We got a new picture of Penny!

I'm so excited to send this blog entry that in the words of a friend of mine from Tucson, "It makes my socks go up and down." "Penny" will be twelve-years-old this coming Sunday, June 3rd. One of the adoption coordinators of our international adoption agency in Seattle went to Thailand during the past two weeks and got to see our future daughter. She sent us a recent picture. (Just writing this is bringing tears of joy to good old weepy music teacher me! She is so beautiful!!)


Jay

We're Finally Approved!

Yes! Our home study finally got approved by WACAP yesterday. I'm glad that I called for the third day in a row. I hadn't heard a thing. And I knew that we and Adoption Alliance had sent the last requested documents the week before. As it turned out, WACAP had a substitute mail delivery person working for them this past week. And the sub accidentally put the envelope of documents from Adoption Alliance in the wrong box at WACAP. After I kept pestering poor Bridget at WACAP she went in search of the missing envelope and that's when she discovered it in another person's box. Since she had everything she needed, she went ahead and approved us. Later in the afternoon Jay got a call from the Family Finder's advocate, Beth Harnett. She told us that she'll be out of the office next week, so she will pass on the message to Andrea Caruthers, the Thailand coordinator, that we need the paperwork to sign to put Penny on hold. Yes, since we've been approved, we'll now get to have Penny put on hold for us. In other words, no one else will be able to try to adopt her now.

Another exciting thing we heard from WACAP is that they found an old video tape that they had taken of Penny back in 2003, when she was eight years old. They changed it into a CD-rom format and sent it off to us. They also found some old photographs of her. So, hopefully those will be arriving soon!


Last weekend we wrote about the fun weekend we spent with my German friend and her husband. This Memorial Day weekend we are cleaning up at home so that we can take pictures of our house for the Thai government. We need to send nine along with all the documents that we've been collectcing and notarizing. Now that our home study is approved we can also send all of these other documents (called the dossier) to Thailand. Then the big wait commences. Lately it's been averging about 4-10 months to hear back from Thailand.

I'll include a photo of our house I took today to show Thailand that we live in a decent home. I hope they agree.

Meeting Old Friends

We had a great weekend with a visit from my (Chandra's) best friend from high school and her husband. Christine and Stephan are from Germany. She is actually half American and half German. Her dad grew up in Freeman, SD. So, that's how she ended up coming to Freeman Academy for a year. Her husband's mother was Japanese and his Dad, German. But, the funny thing is that Christine and I had learned more Japanese and speak more than Stephan. She studied it in college and lived there for about two years. Her twin brother, Marcus, is also fluent in Japanese. We had a great weekend, staying up late, giggling like high school girls, again. And we enjoyed going up to Rocky Mountain National Park. Our husbands were very patient and did a great job of letting us just chatter non-stop. I hadn't seen Christine since 2000, when I visited her in Germany and then she came for a visit while I was in Japan. So, it had been almost seven years. It was great fun catching up and meeting each other's husbands for the first time.

Happy Mother's Day!

This Mother's Day has been exciting thinking that by next year this time I may actually be a mother. Well, our home study still hasn't been officially approved, yet, but it sounds like it's getting closer. WACAP is waiting for some copies of documents that we had already sent to Adoption Alliance. Meanwhile, we've also been collecting and notarizing documents needed for our dossier. That is what is required by the Thai government, along with a copy of our home study. I'm going to include a poem here, which I found on the internet. I liked it so much that I decided to include in the "Life Book" I've been creating for Penny. (A life book is kind of like a baby book, but a little different since she's an older child entering our family. And since they don't print those in the stores, I decided to create my own.) Here it is...

Love Poem from Your Mother

My child,
I carried you in my heart
before you were even born
And dared to dream
that you were real.
My child,
I carried your picture with me
since the day I received it,
And dared to love
a child I was yet to meet.
My child,
I carried you in my arms at last,
and gazed in helpless wonder
at your face,
And dared to lose
my heart to you.
And now, my child,
a dream fulfilled,
a prayer answered,
a family created,
I have dared to become
a mom.
And so now,
my precious child,
I shall carry you
home.

words by Jill Work Copywright 1998

Our First Gift for Penny & a Gift for Us!

Sorry you haven't heard from us in a while! So much has been going on between our jobs and the adoption stuff. Finally, we have some good news, after many, many frustrating delays. It's a long story, but to sum it up, we were asked to do stuff way beyond what the original directions stated on a form we sent in way back in February, besides other stupid delays. But, today we finally got the word that they have approved the additonal answers to questions that we had to gather info for this past week. And, it looks like by tomorrow we may finally have our home study officially approved by WACAP, more than a month after it had been completed by our agency in Denver. Once it is approved, then Penny will be officially put on hold for us. Perhaps then I'll be at liberty to share her real name or possibly her picture. We'll see. Another cool thing is that we got to send our first gift for Penny to WACAP. The Thailand coordinator is travelling there at the end of this month to visit as many of the orphanages as she can. If possible, she will personally deliver our gift and a list of questions that we have for the orphanage regarding Penny. What's weird is that she can't know who the gift is from. Another exciting thing is that I sent off our order for our fundraiser cookbook today. So, it should be printed in about 7-8 weeks. We've already started getting a few pre-orders for the cookbook. Please let us know if you'd like to order one. The cost will be $8 per book. Well, we'll keep you posted on when we are actually officially approved with our home study. Praise the Lord, that this may be the child for us!