It was an exciting day

❆ This was an exciting week, and special day of achievement  ❆ 
                             Today, our homestudy documents arrived at our agency. Next, scheduling our 2 homestudy interviews.
                                                                               Also today was Vivi's first day at her new position. It will be an adjustment, in a good and welcomed way. The best part is being able to work with the same incredible people.

A friend posted this wonderful quote today:

"It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it myself." — Joyce Maynard

These times are a-changin'

We have been so touched by the support everyone has given us over the last week! Your kind words of comfort go a long way, so thank you! We know that the new travel requirement is in the best interest for the children of Ethiopia. And we know that things happen for a reason. But it was still difficult to wrap our brains around how everything would work out...taking time off, paying for additional travel, etc. To help bring happiness and peace to my heart and soul this week I have been listening to my new CD, Children's Songs from Ethiopia. It allowed me to take my mind off the worry and concern that we have been experiencing recently, and to focus on the journey and the abundant joy we will feel when we finally meeting our daughter. Then, talk about perfect timing, out of the blue Vivi was offered an amazing career opportunity that would help address our travel concerns. We can know take a sigh of relief and continue to move forward with confidence and joy.

                            SMILES ALL AROUND

Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Everything in the universe goes by indirection. There are no straight lines."

Bob Marley: "Cause just like a tree planted, planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth fruits, bringeth forth fruits in due season, everything in life got its purpose, find its reason in every season, forever."

I just wanted to end this posting with a picture I took at the coast a couple weeks ago.We enjoyed just sitting on the beach watching the power of the ocean and the beauty of nature. 

"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding." ~ Albert Einstein

Adoption Alert

I picked this picture to start off this entry for many reasons! I feel that 
this picture reflects my view about life and our adoption process. 
The ocean, just like life, ebbs and flows with constant movement. 
Despite obstacles you have to keep moving forward. Storms, although
in life they are hard to prepare for it, provide a time where we realize
our strength in times of hardship or when we are challenged.
The rainbow...a reminder of just how beautiful life and nature can be.
Again only through the presence of storms can we see the rainbow...
and appreciate the wonderful life and opportunities that we have
been given. 

 
So you may ask what is the news that has caused so much emotion!

We found out a few days ago, and we are still trying to wrap our
brains around this, that Ethiopia has now required that families make
two trips to Ethiopia to complete the adoption. This will require more
time away from home and our jobs, as well as causing a huge financial
impact on our family. It would be nice to think that we could just travel
around while waiting for the embassy appointments but we are also
not independently wealthy ( : So here we fit, still moving forward, trying
to figure out how to make our dream come true. We had prepared
ourselves to deal with delays involved in the adoption process, but
this new requirement in travel was unexpected to say the least. 

So you might have some questions...as do we! Over the next couple
of weeks we hope to hear clarification. 

Why did they implement this sudden change? This is what we have

been told: "We have been informed that this sudden and swift change
to the Ethiopian adoption process appears to be the result of families
abandoning their children in Ethiopia after obtaining legal custody
and the negative media attention that essentially blamed the
Ethiopian government."  

Why two trips? 
The first trip is when you are granted custody with the second trip
being for the purpose of processing the US Embassy documents
and obtaining a visa for our child.

So to keep our hearts light and happy we found these videos which

brought tears to our eyes and joy to our hearts. I hope you enjoy

them as much as we did!

I ask that you all keep us and all the families adopting from
Ethiopia in your thoughts and prayers! Thank you!

Checklist

We have been told that we are a bit behind on our postings, we apologize! It has been busy in our house due to working additional hours in an attempt to make our savings grow..as well as working on the homestudy checklist. We were surprised to get a call from our adoption agency yesterday that our fingerprints (which are submitted to the Department of Human Services to check for history of criminal offenses) have already been cleared! We were amazed because we just submitted them a bit over two weeks ago and were told the average wait is 3-5 weeks! That was encouraging ( : So we have gathered our employment letters, medical reports, financial documents, insurance forms, and are just finishing up various reports we have to fill out about ourselves (marriage, autobiography, self awareness of the trans-racial piece in this adoption). Once all of our documents are complete we will submit them to the adoption agency to schedule our homestudy. Things are moving along nicely!