Great quote

I am now reading The Whole Life Adoption Book. Chapter 4 has a quote/statement:
Natural Child: any child who is not artificial.
Real Parent: any parent who is not imaginary.
Your own child: any child who is not someone else's child.
Adopted child: a natural child, with a real parent, who is all my own.
(this is an interesting book, lots of examples/different perspectives, some things I disagree with but can still appreciate reading, some religion mentioned)

I can't wait to get a child of our own home from Ethiopia!

Good things

I just received a necklace I had order that says: Expecting from Africa on the back it says My Peanut. We also received a large donation from a friend of the family: Thank you!

I am finishing the book: Twenty things adopted kids wish their adoptive parents knew by Sherrie Eldridge. It is very insightful. It makes me realize how naive I was going into this. Of course our child , adopted as an infant, will have just as many questions if not more then a child adopted at an older age.

Power back on

After several days without power it finally came back on Thursday night. There are still about 70,000 people without power in Franklin County, OH. I have never seen such strong winds. It unbelievable that Ohio received so much damage from Hurricane Ike.

Now I have to get caught up on emails and such.

We're Waiting!!!

As of 9-10-08 we are officially waiting!

Free Photos for Adoptive Families

I wanted to mention this for any adoptive families that look at our blog. Celebratingadoption offers free family photos to anyone who has adopted in the last year. We have tried to add our photography business but they are not accepting new photographers at this time (due to personal issues?).
We would still like to offer a free family photo session to adoptive families in central Ohio. If you are interested you can look at our website: harcarphotography.com If you are not in Ohio make sure to look at: celebratingadoption.org It will list photographers in your area.

Wait Times

We received an email today from CHSFS that wait times may run a little longer than originally expected (now 1 year). They are hoping to update us in a month or so and give us a more accurate estimate once the courts open back up in Ethiopia (courts close for the rainy season). There isn't much we or they can do about it.

I am trying to be positive and think of the pro's to this: we will travel in the off season (for weddings) and will have more time to save for travel etc... But if it were up to me we would be on the plane tomorrow. IF only it were up to me...

Dossier News: Update

Ok, we heard back from our agency already. We can mail in what we have-tomorrow!!! Once it is reviewed and approved they will put us on the WAIT LIST! I have never been so excited to wait around.

I wrote out the single largest check I have ever written ($8700) to pay for a huge chunk of the fees. We appreciate the donations we have received and the zero interest loan we were given to help us cover this amount. The next big thing will be covering the travel. It will total around $5000.

I will let you all know when we are officially waiting.

Dossier News

We are almost ready to send our dossier. We had a tiny snag-Joel took our power of attorney documents to the Sec. of State and got them apostilled. Apparently apostilling does not work for Ethiopia. (our agency had told us that but he/we missed the memo). He went back down there today and they are now certified.

We need one more document (as far as I can tell) before our dossier is ready. Our homestudy agency's license expires on 9/30 so we have to wait for their new license. I don't want to wait two more weeks to send in our paperwork. We are hoping to send what we have to CHSFS and then send the license in a couple of weeks when we get it. I don't want to wait two weeks to send in our documents and then find out something is missing. I am impatient like that.