IT IS ON!!

Our dossier was picked up by the Ethiopian America World representative this morning while we were sleeping!!! IT IS ON!!!! We're just waiting to be matched now!

Date/Time

Activity

Location

Details

Oct 29, 2007

1:20 PM

Delivered

BOLE SUB-CITY, ADDIS ABABA ET

Jeremy broke his arm on his 10th birthday, Saturday. He opened his new scooter, and on his second spin around the block, he wiped out. Jeremy is a tough guy and says that he doesn't hurt. He is in a plaster splint and will get his cast next Monday.

Sunday night, Jeremy tells me that his arm is "popping" where the break is when he moves. YIKES! So, I called a friend and the 24-hour nurse-line, and both thought a trip back to the ER was needed. William was just arriving at Awana with the girls, so we left them in Mom's care and took Jeremy back to the hospital. After an x-ray and 3 hours, they gave him a sling and told us he was still good. We were very relieved because he probably was in for surgery for a pin if it had moved.

Today, William got his stitches removed and, Marissa saw the doctor for a double ear infection and began her antibiotics.

Annika gets her cast off on Wednesday. She will spend the rest of the day in the tub!

"When will you get your baby?" (Revised!)

Well, A LOT has happened since I addressed this question in August. That's good!

We heard from our agency that the wait for a boy child is not necessarily taking the 4-7 months. During the last round of referrals from Friday, October 19, one of the families that received a referral after their dossier had been in Ethiopia for about one month! YIKES!

This realization sent shock through me! William's reaction to me was, "Didn't you know this would happen at some point? We're doing all of this to get our baby!"

So, my best guess is that we will get our referral in 2-4 months. That is just a guess though. Things could slow down, I suppose. I just hope I'm not writing an addendum to this post 6 months from now!

Today, I ordered this from the GAP!

It says "TREASU(RED)" and is part of the Product (red) collection from which half of the proceeds are donated to help women and children affected by AIDS in Africa. (It is on sale!)

Today is our 16th wedding anniversary! (We were married as children!)

Tomorrow is Jeremy's 10th birthday!

Pampered Chef Anyone?

Due to the great expense of adoption, we are seeking ways to help cover the costs. So our friend, Dawn, has arranged for us to throw a Pampered Chef adoption fund-raiser where we will earn a percentage of the sales to put toward our expenses!

So, if you need or want some Pampered Chef products, here you go! AND remember that Christmas is coming soon!

• Click on the link: www.pamperedchef.biz/dawnphillips
• Go to "order products," and enter "Susan Schmidt" as the host's name so that we get credit for your purchase.
  

We'll need your order by November 15, 2007.

I can't live without my stoneware! We make homemade pizza here at least once a week on the large pizza stone and the large bar pan is great for most anything that you bake or heat up in the oven like roasted potatoes, asparagus, egg rolls, biscuits, cookies, etc... Pampered Chef has lots of other nice stuff too!

Thank-you! William & Susan

Dossier in Ethiopia!

Here we GO!!!

Oct 23, 2007

12:00 AM

Int'l shipment release

ADDIS ABABA ET

12:00 AM

Held at FedEx location for recipient pickup

ADDIS ABABA ET

Package available for pickup at: HIGHER NO 21

We should hear when the country representative picks up our dossier from the FedEx location.

Dossier Tracking

Date/Time

Activity

Location

Details

Oct 21, 2007

12:01 AM

Arrived at FedEx location

FRANKFURT DE

12:01 AM

In transit

FRANKFURT DE

Oct 20, 2007

5:42 AM

Departed FedEx location

MEMPHIS, TN

1:17 AM

Departed FedEx location

MEMPHIS, TN

12:30 AM

Arrived at FedEx location

MEMPHIS, TN

Oct 19, 2007

9:34 PM

Left origin

HERNDON, VA

3:44 PM

Picked up

HERNDON, VA

1:21 PM

Package data transmitted to FedEx

Frankfurt seems to be the last stop before most go to Addis, but the packages sometimes spend a few days there.

