Getting Closer

Yesterday Eric and I had an appointment with a marriage therapist. We had to have an assessment of our marriage which included how we deal with stress, how we problem solve, what do we include or not include the kids on. We had to discuss the most difficult time in our marriage and how we dealt with it etc. The point is that anytime you bring in an older child to your family, there will be stress and additional issues to deal with. Colombia wants to be sure that the the adopting family is strong and will be able to deal and overcome the additional stresses that may come with the child/children. Anyway, the appointment went very well and the therapists report will be complete in a week.

After the appointment Eric and I began to discuss what all is left to do. We both became very excited to see the light at the end of the paperwork tunnel! We have to set up visit with the psychologist for personality testing and Eric needs a letter from his employer, proving his salary, and other general employment issues. Then we have to write an autobiography of ourselves. These are the next major steps. There are some additional things we will need to do too, but what I have just listed are the next steps we are focusing on completing.

Baseball is almost over and we will have a few weeks before Football and Cheerleading start, so I am hoping to accomplish a lot of this in the next few weeks. My real goal is to have all of our items complete by the first of August!

The kids are getting excited too. They have stopped asking a lot of questions so I have been trying to be creative with thoughts to give to them. Food for thought, kind of. They are in for such a shock and I want them to be as prepared as possible. My thought for them this week is on the country and our trip itself. I want them to view it as an adventure and to find something to learn everyday while we are there. The trip will be hard, just being away from home for 3 to 4 weeks, but also they will have to go to every legal appointment with us. They are so well behaved, but even they will get tired of the running to all of the appointments we will have to attend. I want them to be prepared for the change in food style, and the fact that they will not understand anything the people around them are saying. It's easy to accept these things for a few days, but for a whole month...can any of us really be prepared for that?

Hope everyone is doing well. I will write more soon.

Slowly but Surely

Here is an update for those of you reading.

It has been so busy, other than the adoption paperwork, that I haven't had time to think about the blog. The kids are out of school, baseball is coming to a close, Emilee's dance recital is this weekend, the kids took off for camp for 3 nights, Eric was offered a job 3 miles from home, more money, and just one shop instead of 7. His boss was a bit surprised at him taking a "demotion", but it's really a blessing from God. Less stress, less travel, close to home, and more money!

With all of that going on, and that's not even all, it's been kind of hard to keep our heads above water. I was feeling a bit discouraged because I hadn't spent any time on the adoption. But the other day I was able to get back on track.

The last thing we need to do in order to complete the first set of paperwork is to meet with a Psychologist and a therapist. We have to have personality tests, an assessment of our mental health, an assessment of our family life, and Emi and Nate have to be interviewed too. Normally this is about a $500 process, but Eric recently met a guy who is a Psychologist and wants to do the assessments and reports for us for free!! It has been so amazing to see God's hand at work in all of this. So anyway, we are setting appointments and hope to have all the reports completed by the end of June.

We also have one more meeting with the social worker, then we will have the Home Study complete...yippee!

The next step is just more paperwork, but it doesn't require as much running. We have to write biographies, a letter to the Colombian government, have tons of stuff notarized, etc. But for now we are just focusing on completing the Home Study.

I am so excited to think that we could actually have all of this complete and out of our hands the first part of August. I know it's all in God's timing. He has given me a real peace about everything we have done so far.

This is such an amazing time in our lives, we are getting anxious to be able to bring the rest of our family home.

Love to all of you! I will let you know when our Psy Report is complete and another step is behind us.