Happy Fall, Y'all!

We wanted to share some recent photos from happenings in FL over the last few weeks. We enjoyed having Judi and Doug spend a long weekend with us last weekend...and we are really excited to have Jeremy, Emily and Peter joining us for Thanksgiving this week! We are thankful to have family willing to travel long distances to be with us...

Not much new to report on the adoption front...we are still awaiting our PA (preliminary approval), and are awaiting a Home Study addendum which will get sent to both the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) as well as to the Chiense Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) to get all the final approvals that we will need in order to travel to China and bring Lilly home. Still a few months of waiting ahead. We are thankful that this time of year seems to speed by, so the wait should seem quick.

May you have a blessed Thanksgiving! We have much for which to be thankful...

Lillian Joy!!

We received a phone call from our agency on Friday, asking us if we would consider reviewing the profile of a little 2 1/2 year old girl named An Xiao Xue, who lives in foster care (a huge answer to prayer for me) in Henan province. I eagerly said "yes, yes! Please send her file!" and then had to immediately run to get Anna from school without any time to check my e-mail and look at her. It being Halloween on Friday, of course we also had costumes to put together and pumpkins to carve, so I had to wait patiently until the kids were happily and independently preparing for the evening's festivities so I could sneak onto the computer and pull up her precious photos and file. She looks like a sweetie! She is currently quite bald (looks like they shaved her head--not uncommon in the orphanages to help manage "bugs"), and, as you can see in her photos, she stands a little bit crooked, as she has congenital scoliosis.

I also left voice mails for Tom and forwarded him her file at work, but we did not have a chance to talk it over until late that evening after Trick-or-treating through the neighborhood and getting the kiddos into bed. I had been almost afraid to hope that this might be our daughter, not knowing Tom's opinion on the severity of her scoliosis and our ability to get her whatever treatments would be necessary to correct her spine's significant S-curvature. Once we got to talk, however, my heart was ready to burst when Tom said "yes, I think this is the little girl God has for us to take care of!" He just needed to spend some time on Saturday researching congenital scoliosis to make sure he felt confident this was something we would be able to handle.

So we have submitted our Letter of Intent to adopt little An Xiao Xue, who will soon be named Lillian Joy (Lilly or Lillie or Lily or Lilli--still working on which spelling we like!). We hope to bring her home before her 3rd birthday--which they estimate to be March 25th. There is a whole new set of paperwork and approvals to be done now that we have been matched with our daughter, so I am praying, as always, that the process goes smoothly and quickly in God's timing! The waiting seems easier now that we know who she is.

Praise God with us for His goodness and His faithfulness!

Amy Successfully Completes Marine Corps Marathon!

This past weekend, I flew up to DC for the Marine Corps Marathon! All the months of training and mental preparation had finally culminated in this big day! I flew up Friday, having delivered Anna to school, Jared to the bus stop (in the rain), Tad to my friend's house, our new pet mice to another friend's house, Anna's bike to yet another house, and, finally, the kids weekend bags to the house where Jared spent the whole weekend and where Anna spent Friday night before staying with another family--with girls!--for the rest of the weekend. Whew! Oh, and then I delivered myself to the airport on time.

Tom and his parents met me at Reagan National Airport in Washington DC--Tom having spent the week prior at a conference in Leesburg--and we enjoyed a dinner of Spanish tapas in Old Town Alexandria. Then they delivered us to the Platts house in Alexandria, where we spent the weekend along with Chaplain (Chappy) Ken Reyes and his 20-year-old son, Brett, who was also competing in the marathon. It was so good to see friends from Turkey!

Saturday, our main task was to pick up our race packets, so after a quick cup of coffee we headed out to the metro to get to the DC Stadium/Armory, and spent some time perusing the myriad of running gear available for a price at the expo. Here is aphoto of Brett and me with our Marine Corps Marathon participant shirts we picked up that day. We then got Chappy and Brett on their way to Baltimore for a project, and Tom and I met up with his parents at Pentagon City Mall to browse and visit. We ate lunch at a French creperie (yumm!) and then they got on their way back to New Jersey in the rain.

Saturday evening, Auline had invited many folks from our days at Incirlik (and a few that came after our days at Incirlik) for a "carbo loading" dinner at their place--baked ziti and sausage and peppers! Yum! It was so much for to catch up with friends, eat great food in preparatino for the race, and relax (and not dwell too much on the task at hand the next morning!)

