T.I.A.

Rob has come home from work with some new lingo. Our good friend and Lead Pastor at our church, Dean keeps reminding Rob, "T.I.A.".
Till In Africa, nothing is set! Besides traveling quite a bit to various parts of Africa,Dean and his wife Beth have two adopted children from Africa so they are all too familiar with the ups and downs of this process.
So, You might have noticed a new time line to your right. If you read my last post you also might notice it is a day off. The whole tentative part of tentative travel dates has already been proved! I know it is only one day. But it is one day closer to bringing our daughter home! Now also realize it could go the other way. One day you might take a peek at this blog and see the time line has been changed to reflect a January travel date! God is good and He will bring our daughter home.
We hold Y loosely in our hands because we know she is firmly in HIS!

Tentative Travel Dates!

Yesterday we received our tentative travel dates! They are TENTATIVE! But here they are...Nov.30-Dec.5th! If we pass court the first time around these are the dates we will be traveling. We don't know the specific day of our court date but from the e-mail that was sent we assume that it is in the next 3 weeks. So as soon as we have passed court our little one is officially our daughter and we can share her name and picture here!
Please pray for successful court dates over the next 3 weeks. There are many of us from AWAA and other agency's waiting to pass court!

For the past week Joel would pull me aside and ask "Mommy, can you believe your baby is going to be 9?" And then he would give me a big hug. He is the sweetest boy!
God gave us Joel as a gift! I wish I could put in words how great full I am to Him for that! All of the circumstances around Joel coming into this world are truly miracles. We are blessed beyond words because what God has done in and through this little boy.

Got Formula?

The orphanage that Y is at is in great need of formula. There is a formula shortage in Ethiopia! Even if we brought money with us to buy formula in Ethiopia it is difficult to find. So we are hoping to bring formula for the orphanage and diapers and wipes for the Transitional home. If anyone would like to donate any of those items please let me know! Thanks!

Any good painters out there?

I have grown used to waiting. Not very gracefully I might add but I have grown used to it. I guess you could say I am very comfortable waiting. Not gracefully comfortable but comfortable. I can pass by Y's room without crying now and the thoughts of going to get her in January feel,well,comfortable.
When we received our referral in August Duni told us we could travel in December but it could be January. So, I have been letting myself believe we will bring Y home in January. After all,the time lines in this whole process haven't been really accurate.
So, we had a conference call today with AWAA. We learned a lot of great stuff today! One being that all of the summer referrals have court dates. And all of us that have court dates should(if we pass court)travel to Addis to bring our children home by or on DECEMBER 6th!!!! There will be 5 groups from now until Dec. going to ET to get their children!(We should get tentative travel dates on Monday!)
So, thinking that I had until January to get everything ready-I probably don't! Y's room isn't painted yet...so,friends...Is there any good painters out there?

Our first update!

It is so hard not to type our daughter's name when I am referring to her in our blog! I think from now on I will type Y when I want to type her name. The day we received our referral we knew we wanted to keep her Ethiopian name. It is the name her parents gave her and we want to honor that.
So anyway-The update. It was small, just a few lines but it is just what we needed to hear. She is in school at the orphanage, she loves playing with the other children and is friendly. We also received a new photo! Y is smiling in the the picture. She looks happy! When Isabelle saw the picture she concluded that they must have told her that the picture was being sent to her family!
The courts reopen soon-in 6 days!(there is a buzz that they might have already reopened!) So we are praying that everything is running smoothly and we receive a court date soon!

Are you ready for some FOOTBALL?!

This year is the first year Joel has played football on a team. He is really loving playing! He smiles a lot and is having fun. The first game rained cats and dogs! It reminded me of Friday nights in high school dancing on a muddy field. But this last game was perfect weather! Between Baseball and Football Isabelle has had to sit through a lot of games. We are thinking about inventing a princess chair with a flat screen TV built in.(The flat screen is all her idea...if she is not allowed to have one in her room why not in her chair) I think that will make for a good sideline chair!
To change the subject we haven't heard anything about our little girl. We are hoping to get an update this month! Courts reopen October 8th! Please pray that we receive a court date quickly.