Lots Going On, Little Time To Blog

In an earlier blog entry where I was counting down the days until we went to court I was hopeful that with Christmas and everything going on that the time would fly by until it was time to go to court. Well here we are only 13 days left until court.

First and adoption update. Nothing really new as of late. Our last set of pictures and measurements was early December and everything was going well. We did get word that he has been moved to the capital city of Addis Abba a couple of weeks ago so that was welcome news. Hopefully that is in preparation of us traveling soon. Things in the Ethiopia adoption world continue to be crazy. Just the other day an incident happened where the person who signs off on the adoption paperwork was out of pocket. As a result numerous court cases didn't pass that week. Hopefully the issue is resolved. There are constant rumblings about new law changes and such but nothing concrete so at this point we go with the flow. 13 days left!! If we pass on the 16th when will we travel? Well it's anyones guess but the new Holt timeline seems to be 2-3 weeks after passing court. The typical timeline would have us leave on February 5th. Again that is subject to many items the most important being clearing court. Pray that all goes well.

Things on the home front are good. We had an awesome Christmas which included extended visits with both sets of our families coming to our town. When the parents travel here it makes it much easier on us, but probably not on then:) Thanks parents! We scaled back our Christmas exchanging on a lot of fronts this year and that made it much easier on all. We also talked about scaling back even more this year and possible scaling back on some birthday exchanges. It allows us to have much more time for our families and not have to be out shopping and wrapping tons at the last minute. We did get some goods though. Adam got a new Bible, Guitar Hero World Tour Guitar set and with Christmas money purchased the complete band set, and some clothes. Sarah got a sewing machine, clothes, gift cards to go purchase clothes and several other items. Sarah purchased fabric and patterns to start sewing some clothes. Adam is not holding his breath. He does think the dress pattern she picked out will look wonderful on Leah's daughter!! Leah got toys, toys, and more toys. She never has and never will hurt for toys. Malachi got several things, the neatest one being a donation made to Heifer International. Heifer International provides livestock and training to remote poor parts of the world in hopes that the people will raise and reproduce the livestock. They have many projects in Ethiopia so it's quite possible that the donation made in his name is actually helping a family member of his or someone close by.

Possibly the best present was Sarah's parents agreeing to take the cats. As most of you know we've struggled with allergies/asthma for Leah and what was causing the pneumonia. The doctor did an allergy test the week of Christmas and diagnosed her with asthma officially but no allergies. At that point we resigned ourselves to keeping the cats. Sarah's parents agreed to take them and they are now out of our house. We have mixed emotions on the issue. We are sad to have them leave us. Those of you who have known us for a while know what those cats meant to us pre kids. (All you people who don't have kids now and swear that you will still love your pets as much when you have kids, WRONG). Knowing that they are going to a good home and we can still see them makes us feel much better. As they were loaded up Leah went to the car and went to each side where each cat was and said "Bye Titus, it will be ok" and Bye Ruthie, it will be ok". Don't know that she got what she said but it was pretty awesome.

Hope everyone had a great holiday and has a great start to the new year. My New Years Resolutions include giving up diet coke (at least not keeping it in the house, occasionally when I got out is ok), eating right, regular exercise (for those of you that don't know I agreed and have already registered and paid to run a 1/2 marathon in St. Louis in April, I am NOT a runner but many co workers are doing it and I felt the peer pressure) and finally, giving up the ridiculous purchases that we make. We, ok mostly Adam, has a tendancy to buy ridiculous stuff that I don't need. I'm going to try and give up those purchases. Disclaimer though, we already have gift cards to purchase new cell phones on January 17th when our current contract expires and I did buy Guitar Hero World Tour Band set with my Christmas money, and our treadmill was purchased on 12/31.