Brett and I finally got our gear assembled that night and headed to bed. I could not fall asleep. Once I did, I kept waking up. Finally, my alarm went off at 4:30am so we could get to the metro when it opened at 5am (we didn't want to take any chances on being late for the start, and had heard rumors that the metro filled up). We arrived in plenty of time for the start! In fact, we arrived at the start festival area just in time for an ecumenical prayer service, which was a bonus! It was chilly as we waited...and waited...and waited...

Finally, it was time to proceed to our start corrals. I lined up in the corral for the pace I felt that I could maintain, and in the midst of the thousands of people, looked up as I was stretching and saw right next to me my friend Heather from Florida who also had come to run! I was so happy to see her--and surprised that in the crowd we had actually seen one another!

At 8am, the race started. Took me 7 minutes to get to the actual start line from my start corral since there were so many people. The race was SO MUCH FUN! My pace started out nice and slow to get warmed up. The first 5 miles or so were mostly uphill, which I knew they would be, so I dind't worry about my pace and just relaxed and had fun. It was really crowded for the first 8 miles or so and it was difficult to speed up to the pace that I had wanted to hold. But that was a good thing for me, as it allowed me to get warmed up really well.

Making what could be a really long story shorter, the race felt great. I had some stabbing pain in my ankle,but ran through it. Other than that, I felt great the whole way and managed to pick up my pace gradually as the race proceeded. By the halfway point I could tell this marathon was going to be WAY better than the first one I ran at Disney in January! I saw Tom and Chappy, as well as Katie and Jason Roberson (friends from Turkey who have also run this race several times) cheering for me at various points along the way, which always helped me feel energized! I think I ran the whole thing with a smile on my face! I finished in 4:11:58, over 40 minutes faster than I ran the course at Disneyworld! Yay!

At the finish, my parents and Justin and Lita and their gang met up with us in Rosslyn and came back to the Platts for some time to visit and eat more ziti. It was so good to see them all and have a little time to catch up! After they got on their way back to Baltimore and PIttsburgh (and I took a much-needed shower!) Tom and I walked to Starbucks (yes, we walked another 3 miles round trip) to talk and relax!

Monday morning, we hopped on a plane home to reunite as a family (pets and all!) and now are getting back into the swing of things at home.

I am so thankful for those of you who donated to Love Without Boundaries in my name! Because of your support,I was able to raise over $1500! That is so exciting. It was fun to see the other LWB runners on the course. As I ran, I was praying for the Chinese orphans that my run would benefit, and thanking God for those who supported me.

No word on our adoption yet...I am hopeful we might hear something soon, as we are nearly 10 months out from the submission of our medical conditions checklist. The average wait time for a referral is 10-12 months from the time they have this document, so it could be soon. I will surely keep you all posted. Until then, thank God with me for a successful fun, for supportive family and friends, and for safe travels.

Family Life Rolling Along!

It's been awhile since I've posted the happenings around here...this are going really well! Jared and Anna are in the full swing of things at school and activities at this point. There are days that it feels like the world is spinning and we all want to get off, but this weekend provided a nice chance to step back, rest, and get some thigns done at home (including, for me, updating our blog!).


Jared is LOVING middle school. He has some really long days--running cross-country at 6:45 3 mornings a week, and staying after school on Wednesdays and Thursdays for cross-country meets and football band, respectively--so there are many nights he pretty much falls into bed exhausted by the time it's over. (though, I've realized, part of his exhaustion is due to the fact that after we think he's asleep, he is awake in his bed reading until 10pm!!) But he is enjoying it all... He had his first cross-country meet last week and did really well. Here are some photos...can you spot him in the front left side with his trombone at his first half-time show? And here he is with his friend Zach, after their 2-mail cross-country run.

Anna is enjoying 3rd grade. She has a wonderful teacher! She is still swimming, and has given some suggestions to her coach (me) on how to make practices more *fun*. I'll have to see what I can do!! She is working hard at the piano in the mornings before school--an exercise we are finding helpful as she works hard on mastering some lingering reversals of letters and numbers at school. The visual processing required for piano playing is helpful in the realm of handwriting and visual processing of numbers, columns, and place values in math! She also has been spending a lot of time reading...and playing with friends! Here are some photos of her at the beach recently, when we were part of a surprise 25th wedding anniversary vow renewal for our dear friends, Steve and Denise Schaick. Anna was so enthralled with the whole celebrating, she insisted on dancing with Denise afterwards.

We put up a zip line in the back yard--I'll have to get some video footage and post it here--and last weekend the kids worked hard to build a platform for launching themselves on it. They hit a snag when, after building it, they realized the had built it 3 inches wider than any of the gates in our fence leading to the back yard. So this weekend we removed and then replaced a portion of fence in order to move the platform into its place.


