No News

Well, I know many of you are as anxious as we are to hear when our court date will be. The bad news is that we have heard nothing. The good news is that we are still overjoyed just to know that our boys are paper ready that we aren't discouraged at all. We are making to-do lists, reading adoption books and trying to relish this child free life we have now. All advice suggests NOT nesting until the adoption is final - passing court - so we are not getting ready for the boys other than emotionally. I promise to post on here as soon as we have a court date. Again we are hoping for February. Many fellow adoptive parents are in Ethiopia picking up their children, so we get weekly pictures and descriptions of them both. The little guy seems to be doing much better and is not as shy but the big guy has been sick and is often crying in the pictures. I can't wait to have them here where I can dry their tears and make sure they have all they need and more. Thanks for your encouragement and support on this adoption journey. We feel so loved and blessed by all the emails, call and comments. One final note, Ethiopia is on a different calendar from us so they are heading into their Christmas this week, so it is unlikely we will hear anything until the middle of January.

Happy Dance for Happy Days

Today we got the email we had been waiting for. The boys are paper ready!!!!! This means we can file for a court date. I immediately ran outside to tell Ben and capture our happy dance on film. I don't have the energy or will to edit it so here it is.


What does this mean? That tomorrow our agency will file for a court date. We should get one in February. If we pass court the boys will officially be our children and we will go pick them up in March sometime. BUT.... we do have to pass court and that can sometimes take a few attempts. We will let you know our court date when we know it, so we can all start praying early:). We are so thankful to everyone for all their prayers and support and extra thankful to Jesus for being as faithful as ever in this waiting process.

Oh happy day!!!

My Garden Says Merry Christmas to You

This is what happens when you take an out of work teacher and let her have too much time on her hands. She takes up gardening but forgets to thin out the carrots. The carrots come in all deformed and the teacher must then make words out of them.

Furious Update..... I won!!

If you read the previous post you will know what I am talking about. Yesterday, I wrote a very long email detailing all the errors of the State Police. I then said that it was absurd and insulting to insinuate that I was at fault for their incompetence. I ended with the statement that I expected to be assured that I would get the form I needed, at no cost, with special treatment or I would go to my Congressional representative as I no longer trusted this organization. Lo and behold the same woman who took 3 weeks to get back to me last time, wrote me at 10:30 p.m. last night, a Friday night mind you!!. She said that I should mail my request addressed personally to her, email to let her know I had done so, don't bother to send in payment and they would get me what I needed. She didn't apologize and she did try to say that how busy they are. I don't care so much about all the mistakes but rather that they were trying to cover them up and blame me. I will keep you posted on the final episode of my dealings with the VA State Police.

Can we say - FURIOUS!!!

OK, so I have been watching the Ethiopian adoption chat groups and keeping up on what is happening over there. It seems that it is much more difficult to pass court. If you fail then you have to reapply for a new court date. This used to be pretty easy to do. However, one lady I know said it took her 7 weeks to reschedule. That is 7 more weeks of the children sitting in an orphanage.

I began to rethink all our paperwork and look through it to make sure we were ready for court. The only thing that haunted me was the VA State Police fingerprint back ground check. If you were reading my blog in the summer you would have heard me rant and rave about this department. They sent our paperwork back twice and ended up losing it the third time and when I finally drove up there to pick up our background checks, they were for NAME only not for FINGERPRINT. We were fingerprint cleared by the State Police for our Home Study so we think we are good to go. But now with all this news about court failures I thought maybe I should go back to the State Police and ask them to do the fingerprint check that they failed to do.

I wrote the head of the whole department 3 weeks ago. She finally got back to me today saying that we didn't get the correct forms as "we hadn't signed the right paper and we hadn't sent in finger print cards" She said she had checked with the department and Ben and I were at fault. I was so mad, I couldn't think straight. First, they screw up so many times, and they they lose our paperwork, and now I am told that it is my fault. They are completely incompetent. However, I will win this battle. I have absolutely NOTHING proactive to do to help get my boys home EXCEPT take on the VA State Police. They really messed with the wrong woman, a stay at home wife with lots of time, huge passion, and an injustice to be solved. I am seriously considering making an appointment with my congressman as there is something wrong with that department. The lies they told thier boss are rather concerning as this is the POLICE. I have always been a huge supporter of law enforcement and this is the first time that I ever felt wary of them. Someone is lying to cover their mistakes and it really ticks me off.

Thanksgiving and B-day

I really have been bad with the camera this holiday season so please excuse the poor shots in this post. We had Thanksgiving with our friends, Andy and Alicia. If you look at their blog you'll see some shots of how big my hair has been getting lately). No one ever tells me it is huge, but pictures don't lie:). It was a good Thanksgiving as Alicia did all the cooking. Yummy.

That same weekend was my Birthday. We went on an adventure with the same friends up to the Blue Ridge Mountains. We rented a condo surrouded by great views. We didn't actually have much outdoor time as our outdoor plans were thwarted. It was rather ironic as I was dying to go sledding. My idea of sledding is finding a hill or drive way and going down hill at a reckless and most times terrifying speed. But here they had man made snow, on man made mounds that you had to pay $22 for two hours to ride. It was very safe and very organized with an escalator ride to the top. I decided to just get my picture with the snowy hill:).


The rest of the group had hoped for some hiking so we tried to do that but the trails are off limits as it is hunting season. I didn't even know that could happen:). We ended up playing lots of Wii and looking out the windows at the beauty around us. But it was so nice to get away from the house and be with good friends. We all agreed that just getting away stops you from doing chores. Alicia also went out of her way to make my Birthday special with balloons and streamers all around to wake up to. She even baked me a cake.

I should be posting some great shots soon as Ben took my three million hints and got me Aperture 2 for my birthday. It is Mac's program for photo editing and management. I am still learning it but can't wait to show you what it can do. Thanks Ben for letting me nag you into my gift:).

Missed Photo Op

Last weekend we drove up to the mountains with our friends to have a little get-a-way. It was so relaxing. However the police were out in full force and we saw many poor souls being pulled over. I missed a great photo op when we passed one car pulled over with the license plate YBEHAVE. I have a pictures of the weekend on the way.