So please, pray that our dossier gets to Addis before the AWAA country representative makes his long trip to pick up the dossiers that have been waiting since early October.

Progress Update #21

Over the past two weeks, our precious collection of papers, our dossier, has visited the U.S. State Department and the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington, D.C. We received a notice yesterday, Friday, October 19, 2007, that FedEx now has possession of it, and it is fix'n ta leave the country and go to Ethiopia!!! So far, it has gone from VA to TN, and unfortunately, that won't be the last time that it will appear to be traveling the wrong way! Any predictions on how long it will take to get there?

Scott and Jean's (introduced below) dossier arrived in China this week also!! We are so excited for them!

Our agency, America World, also handed out another batch of referrals. (A "referral" is when a family is notified that they have been matched with a child or children.) Another 6 children have been offered to become part of 5 families! That is a total of 12 children in 10 families in just the past 2 weeks!

It is so wonderful to watch as these children are placed in wonderful, Christian homes! Congratulations to those of you who got to "meet" your children and will be on your ways before you know it! Woo hooo!

Annika's cast comes off on October 31. She declared that is smells like a dirty shoe. She's right!

William got 8 stitches in his leg Thursday night after ripping it open on the rough end of a piece of metal conduit. EWWWW! He will be OK. After all of the stitching he's had over the years, he says this is the most in one spot!

Checking In...

Our dossier is still at our agency. I don't really know what they're doing to it, but it is to go to the U.S. State Department next week to be authenticated. Here is great news from our agency!
http://awaa.org/weeklyupdate/

America World is happy to announce that we received referrals for six children this week; four of the children were males, and two of the children were females. The ages of the children ranged from approximately 1 ½ months to 11 months old. There are five families currently reviewing the referrals for these children. We look forward to receiving their responses within the next week! (All of the families did accept their referrals last week.)

America World signed a lease for a transition home in Addis Ababa last week! Once this home is up and running, the children who are being adopting by America World families, will be transitioned to this home from the orphanage between the time of referral and travel. In addition to this, our in-country staff liaison has recently hired two additional staff to help with adoption processing. Our agency believes that both of these accomplishments will lead to a smoother, more efficient adoption process for Ethiopia families, so we are happy to share this news!

On the home front:

Our van went back to the shop this week and got new front axles. We're unsure what to do. The "repair" job in Ohio has caused our van to growl constantly from stop to 45 mph. Growling aside, it drives much better with the new axles. PTL!

William took my computer apart last weekend to move my HUGAMOUS hard drive into another machine with a newer processor, so long story short -I don't have a working computer. :-) So, if you're waiting on a reply to an email, send me another email because I don't have my address book up and running. I am checking my mail on the internet everyday, but it is difficult to keep up.

Annika's arm is healing well. She had x-rays on Friday, and it looks like her cast will be removed in two weeks. She's complaining about pain mostly at night, but she is getting around fairly well with a little extra help. It got cold here, and she is mad that she can't wear long sleeves. Her jackets fit, so she'll live for two weeks!

We are pumped up for FAIR DAY at the NC State Fair next Tuesday!! Woo hoo! This is our family thing -William's favorite day of the year! Hopefully, I'll be able to post some fun fair photos late next week -or whenever I have a computer again!

Bad things aside, we are thankful that homeschooling is going well, William has a job, and we are all healthy! AND did I mention? -Next week is FAIR DAY!

Parallel Lives

One of the very first people I met when I went off to College was Scott, and shortly there-after, his future wife Jean. Scott lived right down the hall, and we became fast friends. We were close all though college and even shared a house off-campus our senior year. Scott and Jean were college sweethearts and married shortly after graduation. We were in each-other's weddings and stayed close for many years after graduation. When we moved to Georgia, we saw them less and less and then Scott joined the Air Force and has now been sent to Guam. Guam?! I had to look that one up on a map (It's near the Philippines if that helps).