We are hosting a small group Bible study in our home on Sunday afternoons, which is a great sources of encouragement, motivation, and accountability. Great group of folks! And Tom recently started playing his guitar AND his trumpet (!!) for the church praise band. It is so good to see him up there, and to hear that sweet trumpet playing!

We had a really good time celebrating Tom's 40th birthday. Thank you thank you to those of you who sent contributions for his birthday encouragement book--it turned our really well! The surprise party was lots of fun as well! Tom has been super swamped at work…he is acting as squadron commader for the next 4 months as his boss is deployed, so not only is he managing his own clinic, seeing patients, and teaching the residents, he is also running the entire medical operations squadron. Yikes! This week was a huge challenge for him…many times he came home saying “I’m in over my head…” but God has seen him through and he is energized by seeing God at work. You can pray for him that he’ll have extra strength, wisdom, humility, and perseverance through these busy months.


Just as life sometimes seems to be a marathon, I continue to train for the Marine Corps marathon. Last weekend, while away attending a Precepts Bible Study Leadership Training seminar at a nearby coastal city, I got up early before the Saturday session and ran my 20-mile training run. It was an incredible run--started at about 4:30am running along a Gulf shore island in the strong winds from Hurricane Ike. I ended up turning back and crossing the bridge to the mainland as the storm surge was bringing water over the running path on the island. The run went well (especially when the wind was at my back!!) This morning's 10-mile run was even better, as the temperatures are finally starting to fall a little bit! I get excited thinking about how lovely DC will be in late October! If you'd like to sponsor me, it's not too late! http://www.teamlwb.com/ I am over 85% of the way to my fundraising goal of $1500.


Speaking of Bible study, last week I taught the ladies' Bible study at church as we looked at the life of Miriam. What a lot of rich lessons to learn from her life! I used to think of her only as the older sister of Moses who helped to ensure her baby brother's safety as he floated in the basket on the Nile. Now I realized how much more there is to know about her and how relevant her experiences are to our lives!


We now have video footage of Anna's solo at church, which Tom will isolate and show me how to post here soon! I will also (hopefully) post some footage of the kids on their zip line.


God has brought me to a new place of peace in our wait for our little one from China. I know the call will come eventually, and I am content to wait patiently until that day (and then wait until we have travel approval...). We attended an international adoption seminar a few weeks ago at University of Alabama at Birmingham, which was a useful day of information, preparation, and thought-provoking discussion. The trip also gave Tom and me a chance to talk and visit as we drove (the kids stayed with friends), which is always a good thing... believe, me, the moment we have a photo to post of our little one, it will be up on the weblog and you will KNOW! You will probably hear me shout even across the many hundreds of miles!

Until then, I'll continue to try to keep you all posted on the rest of us and what's happening here... Please keep us posted on what's happening with you!

Love,
Amy

Back to School, Fall Routines, and Still Waiting

Wow--the summer seems to have sped by! The kids and I made the most of our days at home, and spent a week in early August doing a road trip to North Carolina to spend time at my dear friend Amy's family beach house on Oak Island. It was surely an adventure as the kids and I were stranded for 3 days in Georgia (just north of Jacksonville, FL) while our transmission was completely rebuilt! Yikes! So we explored many a fast-food playground, spent lots of time in the hotel pool, and even rented a car to drive to nearby St. Mary's--one of the oldest cities in America--and the Jacksonville Zoo, just to pass the time. Once the car was repaired we were on our way again and spent 3 days at the beach with the Silers--fun fun!


Fall routines are now officially underway. At least, most of them. As much as I enjoyed having the kids home for the summer, I have to say it is nice to now be returning to the comforts of routine and to see the kids challenged mentally, physically, and emotionally by the rigors of academics, sports, and other activities.

Jared and Anna started back to school last week--it has been an exciting week in our house. Here are some photos from the first day, including getting up in the morning, having breakfast, and heading out to start the first day. I think Tad, the pup, was a little bewildered by all the activity!

Jared started middle school--yikes! Lots of new things for him to adjust to...changing classes, having a locker (and a PE locker), riding the bus, new teachers, new kids, etc. So far he is LOVING it. On Monday when I opened his bedroom door to awaken him, he exclaimed "YES! It's finally time to get up!!" He has friends in all of his classes, and it was amusing for me to watch him during orientation last week as he and his friends compared schedules and celebrated when they learned they'd be together much of the day.



Anna started 3rd grade and was excited that she knew all but 1 person in her class this year. Her week this week has been good; I can see she will have a heavier homework load than last year, but I guess that comes with advancing through the grades! I know she'll handle it with no sweat. Anna sang a solo in church last Sunday--"You are my All in All" and did a really beautiful job. I will try to post a video here when I figure out how so you can enjoy her performance!



