In 5 Days...

In 5 days, we begin the final leg of our journey to bring you home, Danil.
We will pluck you from here:

And bring you here:

 And more specifically, here:

 So you can be one of us (officially!):

I'm a little weepy right now.  I have a feeling I'm going to be a total mess when we actually get on the plane, much less when we meet you for the first time. I still can hardly believe that we are almost there.  We cannot wait to bring you home where you belong!  We love you already, sweet boy!

Donations for Danil's Orphanage

So, we are doing great on funds.  Thank you to all of you from the bottom of our very, very, honored hearts.  We have one little thing to ask of you before we leave (ahem, in NINE DAYS!!):

We plan on taking a suitcase full of clothing to the orphanage, and we have also heard that there is a desperate need for disposable diapers there.


Our plan is to take as many supplies as we can fit into our luggage with us, and then collect funds to buy items of need for the orphanage when we get there.  If you would like to contribute to this donation fund, please use the chip-in link to the left to do so.  Keep in mind a small package of diapers is between $8-$10 dollars.

I will also be putting up some items for our last fundraiser, one more online auction. I'll be posting the photos on Facebook and will put a link to it on our blog.  Hopefully that will be up and running tonight.  I love fundraisers like that, because everyone walks away with something great :)

Here's a teaser:
(Thanks to Down Syndrome Footprint for the donation!)

I so badly want to keep this necklace!!!

Edited to Add...

We'll be doing this in one trip.  It will be super hard to leave Moe, Larry, and Curly at home for so long without us, but we know they are in good hands, and we will be able to have more one-on-one time with Danil in country...something that will be highly unlikely to happen again once he moves in under the big top here.  We're just keeping our fingers crossed for a quick 4 week trip.  If it ends up that we need to change plans in the middle because of a delay, then we'll work a trip home in.


Redneck Waterpark (in detail for Cate):

 Playing in the water or oral-motor exercises?  You decide!! :)

 This will be in the graduation/wedding montage someday:

Tickets Bought!

Alrighty!  This is all starting to feel very, very real!

Bryan bought our tickets to U today, so we are all set to go on August 4th.  And by all set to go, I mean that we have tickets and passports.  Nothing else is done.  At all.

I feel like I have a hundred things to do, but I need about 8 hours to uninterrupted time to organize my thoughts and pull everything together.  All of my to-do lists are kind of scattered about in random post-it notes and the backs of used envelopes.

At this moment, I am holding down the fort with Chase and Guy while Bryan is in Florida fetching Ian back from his 8 1/2 day visit with his cousins and grandparents.  He's had a really really awesome time, and is full of stories when I talk to him on the phone.  He also told my brother and sister-in-law that the reason he is eating so much so quickly there is because he doesn't really like the food that I make him at home because we are vegetarians.  Ha!  Well, we are looking forward to getting him back here, but he is going to be quite put-out when he has to resume eating brown rice and beans and also has to do chores daily instead of the daily adventures that his Florida family has been spoiling him with ;)

And now for a random list of things that I have done in preparation for our trip:
1- Bought Ian's school supplies.
2- Secured Ian and Chase's school transfer for the fall.
3- Cleaned out the shoe baskets so that my MIL can figure out whose shoes belong to who.
4- Built a Redneck Water Park in the backyard.
5- Threw about 6 random things into a suitcase.
6- Wondered if I should start packing now, and then just wear yoga pants and old t-shirts here until it is time to go...?
7- Ate a package of Oreo cookies.
8- Folded 1 1/2 baskets of clean laundry.
9- Made 2 freezer meals.
10-Repaired Chase's brand-new glasses.
11- Made 1/2 a photo book before my computer froze and deleted it.

I think I am just kind of lost in the enormity of it all.  Not to worry, though.  I work well under pressure.  We'll be ready to go when it's time :)

SDA Appointment Date!!!

Last night Bryan and I were speculating about when we'd hear about a travel date to get our sweet boy.  I said that I hoped it would be at least by the end of the week.  I think I officially thought by Thursday.

And this morning, when I checked my email...there it was!  Our SDA appointment is on August 8th at 12:00pm!  Official.  In writing.  No more speculation.

Oh, my word.

We are ready to do this.

We can now put into action the final bits and pieces to this journey.  We will leave our boys here, for the longest we have ever left them, in order to bring their brother home where he belongs.  Be still my heart!!!!

God has totally answered our prayers.  Everything in this world says that we should not be able to do this, but  He is bigger than all of the shouldn'ts and the not-possibles.  Not even a government closure of the adoption office can stop us His plans!  Thank you, thank you, to all of you who have prayed for us, with us, and/or sent some kind of positive universe vibes.

Now...on to the packing, the ticket-booking, the photo-book making, and the twelve million other little details that need to be attended to...!

Another Glimpse

It's so easy to become frustrated with the hurry up and wait processes, and the on-again-off-again twists and turns that take place in the world of adoption. This verse tends to be one of my go-to places:


^{Matthew 6: 33} But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.


But it is always nice to wake up in the morning and find something like this, a glimpse at the boy behind the red tape and the paperwork, behind the deadlines and the closures...

And it is those deep dark eyes and those sweet pudgy cheeks of his that remind us that all of this hoop-jumping is going to end with quite the amazing, life-changing conclusion for all of us.


Thank you to Amy for gifting us with a new photo today!!

Another Update About Waiting

Soooo.  Here we are.  Again!

We don't really have any news...just that we are awaiting a travel date that *should* happen within the next couple weeks.

We anxiously look forward to being able to meet our son face to face, but are not loving the limbo-land in which we are living right now...!  I'm looking at this as the ultimate lesson in patience.

Funny: every time I call Bryan at work, he thinks I'm calling to tell him we have a date.  It's like when I was overdue with Gavin...for 5 weeks he thought every call was going to be the "I'm in labor" call.  This is TOTALLY like a pregnancy, except that instead of rushing to the hospital down the road, we have to book tickets halfway around the world!