Progress Update #17

Happy Ethiopian New Year!

Yesterday was a big day for our family! We drove to Charlotte for our fingerprinting appointment (more like a suggestion) and ate at Meskerem Ethiopian Restaurant . It was the *nicest* Ethiopian restaurant experience we've had so far. The food was reasonably priced also! I highly recommend to other NC families going to fingerprinting appointments to try it!



(I'm sorry, I always forget to take a photo of the food before we eat it!)

After lunch, we headed over to see where our fingerprinting would take place. Our letter was *extremely* confusing. It said "Don't go here and don't go there and we don't do this anymore," and had an address for sending correspondence, but it didn't include an address for the place to which we were to report! So, I assumed that we were to report to the place where all of the correspondence was to go. We found this beautiful, new government building with the sign, "U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration Services." When it was close to appointment time, we went in and met a very nice security guard who asked to see our appointment letters, and told us that we were in the wrong place! He just happened to have a pile of maps to direct us to the proper place. *sigh*

This is the wrong place:

Ooooohh, ahhhhhh!

At the bottom of the confusing letter, were the directions to get to this place:

It is in an office complex and was not obvious. (Both places had lots of gum on the ground. Really weird! I, of course, stepped in some fresh stuff!)

We were at the application service center for about an hour and 3 bathroom visits. After some convoluted number calling and herding of people (mostly immigrants applying for green cards who looked at us strangely!), we were called to the fingerprinting area where they wiped generic Windex on our fingers and placed them on a tiny scanner bed. Mine went very smoothly, but William had a tiny woman working with him, and she had trouble handling him!

After leaving Charlotte, we stopped to see some old friends from our church in Georgia, Randy and Martha Ward. They recently moved to Gibsonville, NC to be closer to family. They were like family to us when we lived so far away in GA. It was great to see them!

After a late-night dinner at the IHOP, we were almost home when the van died. William got it to limp home by shifting it from neutral to drive at all the stops. We got home around 10:30 PM and passed out!

Today, homeschool swim team began!

Progress Update #16

This week:

We took our papers that have been notarized in NC to the Secretary of State's office to have them authenticated. (They put another seal on it to prove that the first seal was good -these same documents will get this again at the federal level also.) We hit a couple of bumps, but nothing terrible.

Wednesday, our social worker emailed a copy of our homestudy for us to review. We got that edited and sent back to her the same night.

Friday, we made our payment for our 3, 6, and 12-month post placement visits and reports that Ethiopia requires so that our homestudy can be released to USCIS. I guess they'll let us know when they send it. We'll get a copy too to include with our dossier. It is funny to have our lives condensed to a 12-page report!

We'll let you know how the fingerprinting goes next Tuesday!!

FSOTD: Maggoty Bread!

So it's time for me to post another Funny Story of the Day (FSOTD). First, you have to know that we are big Lord of the Rings fans. Jeremy has finished reading "The Hobbit" and has begun "The Fellowship of the Ring," but the children are too young to have seen the movies. Susan and I are gearing up to see them again this holiday weekend. What the children know better is the Veggie Tales version called "Lord of the Beans." It has many similar lines and themes as the Rings movies. "Scary-man" instead of "Sauron," "Sporks" (half spoon, half fork) instead of "Orcs," etc...

One prominent thing that carries over from one of the Rings movies word-for-word is the Sporks/Orcs saying "We ain't had nothing to eat but maggoty bread for three stinkin' days." It cracks me up every time!

Well, one day this week, the girls (3 and 6) are playing in my office (a.k.a. the play room), and they are working in the play kitchen making --- maggoty bread!

--"Hello Sarah, would you like some maggoty bread?"
--"Oh! Yes, I love maggoty bread!"

--"What's for dinner mama? "
--"Maggoty bread"
--"Yum! Yum! Maggoty bread!"

They had me totally cracking up!

Progress Update #15

If you've read our blog lately, you know that we've been looking for our letter for our fingerprinting appointment for some time now. Twelve weeks, but who's counting?

