Drive in

While Steve was away last weekend I thought it was a good night to finally take the kids to the drive in.  I invited my friend Nikki and her kids.  We got there a little too early and the kids were bored by the time the movie started.  They also fell asleep pretty quickly after the movie started so we only stayed for the first one.

We are DTC!

Four months after we seen our newest daughters face our dossier is headed to China.  We had some delays which are pretty typical delays but still frustrating.  First when we were waiting for our I-800a approval we were suppose to just be able to refresh our fingerprints.   It was suppose to take one month from the time I mailed it until approval in our hands.  Something went wrong with the refreshing system and my prints were never refreshed.  After waiting several weeks for them to come up I was sent up to Portland to get new prints done.  We had the approval the very next day.  Then when we sent the documents to San Francisco to get authenticated there was an error with one of the papers that the state department certified wrong.  It cost us a whole week for our dossier to go to China.   But here we are and it's all in his timing. It is such a relief to know that our documents are headed to China and that our daughter will soon be shown pictures of her knew family!

Student Dinner

I love my job and I love teaching.  Every year we get a new student from OIT for the year.  This is the same place that I myself graduated from.  Every year we are sad to see them go.  Tonight we dinner to celebrate our student Maile's graduation from the Diagnostic Medical Sonography  program.

Parker's last band concert in Middle school

Tonight was the last band concert for Parker as a middle schooler.  He even had his first solo in the Jazz portion.  He has come such a long ways since sixth grade.  He now is so confident in himself.  He was suppose to get his braces yesterday and we put them off a week so that he could play in the last concert without any issues.  The last party they did a funny skit for Mrs. Crocker.  Parker dressed up as Superman, no surprise there!

Conor National Honor society induction

Last night I had to make the hard decision of choosing to go to Conor's Honor society induction over Zoe's play.  It was so hard for me to not be there for her first play but I knew that I had to be there for Conor.  Steve and my parents ended up making it just in time.  We are so proud of Conor and his accomplishments.  Academics come easy too him and I hope he continues to have the passion for learning.  Now he will have the opportunity to also help others.

Last soccer game

Well I would say soccer is done but really it's not.  Chase's AYSO soccer has just ended but next week his Club soccer begins.  So hence we start the journey of Club!

Faith's adoption update

Well It's finally time for an update.  We had been at a stand still for over a month with our I-800a approval.
Since we are reusing we were suppose to only have to refresh our prints, however something was wrong with the system and after a month they sent us a fingerprint date.  Steve refreshed two days before the fingerprint date but mine never did.  So on May 7th I drove up to Portland by myself and got my prints done.  It was a 1 1/2 hour drive and I left early enough but trafic in Portland is always unpredictable and I was a few minutes late to the appointment.  I would have been even later if it weren't for the open parking space right in front of the office building, that I prayed for the whole way up and God answered my prayer.  We were approved the very next day.  But since it was Friday and I didn't mark for a Saturday delivery it was suppose to make it to us Monday.  I checked the tracking and seen that it was sitting in the local distribution center and was able to have my son run and pick it up.  I spent Sunday and Monday afternoons preparing the documents needed to send off.  Today (Tuesday) I traded for the evening shift so that I could go get all the papers notarized and then certified at our State office.   Then I had it at the Fedex office to mail out today with a half hour to spare! 

So what happens from here?  Well it will be in San Francisco until early next week.  We are hoping to get them all back by next Tuesday so that we can have the documents ready for Steve to bring to our Adoption agency on Wednesday!  And what does that mean   DTC BABY!     DTC stands for Dossier (our paperwork) To China.   Then we will wait for them to log us in.  After we are Logged in then we will be waiting for our official China approval called the LOA.  Once we recieve this will be able to determine when we will be traveling.  Right now it's looking like October will be the earliest with December the latest, but there are so many unknows with adoption and so you really just play it day by day.

So hopefully my next update will be that our Dossier is heading to China!

Mother's Day

What a wonderful Mother's day.  Started with worship.  Then off to a nursery and some family pictures.  Then a nap and ended with a delicious dinner!

Visiting Grandpa Éd's Gravesite

My Grandpa Ed passed just about a few weeks before we left for China.  So many emotions during that time.  We were finally able to make it up to see his gravesite.  He's buried at the Veteran's memorial cemetery up in Portland which is about an hour and a half north of us.  What a beautiful place, every time I visit I'm amazed at how they keep it so nice.  We were able to leave some flowers and let a balloon go up to him in Heaven.   When we were leaving my grandpa's gravesite we turned around to hurry Zoe up and found her on her knees in front of his head stone talking to him.  She brought us all to tears!