Where Are We

Lots of people have been asking where we are at on the adoption front lately so I thought I'd give and update. As of yesterday we were #11 on the wait list. We were thinking we were somewhere there so that was no surprise. Our dossier has been submitted to Ethiopia so the US government is done with everything and it is now being translated. The courts close in Ethiopia coming up in the middle of July and are closed until early September. That doesn't mean we won't get a referral during that time period it just means it could be a little longer than average between referral and travel. Other than that nothing new from our agency.

We have parents in process class July 19th and 26th. It's basically two Saturdays of teaching us how to parent and deal with adoption issues. Obviously Sarah and I already have a kid so some of it will be review but we're anxious to learn about dealing with the adoption issues. We know 2 of the 3 other couples in the class so that will make it easier.

We had a garage sale last weekend to get rid of junk and apply some money towards our adoption. We raised a grand total of $268.10. Not bad considering Saturday was a total washout. It's not much in the grand scheme of things but it will help out with the costs. Thanks to everyone who helped and gave us stuff to sale. I still have an XM radio to sell on Ebay so hopefully we'll add to our total. Getting rid of the garage sale knocked out two of the big stress items for the summer. The last one is our youth float trip on July 12th. Once that's done it should slow down some as far as being in charge of stuff and having to plan.

We're working on names. We have a boys name picked out but are still working on a girls name. Maybe we'll announce sometime soon.

Several Holt familes just got back from Ethiopia and some are getting ready to travel. It's been exciting to see pictures and get reports back from over there. Sounds like things are going great over there. Hopefully they can get some of our SW Missouri rain and end their drought.

The company I work for currently doesn't offer adoption benefits. Since there are three people from work adopting currently we asked them to consider it. It's amazing what some companies give to their employees in way of adoption benefits. It's far from being finalized but from the early reports our company will be above average. Keep it in your prayers. Any help is a huge blessing and we know God will provide whatever we need.

Until next time!

Adam