Yesterday, I emailed USCIS/Department of Homeland Security to very delicately ask them (so not to tick them off) when our fingerprinting appointment would be since we were concerned that we hadn't received notification yet.

This morning, I had an answer complete with all of the information and paperwork that we are to bring with us to Charlotte. Our appointment is Tuesday, September 11, 2007 @ 2:30 PM which is 6 Pagumen 1999, the Ethiopian New Year's Eve and Millennium celebration! (Here is a cool site about the Ethiopian Millennium and calendar: www.ethiopianmillennium.com)

Also, today at our homeschool co-op, I met another mom whose family is adopting from Ethiopia with AWAA also! I had no idea she existed since she wasn't on the group's email loop. What a blessing that our child will have friends from his birth-country nearby!

Two families from AWAA met their children in Ethiopia this week. I love reading their blogs and am enjoying their journeys. Congratuations, Dudas and Cavitts!!

Progress Update #14

We are still waiting for that fingerprinting appointment. I was trying to wait to post an update until we got our letter, but maybe, it will come tomorrow...

Last week, we popped by the credit union to have our financial statement and our letter to the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs requesting our child notarized.

Also, after communicating with our social worker and our family coordinator, I filled out our new medical forms, drafted letters explaining our conditions, and dropped them off at the doctor's office with another letter explaining what we need for her to do. FINALLY, on Monday (8/27/07), we got a call that our forms were finished and that we could meet her with our new notary that we found at a mortgage company in the doctor's building. Bottom line is -WE'VE GOT OUR MEDICAL PAPERS! HALLELUJAH!

Soon, we're going to take the 17 documents that have been notarized in NC to the NC Secretary of State to get them authenticated. For just $10 per document, we can drop them off downtown by 10 AM and pick them up the same day since we have fewer than 30 documents. We'll see how that goes.

Our homestudy will be finished soon! Our social worker received our medical papers via FedEx today so that she can finish it up! YAY!

Ethiopian Food at HOME!

Our paper pregnancy has had both William and I craving Ethiopian food! Although, we our very blessed to live near an excellent Ethiopian restaurant, we can't afford to eat there (or out anywhere!) very often.

Our friend Heidi gave us enough berbere to get us going and told us about a middle-eastern market nearby that sells fresh injera (or "enjera" as the package says). We found split red lentils at our Harris Teeter, but also found them in bigger bags for less money at the middle-eastern market.

We searched for the simplest recipe with ingredients that we had and threw together "kik wat," a red lentil stew. Recipe follows:

KIK WAT

• 2 cups split lentils
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 tablespoons oil
• 5 teaspoons minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons berbere powder (or more)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 cups water
  
  In a big ol' pot cook onion, garlic, and berbere in oil until onion is translucent.
  Add lentils and water and cook on low with lid on stirring occasionally for 20-40 minutes or until lentils are tender.
  
  Eat hot with injera or rice.
  
  OUR KIDS LOVED IT!!!! Jeremy said it was "The best Ethiopian food I've ever had." Annika and Marissa got tired of eating the injera and ate small bowls of the lentils with spoons. YUM!
  
  

Tie-Dye Results are in!

As promised, here are our tie-dye shirts from the homeschool kick-off party on Saturday! Although, I helped Marissa fold hers and William folded Annika's, they dyed them all by themselves! Pretty cool! William even did his own!

I'm thinking about selling some tie-dye in Ethiopian flag colors to raise money for our adoption... We'll see!

Speaking of fund raising, our friend Joanna and a group of other lovely people from her church are going on a mission trip to Mozambique to build a library with "Global Missions South Africa." Joanna, a fellow homeschool mom of 5, is a talented artist and photographer and is raising funds for the project by selling her work on her family farm site: http://www.bestnestfarm.com/. I especially love the beautiful faces of Africa and the animals. Go check them out and help out by decorating your home! Please, pray for the group and God's work there also. They leave September 5, 2007.