Swim team starts back up next week for Anna and me as coach. Jared is taking time away from the pool to run cross-country at school--a well-deserved break after swimming hard for 2 years here.



Bible study also starts back up next week for me at church--a study looking at Women of the Bible. I get to lead the week we will be studying Miriam and I'm very excited. Lots to learn from her.
I have made my flight reservations for the Marine Corps marathon in October, and have made a reservation at the Platt Place hotel (thanks, Auline!). I am excited to continue my training (last weekend I did 16.5) and to see my dear friend Auline and her new baby, Ava, in late October.



Amidst all of this, we continue to wait for our Waiting Child. God is teaching me SO much through this time of waiting. He is showing me how to rest in Him actively--not just in word but in practice. He is reminding me of the blessing of my dear husband and his God-given wisdom and patience. He is opening my eyes a little wider to the enormity of this change we are undertaking. I am still so VERY excited and will be SO happy when we finally get the phone call with a match with "the one" child that God has for us. I continue to look at the child profiles on our agency's website of the children they have been unable to match for whatever reason, in the hopes that one of them will jump off the screen at me and say "I'm yours!" to both Tom and to me. Until then, I will continue to praise God for His goodness, grace, and mercy, and will continue to work diligently at all that He has given me to do with my days.


We are really looking forward to some upcoming visits from Tom's siblings--Judi and Doug in early November, and Jer and Em and Peter for Thanksgiving! Our spare room is still "spare" for now, so everyone else is welcome too!! Make your reservation now!

A Short Word about Love Without Boundaries

Hi everyone, I wanted to make you aware of a new initiative that Love Without Boundaries is launching to help rural Chinese families stay together by providing funds to poor families, allowing them to get the medical care they need for children rather than seeing abandonment at an orphanage as the only hope for their child's medical care. Check out the link below for more information and to see how to enter a drawing they are holding for this initiative.

http://lwbchinablog.blogspot.com/2008/07/lwb-unity-fund-contest-okay-we-are.html

"Waiting Patiently"

Now that the flurry of paper chasing is complete, we are in waiting mode. I have talked before on this blog about the issue of "waiting," and, even though I sometimes think I have the concept down, I am learning that to wait takes great faith and discipline. It is far too easy for me to get consumed with scanning the internet adoption-related user groups, checking out our agency's website, and allowing my thoughts to dwell on how much I wish our wait was over. When I allow myself to walk down this path, I find that I am neglecting the tasks at hand right now--the children I have in my care already, the daily household tasks that require discipline, etc--and I am robbing myself (and the people around me) of the joy that God has for me today.

I have come to realize that the only remedy for this "drifting" is to firmly plant myself once again in my daily quiet time to read scripture, meditate, study, and pray. God is so good and so very much in control of all things. Now that my eyes are again fixed on Him, the Wait seems so much less daunting and more like an opportunity to grow in my faith, to teach my children (and their friends who are almost as excited as we are about the adoption) about this kind of faith, and to enjoy the blessings of the life I have even right now.

Even the laundry can be a blessing. Taking something that is so very dirty and stinky and washing it entirely clean and fresh and ready to be used is a reminder of what God does for me each day. Praise Him with me!

I am also so excited and thankful that I have raised over 70% of my goal of $1000 towards the Love Without Boundaries Marine Corps Marathon team! Thanks so much to those of you who have supported me and joined my team! The more I read about LWB, the more I am excited about their work. My training is going well--despite the Florida heat and humidity. My runs are early in the morning, and my long run this past weekend was 13.5 miles. Slowly the mileage is creeping back up!

We enjoyed time this past weekend with dear friends from our early marriage days in DC. Marj and Zack were in town to catch up with their beautiful daughters staying with their grandparents in Panama City. So they spent one night with us and the kids and I got to spend a day with their family at the local water park on Monday. What fun!

The kids and I are getting ready to go on vacation next week to spend time with dear friends Doug and Amy and their kiddos at the NC beach. Poor Tom is so bogged down at work he will be staying back to man the fort. Thankfully he has Tad to keep him company in the evening! Pray for our safety, please, and that Tom would be able to get much work done during his week of solitude.

Thanks for reading!

We're Logged In!

It's been quite awhile since I've posted a new entry here...let's see what's new...

Our dossier was translated and sent to China ("Dossier to China" or "DTC" in China-adoption-speak) on 30 June, and our "log in date" (LID) at the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) was 3 July. So things are finally moving along! Now we just await a match with a child and travel approval! Could be anywhere from a few more months to maybe even another year?? Wish we had more definite time frames, but I'll be content with knowing that our paperwork is officially logged in and simply now wait.

