Ballet and Goats

This is my niece E.'s ballet recital we went to Friday evening.

Here is her Daddy giving her a rose after her performance.

And here is W. feeding our new babies! They are 5 days old. The black one is W.'s and he named him Mustang and the brown one belongs to B. and his name is Bandit.

USCIS

We got up at 3:30 and were on the road by 5:15 this morning (after getting ready, eating, drinking coffee and dropping kids off). We pulled in to the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) office at 8:37, 7 minutes after they opened (how's that for timing?!). We took our I.D., checkbook and our paperwork inside with us and through the guard. We were number 002 to be helped, so the wait was not long. About 2 minutes after submitting our I600A, I was called in for fingerprinting. As soon as I was done, they did Jesse's. While waiting for Jesse, I asked if there was any way we could track out approval (I-171H--the "notice of favorable determination concerning application for advance processing of an orphan petition") but she said no. She did, however, say that we should receive it in about 3 weeks! That is sooner than we expected, so very pleasant news (of course, that is not for sure, but we can sure pray)!
We are at home, safe and sound, and have some very tired kiddo's after they have played with their cousins all day!

~Ashley

Good News!

I received an email confirmation this morning saying that our dossier had arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at 1:06pm on May 14 and is awaiting pickup! This is such a huge step! It now needs to be translated, which takes about 2 weeks.

We are headed out first thing in the morning to Yakima. We have to go to the USCIS office and give them our I-600A form. This is for immigration saying that you can bring a child into the US. I will write more about this tomorrow when we get home.

Thanks for reading!
Ashley

Reminder

Just a quick reminder that A Walk To Beautiful is airing on PBS tomorrow night. To check your local listings click here .

In adoption news, our dossier is currently in Paris, France. We are praying that it will be delivered to Ethiopia speedily.

Ashley

Next Stop.....Ethiopia!

I received an email today saying that our dossier had been sent to Ethiopia! I have a tracking number and signed up to receive emails anytime it changes locations. This is so exciting! Please pray that it will arrive in Ethiopia in a timely manner. Also pray for the people who are helping us--both in the US and in Ethiopia. We are really quite powerless to get things done ourselves, so we have to trust people and have complete faith in God.

Not much new

Our little girl all ready for church on Sunday.

Jesse logging for his grandma

B. helping Daddy log

Not much new in the adoption area. We are waiting to hear from the assistant stork when they send off our dossier. We will hopefully hear today! Then we will receive a tracking number and be able to track it's progress to Ethiopia.

Big Day!

Today was wonderful! We enjoyed the beautiful sunshine, had wireless internet installed, AND, our dossier was sent to the assistant stork for review and final authentication. Typically, once assistant stork receives you dossier it should take about 10 days before it is in Ethiopia! I sent it overnight, so they are supposed to have it before noon tomorrow. I am hoping that they just might be able to start working on it before next week. But if not, at least they will have it!

It is such a huge relief to have that much done! Now we need to work on the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Service). International adoption law requires that in order to bring a child into the U.S. from another country you must first get permission from the USCIS. We have to fill out more paperwork, be fingerprinted (again), give them money, copies of our birth certificates, marriage certificate, etc. Once we have done all this and are approved, we will receive our I-171H saying that we can bring an Ethiopian child into the US.

This evening we went fishing in our pond. Isn't it beautiful???!