Getting Close!

It's been a busy past few weeks! Nick and I were in DC twice. Once for the Teach Them Dilligently homeschool convention where I got to meet the awesome Julian Nalle, adoptive Mama, orphan advocate and author of Biblioplan which we will be using for History starting next year!

Our 2nd trip towards the end of May was to spend the weekend with my nieces while my sister and brother in law had an early anniversary weekend. Little girls are so much fun! I got to spend the weekend doing nails, hair and playing dressup!

And the baby is pretty much the happiest baby ever!

While we were there we found out that we finally got the signature that we had been waiting on for 7 weeks and then to my complete surprise we received our court date the following Monday! I hadn't even been stalking my email like I usually do when we're anticipating news, thankfully our social worker messaged me on fb to suggest maybe I'd want to check it!

We have court June 24th!! 1 week from tomorrow if all goes well the son of our hearts will legally and officially be our son!!

He is doing pretty well too. He's had some ups and downs while processing every thing, but that's to be expected. He's 8 and his whole life is getting ready to change. We know its for the better but he can't know that for sure. I can't imagine picking up the only life I've ever known and moving with people I've spent 5 days with to a country where I don't speak the language. So all things considered we think he's doing pretty well. We were able to hire an English tutor for him in country and I think it's helping ease his anxiety.

And, his English is really coming along, he may not have a lot of words yet but his pronunciation has come a long way and it's more flowing, not the rapid, staccato speech he's had in the past.

Short and Sweet

Check out that smile!

We had a great time celebrating Father's Day! My husband doesn't do any social networking so here he is in case anyone was thinking I made him up :) So thankful for him, he's an awesome dad, amazing husband, provider for our family and there's no one I'd rather be doing this parenting thing with!

So, after we pass court on the 24th it will take around 3-4 weeks to get back the court decree and for our agency to receive his new birth certificate. We are hoping for travel around the end of July. My friend Mandy is making the pickup trip with me and she is such a sweet friend that she is going to do so soon after getting back from going with another friend to China for her pickup trip!

We estimate that we need around $3300 more to be fully funded. Can you believe it?! We started out looking at a $30,000 mountain so to be so close to having it moved just leaves us humbled and full of gratitude. If I haven't said it lately, thank you to each of you who has come alongside us in this journey. I know over the last 17 months I've probably worn you out with our constant fundraisers and I haven't been the best of friend at times so thank you for sticking by us!

There were times when I wondered if we would really ever get to the end of this part of the journey and there have been a lot of ups and downs. So now its crazy to think that we could actually have him home in 6 weeks or so!

We don't have any big fundraisers going on right now. We have some of our 'Do Something' tshirts left and I will try to get a separate post up in a bit with the colors and sizes we have left to sale. 

My Dad and the Riders Club of our local Amvets are putting together a Poker Run for us that will be held on July 20th. (Also, the Riders Club and the Ladies Auxillary are donating $800 towards our adoption!!) I'm excited because for the most part this will be a whole new crowd of people who we will have the chance to share our story and the plight of orphans worldwide with! So, if you're nearby and want to come join us please stop on by!

And, our FSP on Reece's Rainbow is still open if you want to make a tax deductible donation to help us get closer to be fully funded! You can donate here

The amount shown in our grant does not go down when we take money out. We took out $5246.60 before first trip to pay our 2nd set of agency fees and part of our plane tickets. So the actual amount in out grant (as of writing this on 6/16) is $2515.87 We expect to need around $6500 for two roundtrip tickets (currently around $1700 EACH for the week I think we'll most likely travel) 1 one way ticket, hotel, food, TB test and embassy medical.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support!

Love ~ Steve, Brooke, Nicholas & Ian