As we wait, I have made the decision to participate in the 2008 Marine Corps Marathon in October, as part of a team raising funds for a non-profit organization called "Love Without Boundaries," which sponsors and establishes foster care and preschools for Chinese orphans. The work they do is amazing...you can check them out at http://www.lovewithoutboundaries.com/ and you can also check out my webpage there and even sponsor me if you like (click on "sponsor an athlete")! My goal is to raise $750. I completed my first marathon in January this year, and at about mile 15 I remember distinctly thinking "I will never compete in any kind of race EVER again!" But when I saw that LWB was putting together a team to raise money for these orphans, I knew that I had to sign up. How much more fulfilling to run for such a cause, not just for my own pride. So back to the training program I go. Another part of my excitement to run the Marine Corps is the chance to see some good friends and hopefully some family while I'm in DC! Of course, if the adoption proceeds on a quick timetable (God knows the timing...not me!) there is a chance I wouldn't be able to compete in the race...but I will still happily raise funds for LWB.

We are enjoying our summer, spending some lazy days at the beach, some fun-filled days at Big Kahunas, a local water park, and getting some projects done around the house. Jared starts cross-country pre-season training tomorrow! We have had some busy weeks recently with our home swim meet and an out-of-town swim meet that I coached solo.

Dossier has passed the critical review, undergoing translation!

We received word late last week that our dossier is entirely in order! It has been submitted for translation and will soon be on its way to the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA), the Chinese government agency that oversees adoptions. Once it is logged in at CCAA, our wait begins for a "match" with a child...the wait could be anywhere from just a month or two, up to nearly a year... I am personally hoping for a short wait for our match!! Once we are matched with a child, we wait another 3-6 months until we are able to travel.

The waiting is still a struggle, but it's a chance to learn to rest on God's sovereignty and trust His timing.

In the meantime, we celebrated Anna's 8th birthday this week!! She had a pool party here at the house for a few friends, and we had a fabulous time. I can't believe she is 8 years old already! We also bought hiking shoes for Jared last night since he leaves next weekend for a week at Boy Scout summer camp. Not only can I not believe that he will be away from us for a whole week at a camp in Georgia learning to shoot a rifle, drive a motorboat, ride a horse, and live in the mountains, but--get this--his shoe size is only a size and a half smaller that Tom's!! Yikes! When did this happen??

Thanks for the comments some of you have left for us...always fun to hear from friends!

Happy Father's Day to any dads who are reading!

Enjoy the photos! There are some from the last day of school, the black and white of Jared is his 5th grade portrait (isn't he handsome?) and some are from Anna's birthday.

Paper Chase is Nearly Complete!

Our authenticated documents returned from the Chinese consulate on Friday morning. The kids and I spent the first morning of their summer vacation at the post office, picking up the express mail package, making photocopies of each page of every document, compiling it all, writing a check, and re-packaging the whole stack to express mail to our agency. Whew! The paperwork should be in the hands of the "dossier divas" at CCAI this morning, where they will go through each document with a fine-tooth comb to make sure everything is done properly. When the critical review is complete, the dossier will be compiled and sent to the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs and be logged in. Then the wait for our "match" or "referral" begins. It feels good to have the paperwork done and out of my hands!!

It also feels good to be on summer vacation with the kids. We had a swim meet this weekend, and we have soccer games starting up, so things are still somewhat busy, but the pace is so much nicer now! We have lots of cleaning, tidying, and organizing to do, and the kids will be spending time everyday working on handwriting practicing instruments, and doing Bible study in the morning with mom. I will also be spending time each day working on math with Anna as she struggled a little bit with the advanced math they challenged her with this year. Most of all, however, I look forward to time to just do fun things at home and about, enjoying time with Jared and Anna.

Back in the Waiting Game...

The dossier documents should have arrived at the Chinese consulate on Thursday, so now we are just doing our waiting for them to return. Then the whole package can be sent to CCAI for final critical review before being sent to China's Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA).

As we wait, life is continually full and fun! We were sad to say goodbye to Grammy and Pop Pop on Thursday morning--we really enjoyed their week here. We got LOTS of yard work done (I should post a photo of our work...) and just enjoyed their company (and Grammy's cooking!)

The kids are now in their last week of school, so we are in transition to our summer schedule, which we are all hoping will be a lot more "kick back" and relaxed than the school year and even than last summer (when I really over programmed our whole summer with camps, classes, activities.) This year we will just enjoy being home, being together, doing things around the house and with friends in the neighborhood.

