then authenticated at every state that it was notarized in and then sent to the United States Secretary of State to have the state authentications authenticated by the federal government. It is exhausting..... Here is how I look after a bad day of trying to get this done.


However, there are more and more good days where I know we are almost done with the dossier stage. This is how I feel on those days.


When the dossier is done it is sent to Ethiopia where we move into the wait stage. I am ready for this. We have also applied to the UCIS to bring two orphans into the US. There is some delay on that as I am not a US born citizen but we are hopeful that it all goes through.

Thanks for reading and caring. Our overall feelings at this point are slight frustration with long periods of excitement and anticipation. There are scattered worries and fears but no chance of complete craziness.