A Little Update

It has been a quiet week on the adoption front. I have been crazy busy, none the less! In February, I took the four middle children on a 2 1/2 week road trip to California, and we had yet to make their journals. So this last two weeks that is what we have been doing! The four and eight year old have finished theirs. We used the Blurb program this time and they drew pictures etc and then I had to put it all into the program. Our ten year old is working on his and the 14 year old will work on his the fall when he comes home from camp.

On top of that, I have had to paint our oldest boy's room. He worked so hard on our house when we built it and he is the last to have his room personalized. It happened this way because we ordered a mural for him from the States and that took a long time to come in, and by then I was busy with school etc. So now, with him away at camp I am working hard on getting it all painted and coordinated. Now if it would only stay neat after he got home....

In the meantime... the adoption. Well, things are moving slowly. First yesterday Ray and I had to go and get our TB skin test done. We will get the results of the test on Monday and then we will take them to the doctor and she will add them to the rest of the test results and our medical reports will be ready to pick up. It turned out that though we didn't have to pay for all the medical tests (thank goodness!) we did have to pay for the forms. This was expected. It was not as cheap as I was informed though. We will be paying $100 each for the forms.

In ten days Ray and I will be leaving for the coast. We will have our last component of the educational seminar. This is a three days seminar where we learn all kinds of things about adoption. After that we are signed off for education and then the agency will assign a social worker. Well, since we live in a small town I think we have already met her! She seems nice and cooperative. She was the one that was kind enough to do our prior check the day after she began at the new office and then instantly after she had hooked up her computer!

Once at the meeting we will receive a questionaire that we need to fill in for the social worker. That is when the actual homestudy with her begins.

As far as Ray's passport goes - I mailed that regular mail (poor choice!) on July 10 and apparently upon talking to the passport office, they are only working on May 31st mailings right now!! That means we are at least 6-8 weeks from being *looked* at. We need a copy of his passport before our dossier can be submitted to Ethiopia, so we are praying for a quick processing of his passport!