This last week of school holds parties, awards ceremonies, slide shows, and just lots of fun. Can't believe it's Jared's last week of elementary school!! Yikes!

Documents are on their way to the consulate!

Whew! What a crazy few days it has been around here. Yesterday, Grammy and I went on a dolphin cruise with Anna's class field trip--which was great fun and we actually got to see lots of dolphins even as we chased a gaggle of 2nd graders around the boat. Afterwards, I spent a few hours scanning, copying, printing, and compiling all of our dossier paperwork to send it express mail to the Chinese consulate for the authentication step. I'm not sure how long it will take for the consulate to process the paperwork and send it back, but I'll be watching the mailbox again until it returns safely here!

Today, Tom was promoted to Lt. Colonel, so we attended his promotion ceremony at the Eglin Hospital this afternoon (Tom gave a very nice little speech and his commander had wonderful things to say about him), and we invited the Mignaccas and the Schaicks to join Tom's parents and us for a celebration dinner at Osaka Restaurant, a Japanese hibachi grill where the chefs entertain as they cook your dinner. What a special night to enjoy with friends and family and savor some really delicious food.

I've included some photos from the past few days' events--enjoy!

State Certification is Complete!

Last week, Tom and I visited our notary at the Eglin Hospital (I told her we'd have to name our baby Kim in her honor after all the time we put in!) and had all our dossier documents notarized. The timing couldn't hvae been better--Tom's folks arrived Thursday evening to spend a week with us and Tom had Friday off. So, he and I took off Friday to drive all the paperwork to Tallahassee for state certification. Then, as planned, we spent a lovely 2 nights together in a local resort to celebrate our anniversary while Grammy and Pop Pop stayed with the kids and the dog. We had a nice time away and they all seemed to enjoy their time together!

Now, the final step in getting the dossier ready for submission is authentication. Tuesday morning, i will express mail the entire package to the local Chinese consulate to accoplish this last step, before the dossier undergoes critical review with our agency and then is sent off to China. Slowly we are able to tick things off the list.

Our agency last Friday did present something for Tom and me to consider--would we maybe be willing to consider accepting a little boy instead of a girl? Hmmmm....something we were thankful to have a few days away to think, talk, and pray about. We are still sort of undecided and have some questions I need to ask our agency first thing Tuesday morning. After thinking about our new child as our "daughter" and our "little girl" since we began chasing paper last fall, it seems weird to now perhaps switch gears. But we are challenging our thinking and our assumptions because boy or girl, we don't want to miss any of the blessings God might have in store for us with this adoption. We will keep you posted!

I-171H Finally Came!!

Yesterday afternoon the mailbox finally contained our final piece of the dossier! I was thrilled. The next layer of the onion (I have come to think of this whole process as a giant onion with layer upon layer to be unpeeled one at a time) can now begin to unpeel. The flurry of activity that accompanies each layer of the onion is now beginning: today we hope to have everything notarized, tomorrow we hope to drive to Tallahassee to have it all certified by the Florida Secretary of State, and then we can express mail it all off to the Chinese Consulate in Houston for authentication. Then, finally, after a final critical review at CCAI (our adoption agency), the dossier will be sent to China. Then, beginning anew will be the waiting that follows the flurry of activity with each layer of the onion--this time the waiting to learn who our daughter is.

Tragic news also came yesterday--the 5-year-old daughter of Christian Singer/Songwriter Steven Curtis Chapman was killed yesterday in the family's driveway, struck accidentally by a car driven by her older brother who didn't see her. I do not obviously know this family personally, but this well-known family has 3 biological children and 3 children adopted from China and has done much to raise awareness of the need for families to love Chinese orphans through their organization, Shaohannah's Hope. Here is a link to a story on this tragedy, as well as links to their organization and Mary Beth Chapman's weblog.

http://chapmanchannel.typepad.com/marybeth/

http://members.shaohannahshope.org/site/PageServer

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,357046,00.html

Finally, back to good news, Tom's parents are arriving either late this evening or tomorrow for about a week. We are so excited to see them! They are driving here from Missouri, where they attended our niece, Jollene's, college graduation. How exciting! They will stay with the kids while we take 2 nights away to celebrate our anniversary, and they will also be here next week when Tom pins on Lt. Colonel. How exciting!

OK, off to begin my flurry of activity with the dossier! Thanks for reading!

Another Week Has Passed...

...no I-171H yet. Life is full enough that I do not dwell on it, but each day's trip to the mailbox continues to begin with eager anticipation and end with a sense of emptiness and discouragement.

In the meantime, I watch the news of the earthquakes in China and pray for all the children in orphanages and schools who were injured or lost parents, for the parents who lost children, for the American families who might have already been matched with a Chinese orphan that was lost in the quake...it looks horrific in the photos and news stories.