A couple of years ago, we heard from Jean and she was starting to home school her two boys and looking for help, advice, and support from someone who had "been there." A couple of months ago, I found out that Scott and Jean are in the process of adopting from China. That is so exciting! We are at about the same stage in our paper pregnancies, but things are quite a bit different for them trying to get their orphan petition from Guam and having to send documents back to the states for authentication.

It's just so amazing to me that after all these years, we still have so much in common -- HAPPY 15th SCOTT & JEAN

Progress Update #20

Oh, Happy Day! Our dossier is safely in the hands of our America World family coordinator in McLean, VA!!

William stuffs the dossier papers into the FedEx box.

See the guy who thinks we're crazy? Actually, he was happy for us!

Eric, the FedEx guy. I told him he was like our obstetrician!

We're waiting to hear that all is well with the papers and to find out what will happen next!

Stay tuned...

Progress Update #19

When I got home from the orthopedic office this afternoon with Annika, I found our mailbox absolutely stuffed with all of the mail that the post office had been holding since last Thursday. As I sat and sorted out the mail that needed to be looked at more thoroughly from the garbage, I had an inkling that something special like a check could be in the pile when I came across an envelope from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services...

I opened the envelope, and there for four sheets of paper stapled together. They are black and white photocopies. The first one has a Department of Homeland Security seal at the top that has been cut off when it was copied. About a quarter of the way down the page, it reads in all caps:

NOTICE OF FAVORABLE DETERMINATION CONCERNING APPLICATION

FOR ADVANCE PROCESSING OF ORPHAN PETITION

Huh? Could that mean what I hope it means? I think so!!

I ran upstairs with the papers to show William, and he's like, "What's this?" I told him that I thought it was what we were waiting for, and he says that he's not so sure about that. There are several boxes with X's on it, and he's also thinking that they're just reporting that they've done something or something is wrong...

UNTIL, he spies in the bottom left-hand corner, "Form I-171H."

HEY! THAT'S WHAT WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!

WOOOOO HOOOOO!

HALLELUJAH!!

PRAISE THE LORD!

SO, tomorrow we will get it notarized and authenticated by the NC Secretary of State with our home study and another document, and it will be all ready to go to FedEx tomorrow evening and to America World by Friday morning!!!!

About Annika: She is doing well on Ibuprophen. Today at the orthopedic office, the PA mentioned that it was a really bad break. Funny, how they didn't use that phrase Sunday at the ER! We go back next Friday for an x-ray to see how it is healing.

Reunion -I just don't know what to call it!

We're back from another Ohio adventure! WHEW!

William and I had our class reunions. I won't say what year, but we heard Wang Chung and Duran Duran at the party. We went to William's school's homecoming game and an alumni picnic at a park the next day. I loved meeting his friends and it was a lot easier for me since I wasn't expected to know anybody! We went to my party on Saturday night, and I was thrilled to walk in and see two "kids," Ann & Neil, with whom I went to kindergarten! William and I hung out with the other "bandies," Teresa & Dave (and spouses), and had a fun night! My face hurt from smiling and laughing.

Sunday, William's brother and sister-in-law hosted a family reunion. It was really nice to see everybody there also! Sadly, we didn't get to visit much though...

When attending a family reunion, DO have fun with your cousins...

DON'T break your arm!

Before setting the bones and drugs, "Mama, help me! Mama, help me!"

After the morphine.. She looked at the cast and asks, "Hey, where did that come from?" After being so scared and concerned for her, it was a relief to see her stoned and giggling!!! Check out the bear's cast! She named her "Little Buckaroo!"

Annika should have the cast for 4-5 weeks. By making her so needy, I think God may be using this experience to prepare us for our baby. (That's what I'm telling myself anyway!)

Our van was in the shop for a day before we headed home. Unfortunately, they did not fix the problem for a lot of money. I don't think that they even took it for a test drive. So, we had a shaky 500-mile drive home and have to decide what to do now. BLEH!

It was great to see family and friends though. *SIGH*