Helianthus and Adoption Update

Thanks to the very warm (record breaking) September, I finally get to see my Helianthus sunflower in full bloom!

We are leaving today for Addis Ababa, where we will have our court hearing on October 6. But more importantly, we will meet our two children. And this is what we have been living for.

God bless us on our journey to Ethiopia...

Referral Day
Thursday, June 3, 2010 - getting ready for Spa Weekend with Christa. Showered, curling my hair, trying to get my team on the phone (on my day off) due to a misdirected FedEx. Phone rings - it is from 781 area code. Erin is calling; I was just thinking of calling her to let her know I will have spotty cell phone coverage until Tuesday.
Wait! Erin is calling!
I can barely unlock my Droid to answer. I hear her voice on the other end of the line, and yes, this is the call we have been waiting for. Two cherubs, matched to us! Praises!
We try to add Dennis to the line unsuccessfully - no worries - I will take notes and review it all with him again ASAP. Everything about the morning that seemed important is suddenly wholly unimportant.
One boy, one girl. He's 3 (we later learn closer to 4) and she's 2. Pictures of their beautiful little faces, sad and scared. My eyes tear up. My heart swells. I close my eyes and picture their eyes brighter and faces smiling. I get goosebumps. Thoughts of "where do I sign?" tempered by remembering that we need to have the medical review done, and pray. But because all of the paperwork looked great, I knew right away. I trust God's plan of moving them in our direction after the tragic events of their lives.
And so we begin the life-giving tasks that bring them closer to us: creating photo albums to send to Ethiopia, getting vaccines, applying for visas, re-documenting our financial ability, rearranging the house, continuing to pray, etc.
We are so blessed.

Hi Rebecca and Dennis,
Your age request has been officially changed on the wait list to:
A sibling group of two children, with at least one boy: 0-60 months at the time of referral.

Best,
Erin

Erin Wise, LICSW
Africa Case Manager
Wide Horizons For Children

This is somewhat of a delayed posting. We learned on May 21 that our official application date is May 6, 2009. Woo hoo! Not much will happen for the next year or so, however, unless we change the age range on the child we have requested, which I am seriously considering.

This weekend is the Neighborhood Yard Sale. It is more difficult to work with so much activity outside. And the sun is shining!

Let's hope for no rain for the Rockies game tonight against the Seattle Mariners.

Mailed our dossier to WHFC Monday. Hope to hear by the end of the month that it has been approved. And today:
"It has been determined that you are able to furnish proper care to an orphan or orphans as defined by Section 101(B)(1)(F) of the Immigration and Nationality Act."

Thank God for government approval - the first of many anyway.

April 26 - our anniversary - our 12th anniversary. Wow. Dennis is out of town this weekend, as he is almost every year, at the CMC Fly Fishing Class field trip. He should be home in an hour or so, and then we will have a romantic dinner somewhere.

It is finally raining. I worked in the garden this morning; it really needed it. I pruned back the three-leaf sumac by one third and it looks great. A couple of weeks ago I went to the "No Fear Pruning" class through Footshills at Jared's. The sumac is less than two years old, but it is already four feet high. Instructor said this is because sumacs are just a big weed. But it gets tall and is drought tolerant, and that is just what that spot needed, so there it is. When it leafs out I will try to post a picture.

We are almost done with our dossier. I am just waiting for our two reference letters (they are written, signed and enroute) and state-certified Power of Attorney for Dr. T. I will definitely let you know when the dossier is accepted by WHFC. We will be drinking champagne that day. Or maybe today for the anniversary!

Addie is loving the great weather, and even Xing Xing has been dying to get on the deck. She is so cute when she curls up in a container. But soon the containers will be full of flowers or veggies or herbs. I planted Bright Lights Swiss Chard and French Breakfast Radishes a few weeks ago. They struggled through the bad weather, but are on their way now. I also planted some very old seeds:

* Mache, not yet sprouted

* Butterbay Soybean, a bushy variety, also not yet sprouted

* Mesclun Cooks Tangy Mix, which already overtook the Swiss Chard in size

Pray the birds don't pull it all out!

Happy to report that we received the receipt and fingerprint notices from CIS for our adoption petition this week. Off to be fingerprinted!

Our trip to India with folks from church was amazing. Lots of pictures on my Facebook page. I need to write more, but not now. Dinner is in the oven...


Our first homestudy interview is Tuesday, January 6, 2009. We are ready for Kate! Dennis was thrilled to finally buy the gunsafe, which is required for the homestudy report.


Talked to Stephanie at Holt today; she works with the Ethiopia program. We had a nice talk, and she reminded us that we need to decide on a country before the homestudy is complete. Oh yeah. No problem.

We finished our Core Training on October 11, 2008. What a great experience and an amazing group of classmates! I think we finally have everything together for the home study application, and hope to mail it this week.

I talked to Holt this past week and learned that Nepal is not a good choice for us after all. We will reconsider India, and look at the China Child of Promise Program, in addition to Ethiopia and Bulgaria.

We had a great time with my family last weekend in Plano, celebrating mom's 70th birthday.

So I mailed the application over one month ago, and little progress has been made. We decided not to adopt from India because the child would be more than 2 years of age, and the wait time is long. So we then looked to Bulgaria because it also seemed to have a shorter wait time. But when we received more detailed information from Holt, the wait time was similar to India, and the children needing homes were also older than 2, more like 3-5 years of age. The reality is that all wait times are long now because of the changeability in the regulations, etc.

I did write the check to LFS for the Homestudy, but have not mailed it yet. Is it fear? Am I afraid of my dreams?

So, one week ago I mailed our adoption application to Holt International http://www.holtintl.org/. I sent it Priority Mail, so they probably received it on Monday. Perhaps I will call them today because I do not see in their materials an estimate of when they will contact us.

This photo is from almost two years ago, but we have not changed much.