And, as always, our family continues to live life fully...we spent the bulk of today at a swim meet in Pensacola called the "Pentathlon" where each swimmer could swim each stroke plus an IM. THe kids did well and it was a fun day. Here are some photos of recent happenings around here, just for fun.

Still Waiting...

...our fingerprints were taken on 24 April, 16 days ago, and we are still awaiting our I-171H from the USCIS. I had been hopeful we could have had it as early as a week ago today because our friends had theirs within 9 days of fingerprinting, but not us! It has been a daily letdown, going to the mailbox extectantly each day, and finding mainly junk mail (credit card applications, catalogs, sales flyers...you know the stuff). I am poised and ready to spring into action once that document is in my hands, and am prepared to make the 5-hour round-trip trek to Tallahassee to have our dossier documents Florida Secretary of State certified once we have them all and have them notarized.

But, until I have that last document in my hand, I simply have to wait. Of course, waiting doesn't involve inaction, since there is a never-ending list of things to be done in the course of normal daily living. But mentally, waiting involves an emotional and mental struggle to remain patient and faith-filled as I go about that endless list.

We're not alone in the wait. I am beginning to read some of the online forums for adoptive parents in the process, and am finding I need to not read so much of them as they only make me less patient.

Of course, our daughter is also doing some waiting of her own, waiting for her forever family. May the wait go quickly for us all!

Waiting for That Last Piece of Paper

Tom and I made the 5-hour trip to Jacksonville on Wednesday afternoon, leaving Anna and Jared to be picked up from school by the Haynes family, taken to AWANA at church, dropped off with the Mignaccas to spend the night (on a school night--how exciting!), then picked up from school by the Mignaccas, and taken to swim team practice by the Garrants. Whew!! Oh, yeah, and we almost forgot to ask the Mignaccas to look after Tad, too.

So off we went, an overnight trip to lovely riverside and oceanside Jacksonville for an evening. We spent the night in the Omni Hotel near the River Walk, had a *very* late dinner at the American Cafe at Jackson Landing by the river (reminiscent of one of our first "dates" at the American Cafe at the Inner Harbor of Baltimore), had Starbucks for breakfast, and off we went to the tightly secured US Citizenship and Immigration Services office Thursday morning.

The fingerprinting itself was quick and painless...10 hours of driving for about 10 minutes of printing. But it's done. We actually ran into one of Tom's patients from Turkey applying for citizenship for his Turkish wife--what a small world!

So now we wait for that last piece of paper--our approval from USCIS to adopt from overseas. Once we have that, we'll face a brief furry of activity as we route the dossier through the various levels of certification, authentication, and critical review, before it is sent to China. Then, the hardest part of the wait will begin--the wait for a child referral and match.

As we wait, we have much to do at home--house projects, kids' activities, ministry, work, etc. So we are making the most of this time of waiting by keeping ourselves beyond busy with the many things on our plates. Life is good; God is good. And we are blessed to know that in God's timing we'll have a new daughter (whom we already love) in our home.

Invitation to be Fingerprinted

Our invitation from the USCIS to go to Jacksonville (5 hours away!) to have our fingerprints taken has finally arrived in the mail! Yay! This is something we have been waiting for for a few weeks. We hope to drive out there mid-week next week to get them taken, which will allow the USCIS to finish processing our I-171H, the final piece of paper we need to be approved for international adoption. Again, baby steps, but forward progress all the same!

I had been feeling a little discouraged about timing last week, as it seemed our invitation from USCIS would never arrive, and as we learned about some changes in the way the CCAA, China's government agency in charge of adoptions, handles the "match" process for "waiting children." The "match" is when they look over your dossier and decide which orphan is best suited for your family. A "waiting child" is a child with special medical needs of some sort, which are harder to place for adoption. We are open to a waiting child--and had to submit a checklist indicating which medical needs we were open to considering. The new matching process could make it a longer wait time for our match, and, more importantly, it might mean that when we receive a child's profile for consideration, we'll have less than 24 hours to review it and make a decision.

I hate the thought of not accepting *any* child, but I am comfortable with the conditions we indicated we would be open to, and I am SO thankful for Tom's medical knowledge which will make it easier for us than for most to make such a hasty decision when the time comes.

I am still resting in God's sovereignty over the timing of this process. I'm realizing that, if we end up not going to China until later this year, it could mean the kids' Thanksgiving or Christmas breaks coincide with the trip, making it easier for them to come along. They REALLY want to come, and Tom and I are thinking through whether that is a good idea, or whether it would be better to leave them at home with--perhaps?--some willing grandparents? Or maybe, if we decide they should come, we might have some grandparents eager to take a trip to China as well? Praying for wisdom, and I've asked some families who recently returned from China for their thoughts on this issue. One family took their older daughter, and one family left their two older boys at home with grandparents.

