A great friend of ours from up north in Michigan (you know who you are) informed me that we have been slacking on this blog. She is right. This same friend did us a great favor by coming down to stay with the kids for the weekend while Tami and I got a couple of days to ourselves. We are so grateful to have friends like this. Not to mention our kids love her and her kids so they had a great weekend as well.
Tami and I did some shopping, hung out in the room and watched college football, and just relaxed. It was a great break to get our batteries recharged. It is really great to spend some time together as best friends without needing to be parents. We believe that it is ultimately good for the whole family.
On the adoption front we received the first draft of our home study. We proof read it and made some minor changes. We should be getting the finalized/notarized copy of it any day now. We have completed all of our paperwork for our agency so this will all go in together. The next step will be to build our dossier which includes being approved by the US and Ethiopian governments to adopt. We are a little frustrated with the amount of time it takes to get through the red tape but I think we have realized that our experience is no different than all other families who are going through the international adoption process.
Stay tuned as I hope to stop slacking on this blog!
Monday, October 26, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Just Rolling Along...
On the adoption front we are almost done with the whole home study process. We expect that we will have our final home study write up by the end of this week. The next step will be to send it along with the 2nd part of our application to CHSFS so we can begin the dossier process. As I've stated before, the dossier process is another paper chase that ends in an official dossier that goes to Ethiopia and puts us on the list. During this paper chase we are approved by the US government to be adoptive parents and to bring a child home with us. Once the dossier reaches Ethiopia we are then approved by the government there as well.
This past weekend was almost like a late fall weekend in Northern Indiana. It was downright cold on Saturday morning at the boys' football games. Kyle's team finally got a win after an 0-3 start. Then, as a family, we did family service day through the kids' school. We went to an elderly couple's home and washed windows. It is a great opportunity to teach the kids about the importance of service and how it is linked to our faith life. The couple had baked cookies and we had a chance to sit and talk with them before we left. They think they got a lot out of it with clean windows but I know our family got even more out of the lesson of serving those in need.
Sunday we went to Tami's brother's house and brought them dinner. We wanted to see their new daughter that came home with them last week from China and our kids also love to play with their 4 boys. Their daughter is just beautiful, happy and loves to play. I (Scott) played hard with her and she just kept coming back to me laughing so that was very rewarding.
Tami and I are going away for a weekend in a couple of weeks and I am very excited about it. Things have been so busy this fall that we don't feel like we get a lot of alone time. We are going to Indy to stay in a hotel for a couple of nights and really have no plans outside of that. We just want to be able to do what we want to do and to be able to spend some quality time with just the two of us.
I hope to post soon about moving on to the next phase of this adoption!
This past weekend was almost like a late fall weekend in Northern Indiana. It was downright cold on Saturday morning at the boys' football games. Kyle's team finally got a win after an 0-3 start. Then, as a family, we did family service day through the kids' school. We went to an elderly couple's home and washed windows. It is a great opportunity to teach the kids about the importance of service and how it is linked to our faith life. The couple had baked cookies and we had a chance to sit and talk with them before we left. They think they got a lot out of it with clean windows but I know our family got even more out of the lesson of serving those in need.
Sunday we went to Tami's brother's house and brought them dinner. We wanted to see their new daughter that came home with them last week from China and our kids also love to play with their 4 boys. Their daughter is just beautiful, happy and loves to play. I (Scott) played hard with her and she just kept coming back to me laughing so that was very rewarding.
Tami and I are going away for a weekend in a couple of weeks and I am very excited about it. Things have been so busy this fall that we don't feel like we get a lot of alone time. We are going to Indy to stay in a hotel for a couple of nights and really have no plans outside of that. We just want to be able to do what we want to do and to be able to spend some quality time with just the two of us.
I hope to post soon about moving on to the next phase of this adoption!
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