Checking In.....

Just thought I'd take a few minutes and check in with the blog and update the world with where we are at. As with the last few posts we don't really know much new. We are STILL #9. There has been a lack of movement the past month and a 1/2 and as patient as I've been I'll have to admit the past couple of weeks the wait has started to get to me. We are officially in our referral window which is 3-6 month. We have waited over three months so it could come anytime. It is what they call "rainy season" in Ethiopia right now. As developed as we are in the USA it's hard to imagine that rain would slow someone down but with the roads and other infrastructure less developed it basically shuts down the country of Ethiopia to the extent that they stop processing adoptions over that time period. So where does that put us? Our agency does plan on doing referrals during the rainy season but we will have to wait until the courts open back up to hear our courtcase. That is scheduled to be October 4th. There tends to be a lot of back up on court cases when the courts open back up. Thanks to the wonderful agency we are using we have pretty much been told that will not apply to us. Something else that is a trend in our agency the past few referrals is the quick turn around time between actual referral and then travel time. The last few have been at around six-seven weeks from referral to travel. That would be awesome for us! So how long of a wait for a referral do we have? Well the care center holds 20 children and all the families that have been matched should have traveled and picked up their children by the end of this month which should open up the possibility of up to 20 referrals coming sometime soon. This is VERY optimistic and not likely but best case scenario. Our agency did confirm to someone they plan on doing referrals this month. They have typically come in batches of 6-7 so we are fairly confident we won't get one the first batch but hopefully in the second batch. We are still hoping to be home by Christmas.

We did cross one thing off our list a couple of weekends ago. Thanks to Steve and Hollie we have a completed swingset for Leah in the backyard. I'll try and post a pic soon but it is so nice to have that done and we couldn't have done it without their help. Thanks guys!!!

Talk to you all later.

Adam