I'm glad we're still making some forward progress, even if the steps seem so very small! And I'm still praying for our little girl, wherever she is and whoever she is, that she would be receiving good care as she waits, that she would have caregivers who are warm and loving.

We recently re-arranged Anna's closet a bit and moved some of our "little girl" toys into what is currently our "spare room," most likely soon to become the "baby's room." I hope to start painting and getting the room more ready...and want to enlist Anna's help in this process so she will feel a sense of pride and ownership for her new sister's room.

Starting to feel more real

Now that the home study is complete and we are only waiting for one more piece of paper to complete our dossier, our pursuit of our new daughter is feeling less like a dream and more like it will soon be reality. Reading the blogs listed in my links below has made it even more so--these two families that I have never met are RIGHT NOW in China with their new babies, getting to know them. They were permitted to travel to the orphanage that their babies came from, which is somewhat unusual apparently. Today, seeing photos of the orphanage where these families received their babies, and seeing photos of the site where one of the babies had been found abandoned at birth, tugged at my heart. So many children in so many cribs pushed so close together! Their blog described a 5-year-old girl with cardiac issues that is waiting to be matched with a family and it made me want to go and bring her home today! Even if she is several years older than we had planned on adopting!

I have to keep reminding myself that God, who is sovereign over all things and over the timing of all things, has already selected our daughter, and has already selected our family for her. He already knows her name, her personality, her medical condition, her needs, her heart. He already knows how she will impact our family and our lives. He already knows how we will nurture and mold and shape her. So I pray for her that He would help her to wait, even as he helps us to wait. And that He would provide loving caregivers, good medical care, physical nourishment, emotional nurture, and mental stimulation.

One piece of paper closer

Our home study arrived in the mail yesterday! Yay! Now we await a fingerprinting appointment with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the final piece of paper for our dossier, the I-171H, which gives us clearance from USCIS to adopt internationally. It feels like itty bitty baby steps, but it is forward progress nonetheless!

I wait on the Lord...

This is only my second post to our blog--I am getting the hang of it! Hopefully this will be a meaningful way to express my emotions as we walk this road, and to share it with friends and family.

I am just getting impatient waiting for our home study to be completed. The initial draft has been done for over 3 weeks, but the review/revision process has been taking, in my opinion, WAY too long! This is the second-to-last piece of paper to add to our dossier before we begin the notarization-certification-authentication process and the dossier goes to China. Then the REAL waiting begins: waiting for a "match" with our daughter, and waiting for a travel date to go get her. If it were up to me, I'd be in China right now picking her out (and heaven knows it would be hard to come back with only 1!) But I am trying to remember that God is in control of the timing, and His timing is best. Tom is good at reminding me of this, something that I know from experience but can easily forget when we're waiting for this monumental occasion in our family!

I am enjoying reading blogs from other families (that I don't even know) who are actually in China RIGHT NOW with their new daughters. Reading about their adventures, and the struggles to get to know their new babies, nurther them, bond with them, and simply get a handle on the mundane daily tasks of bathing, dressing, eating, and sleeping, has been exciting for me. I just wonder when we'll be in that place.

For now, I will do my best to rest in this place. The kids are on spring break and we enjoyed a fun morning taking Tad, our golden retriever puppy, into the woods to hike the lovely trails of Eglin reservation. Tad loves to wade in the beaver pond and get really dirty in the sand when he climbs out. He shakes his whole body and his hind end and tail are always last to shake. Without fail it makes the kids and me crack up!

Jared and Anna are wanting more independence and are SO excited that we have started to let them, on occasion, take a walkie talkie into the woods to hike to their "fort" and hang out there without mom or dad. They check in by radio every 10 minutes. Now that I know exactly where their fort is, I feel more comfortable with this...

We read a book from the school library about a little boy being adopted from Korea, written from the perspective of the big brother. The book made me sob--it was so lovely--and it enabled Anna to express some of her feelings of apprehension about the adoption. I know she will be a wonderful big sister, but I also know there are big adjustments ahead for us all. Praying it will be a smooth transition!

OK, time to make lunch. More tomorrow--maybe even news that the Home Study is complete??? I can only hope!

The Adventure is Underway

We are excited to have a forum to share our joy and our news as we walk the journey toward our newest daughter. This will also give me a way to journal my emotions as the process unfolds and as our family grows. Thanks for reading!