The short version...

We're still waiting for a referral, but are happy to see the Ethiopia program stable and doing well. We're also at the point of renewing some of our paperwork that has to take place on an annual basis.

Jim and I did run the 10K....the whole thing!! It was a lot of fun. Thanks to Patti and Mark for going with us and Christine who picked up our race packets.

Tessa is having a great time in pre-K, speech class and ballet. She is logging A LOT of hours playing Barbies. Mark's really enjoying 1st grade, too! He's waiting for his basketball team to get started and has two very loose front teeth.

I still love Direct TV...a lot...

I'm pretty sure that ties up all of the loose ends from the previous few posts that exist on this blog. Now I'm thinking about (and I know I've said this before), actually trying to keep up with this and post more than 5 times a year... I'm not totally thrilled with any of the Blogger templates, though. Anybody out there have any ideas??

Selective boredom and The Human Race

You know those times when you say you're bored, but you technically have a 1000 things you could, or should, be doing? Well, I'm sort of in one OR I was in one before yesterday (slight exageration); I believe this is due to being at the "wait, but we reallly can't do anything to help it along" portion of the adoption process for, oh, the eighth straight month. See, I've also been needing to exercise for quite some time here (no exageration whatsoever). I've needed a goal or an event, though, and I've found several reasons to dismiss options (hey, I already did the marathon once), but now I've found it! The Nike+ Human Race is my "turn it around, get in shape, add focus to the other areas of my life, don't be bored" winner! It is a pretty big deal world wide... A 10K (6.2 miles) will be run in 25 different cities on the same day. Each one ends with a concert for the runners; Chicago is host to Fall Out Boy playing in Soldier Field. This as a whole is the world's largest running event and benefits the Lance Armstrong Foundation, the UN Refugee Agency and the World Wildlife Fund. I actually registered AND ran the first 2 miles of my training plan today. Not bad!

In adoption news, you'll also notice I've added a lovely clock that tells you what time it is in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capitol city. We are very close to the top of the referral waiting list! The courts there, however, close for part of August and September, so even a match in the next couple of weeks would likely mean October or November travel. Realistically, it could still be a couple of months for that match to happen, but we're hoping to hear before long. It is challenging to wait, in part, because there will be so many things to do once we are matched that really can't happen until then like adjusting the all of the kids' rooms, collecting their gear and preparing for school. There are, however, many things I could be doing now (as Jim will confirm) to enjoy and simplify life as it is. Let's hope this run is a step in the right direction : )

Please keep our friends, Annie and Peter in your prayers as Annie is traveling home from Taiwan with their second son, Nate, RIGHT NOW!! We can't wait to meet you, Nate!

Yup...still boring in blog-land!

BUT we're moving forward on the waiting list, and there has been much positive activity within our agency. We're relatively high on the waiting list now, which could mean a call tomorrow or four months from tomorrow! In Ethiopia, the courts close for portions of August through early October, so no cases are heard and referral activity slows down a bit. Please be thinking of the Ethiopia families that received their referrals and are hoping to get through court before the closure and our friends who had their final hearing in Taiwan and leave to pick up their new son in less than two weeks!!

No news is....no news!

So, I'm at Target today (shocker) and I see our friend, Molly, and she's all, "I'm following your blog!" and I'm all, "Oh, you mean our NON-blog...that I NEVER update...despite the fact that months full of fun stuff, including Mark learning how to read and Tessa growing enough hair for a ponytail, has, in fact, taken place?!" So here I am...

We are at about 5 1/2 months on the waiting list, and sibling referrals have been very sporadic lately. WHFC sent an e-mail to confirm our age request, which sent me into a "Wow, is this a routine record review or are they considering an actual referral of actual children AND even though logic tells me this is a routine check, I'm going to drive everyone within earshot bananas until my very patient, very encouraging social worker calls me to tell me exactly what I already assumed" tizzy. That was fun!

We are excited to have other friends having progress in their adoption journeys! One couple has begun the home study process for an older sibling pair from Ethiopia, another is waiting for a travel date for their son in Taiwan and our neighbors finally brought their baby girl home from Guatemala just this week! Keep all of them in your prayers!

Big News!!!

I'm guessing since we haven't posted in just over 2 months, we may have lost our two loyal readers. For those of you still out there, we are excited to announce that we finally got....Direct TV...and a DVR!!! Yes, that's right, folks! Our cable bill (in order to get clear reception of good ole' 2, 5, 7 and 9) increased again, so Jim entered the "research phase" and one week ago today was the big installation. Thanks, Jim!!!

In the adoption world, we continue to wait for our referral and are very encouraged by the referrals and travel dates occurring for those ahead of us. We've arranged for our pediatrician, who has done mission work as well, to review the medical files as soon as our referral is given. Thanks, Dr. Wall!!!

A little lingo lesson

DISCLAIMER: Jim wants to make everyone aware that any of the "lame-ness" of this blog is totally MY doing, and he is in no way responsible. That said....


Looking at the adoption timeline probably means absolutely ZERO to people who have not spent the past year or two immersed in state department websites and other random cyber-locations that differ from the People.com of which I've grown so fond. Here's a little mini-lesson to help it all make sense:

CIS: This stands for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, more commonly referred to as U.S. Immigration

I-600A: This is a form for USCIS that allows for advance processing of classifying an orphan as an immediate relative. Essentially, it allows us to be cleared by immigration here without specific children assigned, so that when we receive a referral we can move forward immediately upon acceptance of that referral. In Ethiopia, we'll file the I-600 which specifies the actual children we are adopting.

Referral: We will be contacted by our placement agency, Wide Horizons for Children, when we are matched with children. Basically, we have to wait until we are next on the list for children within our request range. In our case, we are open to a sibling group of two or three children aged 5 and under. The tricky part is that the children would either have to be around a year younger than Tessa, our youngest, or the oldest sibling could have a birthday between Mark and Tessa with the other sibling(s) being younger than Tessa. We'll receive photographs, lab test results, measurements, and any additional medical and birth family information that's available. At that time we'll have, I believe, 10 days to have a physician review the records with us and accept the referral.

Home study: This consisted of a lot of paperwork, including elements such as an adoption education component, local police clearance, FBI fingerprint clearance, medical reports on the current members of our household, multiple interviews with our local social worker (from Lutheran Social Services of Illinois) and culminated with a 10 or so page paper outlining basically our whole life since birth and stating our social worker's approval of us as adoptive parents.

Dossier: This is the "final" packet of paperwork that gets sent to our agency and will be eventually forwarded to the Ethiopian government to move through the courts there once our referral is accepted.


Wow, are you totally jacked by all of this new-found information?!?! Don't worry, there's plenty more to come.....

Here we are!!!

For those of you that found our blog via the pathetic, year old Christmas card we sent this year, this is actually what the kids look like these days. The picture of the whole fam was taken at the North Pole, thanks to the Holiday Express at the Oswegoland Park District. The pictures of Mark (6/25/02) and Tessa (7/15/04) were taken when they sang at our church service a couple of weeks ago. We're really enjoying this holiday season and are very excited to see what new children 2008 brings our family as we wait for a referral from Ethiopia!!