A QUICK UPDATE IN PHOTOS

I am sitting here at Starbuck's with the company of my ginormous to do list! My sweet, and oh-so-lovely sister in law is watching Arthur today and of course, the most important thing on my list is to share some pictures with you! Here you go!

PACKED AND ON OUR WAY!

BEAUTIFUL ETHIOPIA

HOME!!

WHITE CHRISTMAS IN LUBBOCK

TRAVEL, TRAVEL AND MORE TRAVEL TO ARRIVE IN OUR NEW, OLD HOME, TEXAS!

LET ME EXPLAIN...

So, I've been sucking at blogging and I wanted to let yell you a little bit about my "situation". The apartment that has been offered up to us so generously by Kingwood United Methodist is quite charming... And when I say "charming" I mean... old-fashioned? Meaning we don't have a dishwasher, or a washer and dryer, or a mailbox, or... You guessed it Internet! No Internet... Well, that's not completely true. Sometimes we can pick up wifi if we take the computer out on the porch, two apartments down. When I blog, I blog from my iphone and posting pictures proves to be a challenge. Come to think of it, life has been quite challenging and even thought his isn't really my style, I'd like to leave you with a sort of sassy list of positives. 1. Managed to fix most of the things that were damaged in the move with gorilla glue and furniture marker. 2. Peabody remembered how to potty outside! 3. We now have hot water! 4. The one bedroom is a great place for our family to bond... Especialy in the middle if the night. 5. We get a great discount on day care at the church! (too bad there are no openings for the spring) 6. Aaron and I finally got rid of our ringworm! ...yes, I'm serious. 7. Arthur's intestinal parasites are gone! So, the past month hasn't been the most glamorous, but who cares right?? My Boy is home!! Still can't believe it! I will do my best to get pictures up soon.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Wow! The last  30 days have been CUH-RAZY! (stealing that spelling from you, Darby) Here's kind of how things went...

November 29 - Leave for Ethiopia to pick up our SON! (with only one day to pack and make travel arrangements)

December 1 - Pick up Arthur on his birthday and spend 5 beautiful days in Ethiopia

December 6 - Party at the airport! Our sweet friends welcomed us home with signs and balloons :)

December 7 - Aaron gets sick... like can't move... like can't get out of bed... just ill... leaving me to care for our new babe. I was exhausted, emotional and to be honest... wasn't really that confident in my abilities as a mother, so my mom came for a few days to help out! SO GLAD we did that... even though we originally planned on the first few weeks being the three of us. 

December 14 - pack up my desk at work and introduce Arthur/say goodbye to my sweet Hallmark friends :(

December 17 - Going away dinner to say goodbye to our dear friends in Kansas City... BOO HOO!

December 18 - Jacob's Well one last time. This is the first church I've really felt a part of, this is the church where we found community, this is the church where I was baptized. I will miss that place!

December 19 - Pack up our car and leave our home to celebrate Christmas in Lubbock with family. 

Christmas was CRAZY!!! Always is... in both good and bad ways ;)

December 27 - Aaron and my dad drive back to Kansas City to pack up a small U-HAUL of things to fit into a one bedroom church apartment that will be our temporary home until our house sells. 

December  29 - Aaron's sister and I drive from Lubbock to Houston to settle into the apartment. 

January 3 - Aaron starts his new job at Kingwood United Methodist.

The truth... it's been tough! This is not how I pictured bringing Arthur home! It's just been chaos! We've kind of been in survival mode and living out of suitcases since we picked him up. I've had to let a lot of things go. Hopefully we can start to get into a rhythm now that we are settled. 

Just wanted to catch you up. More about Arthur and how freaking amazing he is in the next post... promise!

CLEARANCE!

The wait is over, people! This morning we got clearance from the US Embassy! Yes.... you heard me right... after 5 grueling months, we we finally got the green light to travel to get our boy!

wait....

it gets better...

WE LEAVE TOMORROW!

and...
we're going to be reunited with Arthur ON HIS BIRTHDAY!! ...his wonderful, magical birthday! PRAISE GOD!

I hope to be able to go into more detail about some very important things that happened while we waited and the fun little details of today, but I need to finish packing!

Thank you everyone who has followed our story! People we know about and people we don't know about! We have relied on prayers and encouragement and we are so so humbled that you care ;)

BIG NEWS!!

Our papers were successfully submitted last Wednesday! (so sorry for the delay updating the blog) This is huge!! We've been waiting for this for 10 weeks and it finally happened!

So what now?? Well, one of three things could happen now...

ONE: The US Embassy could review our file, maybe request a couple additional documents and then clear us for travel! If this happens, it's possible we could be in Ethiopia for Thanksgiving.

TWO: The US Embassy could review our file and determine that there is insufficient evidence to declare Arthur an orphan. In that case, our file would be sent to USCIS Nairobi for review. The staff from USCIS in Nairobi were expected to arrive in Addis Ababa today to start going through these cases. If this happens, it's possible we would be in Ethiopia for Christmas!

THREE: Nairobi reviews our file and wants to investigate our case. If they decide to do an investigation, they have 3 months to collect evidence. If this happens, it's possible that we could be in Ethiopia for Valentine's Day!

Of course, we prefer scenario number one, but we are mostly glad that things are moving again!!

NEWS, HOPE, & MOM FIRE

I was trying to wait to share news until we were more certain that we actually had news... but then I just thought... "what the hay"... plus I've been thinking a lot about hope and what it really means to hope and, gosh... sometimes hope is really hard!

Last Wednesday I woke up and something happened... a fire grew in me... I will call it the great Mama fire. Something hit me and I thought... ENOUGH! We've got to do something!! All of the sudden I was ready to call a lawyer, go to Ethiopia, bust through those court doors, whatever... I was hurt and confused and I had hit my limit... I was mad! I emailed our consultant and asked a series of questions and made demands and tried really hard not to direct my anger towards her...

The timing of the "mom fire" became quite humorous when our consultant emailed us back informing us that the judge had fixed our decree. "umm... oh ok." ha!

So this is really exciting news right? But for some reason, we hesitated to celebrate. It probably had something to do with the emotions of the day, or the fact that the email read "it appears that the judge has fixed your documents", but it was mostly the fact that cynicism had crept in... YUCK! Week after week of hoping only to hear nothing new will wear you down. It will make you feel foolish. It will crush your sprit and then you will decide to be cynical instead. Will you pray that we can dare to hope again?

HOPE LIST:

that our agency will collect and translate our documents so that they can be submitted this week


that the US Embassy will accept our case this time


that our case doesn't have to go to Nairobi


that even if it does go to Nairobi it wont be a huge setback


that we will get to reunite with Arthur before his first birthday


that we will get to have Christmas with Arthur

INSPIRED

For a while now, I've felt like I needed to start something. Something creative that will keep me busy and something that can contain some of this anxious energy. I've had several ideas, but never was inspired enough to start. One of the ideas was a series of animal illustrations, but there wasn't a whole lot of substance to that idea... until... again my mom helped me to make this idea more complete. More interesting. 

My mom and I love looking for meaning in God's creation. We will often talk about animals that cross our path and what they mean. It's just cool to stop and think about how every different animal has unique characteristics.

So, the project! I will draw a series of animals. I'll draw animals as they cross our path. I'm starting with a beaver. My mom spotted this one a few weeks ago. The beaver is a builder, seeking alternatives to solve problems. Pretty creative creature!

What animals are crossing your path?

p.s. the series will probably move over to my design blog. 
Check in there if you want to see more animals.