The prints are in the mail

Well today our homestudy caseworker called and said that Mike's fingerprints are in the mail. That means that they will probally arrive tomorrow or early next week, then we will get our final copy of our homestudy. Then we will have one more homestudy followup conducted by our adoption agency Hope for Children. As soon as that is completed we can finally send our request to bring an orphan child into the country. After about another month we will finally be able to send in our paperwork to China. Then we wait, and wait. After about 10 months we will get a referal (a picture and health description of a child that has been matched to us) once we accept and say that we accept this child we wait another 6-8 weeks before we can travel to China. So, after talking to my caseworker we figure it will be May or June 2007 before we can go and get our little girl. In the mean time I will go to Japan and put my energies into the follow up work I have to do for that (teaching, lesson plans, presentations to the communities etc.)

Watch out Japan Here I Come!!!

Well as some of you know, I applied for the Japanese Fulbrite Memorial Scholarship Fund. back at the beginning of the school year. I WON!!! I will travel for 3 weeks in November to Japan where I will travel across the country visiting different schools and learning about their history and culture. It is all expense paid except for little things. I had to write a paper talking about me, how I plan to present this when I get back and my reasons for wanting to paticipate. I did it last year and was an alternate but this year I am a WINNER!!!

Need a tissue

I found this online today. It was not meant to be watched by myself but I did and I did cry.

Adoption1
Video sent by ludo

AN ACT OF LOVE

They say "How can you do such a thing
as to leave your child on the street"

but this is what I see...
I see an act of love

You loved this child that you could not kill
you left this child for others to find

so that she could find love
in this heart of mine.

Friends

Tonight for dinner we had some friends over to cook out on the grill, (hamburgers, hotdogs,and a veggie burger). This is something we haven't done in a while but I really miss it. We just sit, hang out of the deck, watch a little Sponge Bob (for the little ones) and do a lot of talking and laughing. Now that the nice weather is coming back this is something we'll have to do a little more often.

Two Second High

Well, I called our case worker today and she asked me if I had any questions for her and I said yes," about the fingerprints". She said there in and I said "YES!!!!!" Then she said "only yours Mikes were illegible. He has to do them again." (We've waited over 2 months for them to arrive and I didn't want to wait 2 more) What a let down. This continues to hold us up to move on to the next leg of our journey. However, she did find out that she can have them expidited. Yeah! so we have to wait a little longer but not as long as I imagined. It's hard to believe that I will one day be the mother of an adorable baby girl! Most of you have been asking what are we planning to name her. Well at the moment and for the last several months she has been come to known as "Katie Hope" short for Katherine, but of course that could all change when we see her picture for the first time.

waiting arrival of fingerprints

Well we have finished our home study it is about 99% finished except for the statement about our fingerprints which have yet to arrive. Once they arrive we'll have our homestudy notarized, a short follow up from our agency and then sent to our adoption agency and immigration requesting permission/approval to bring in an orphan child into the country. Once we receive their approval our papers will be sent to China(all of which are sitting and waiting on the finalized homestudy) then we wait some more, the waiting time is now up to 10 months instead of 8. About the trip to Atlanta, it went fine, not as detailed as I wished the training was but it was still informative. In the mean time I'll wait, and Robin and I will talk "PINK" , we'll go shopping at the Jr. League of Augusta HUGE yardsale this Saturday and She and I along with Rita and others will have a blast. Robin and I are also both registered with Tot Trade to go to their HUGE consignment sale in Columbia at the end of the month.