Work in Progress

I think its a rite of passage or something. Its like a part of becoming a Dad or something, or a part of being a Dad anyways- at some point, your wife will find a fabulous old dresser on the cheap that would look so cute in 'the baby room'. And, it 'just needs cleaned up, maybe stripped down a little and then painted or stained'. In the past year we've developed this habit of going to auctions here in Sturgis and.. we found an cutest ugly dresser for only $10! Its a serpentine dresser (which means the top drawers are curved) and there is also a mirror that hangs between two curved, scroll work arms. Its in great shape, just needs a makeover...

Its still a work in progress, but here are a few pictures of Wes' hard work in stripping it down and getting it closer to looking amazing. He's done a fabulous job- so proud of his new skills!!

What a difference some hard work and time can make- he's since finished getting all the old stain off. But, this is a nice picture showing how much it changed.

No News...

Well, its been a quiet 10 days or so on the adoption process. We're still waiting to hear that our Dossier (stack of paperwork) has arrived in Ethiopia. Its currently somewhere between Michigan, Washington, DC and Ethiopia. What I do know, is that they haven't cashed our check for the big lump sum required for our program fee and the authentication fee. I've got to admit, I'm really looking forward to seeing that big chunk of savings quietly slip from our savings! It'll be a good sign that everything on the US side has been taken care of- praying we hear our paperwork is in Ethiopia soon!

A Taste of the Future...

A couple weeks ago, we traveled to Chicago for the National FCCLA Meeting! We had a great time and did some really fun things. Some of which included the Sears Tower (including the Ledge), Shedd Acquarium, Lincoln Park Zoo, Taste of Chicago and The Museum of Science & Industry. But.... the food highlight of the weekend...our first taste of Ethiopian food!!! And, we LOVED IT! : ) This first picture is of our meal- it looks a little different but it tasted quite tasty.

This last picture of 'injera' which is a flatbread/tortilla/crepe type of bread which is the staple food of Ethiopians. You tear off a piece of the injera, then scoop up some of the 'wot' or stewed food. The first picture shows the 6 'wot' selections we chose. We had 3 vegetable ones and 3 meat including chicken, pork and lamb. It was all very good! Some was a little spicy but nothing crazy- I even ate them all and I'm not for super spicy stuff. We can honestly say, that we look forward to enjoying many years of Ethiopian cuisine : )

Delivered!!!

Yesterday morning, Wes got the fun privilege of handing over all 4 sets of our Dossier. What a great feeling. So, far it sounds like its all there and we didn't mess up on anything. It will now get passed on to the Bethany Headquarters for final approval and then its off to translation and Ethiopia. Ahh, what a wonderful feeling to be done with this phase : )

Tomorrow....

Tomorrow....we give this huge 'homework' assignment called a dossier to Bethany. And, we're very much looking forward to it. Today we took our 80 page, multiple stapled chunks of documents to Office Max. The nice people there kindly copied it all, kept it organized, stapled and called me on my cell when it was done. And, everything is still stapled which is super important because- if you unstapled a document with the State Seals, well, it suddenly becomes an invalid document with a fancy piece of paper stapled to it therefore requiring you to redo the whole thing. So, thanks Office Max!
Tomorrow...will be a great day.
Tomorrow...Baby Roth's cousins, Uncle Ryan and Aunt Jennifer come to visit for a few days. I'm calling it now- its going to be a great day : )

Signed & Sealed

Today was a great day for the progress of our adoption! It was busy, but it was good! I (Kim) got home from Chicago last night. It was soo good to be home- however, when we checked the mail, we discovered that our Police Clearance letters didn't arrive yesterday like they should have. So, today was a little hectic to say the least but in the end- we have completed our dossier and have the state seals are also on all the paperwork. The short version of today's agenda involved a 7:30am physical appointment for our life insurance, signatures at the Bethany office, drove back to Sturgis, stalked a few postal workers, nearly cried when I had that Sturgis Police Department letter in hand, headed to Pierre (175miles away), trust me- I made good time... : ), dropped everything off at the Secretary of State's office, finally got some lunch, went back & picked it all up, treated myself to a little Zestos for the road home (it was Raspberry day), headed back to Sturgis, stopped by the hay field in Milesville, had a nice chat with Dad and made it home all before 7pm. The moral of the story is- we're done paper chasing for our adoption!!!! The final fully compiled document is about 80 pages long. None of it is complex or difficult- but, it does kind of feel like that last day of the semester when you're just finally done.

Its taken an army people too- so, thanks to everyone who has helped along the way. So, what's next? Well this weekend we will make 4 copies of the whole thing. We'll keep a copy and give the original set and 3 copies to Bethany on Monday morning. They'll check everything (so please pray we've got it all in there) then send it to the Ethiopian embassy for authentication & translation. And, that's it- we wait for our referral. We still have a long ways to go but, the steps in between are getting fewer. Praise the Lord : )

Great News!

Its here- we have our I-600 approval!!! We've been waiting and praying and hoping that it would come soon. And, its here. I (Kim) am in Chicago for the National FCCLA Convention still. Its been a great trip...I'll share more then I get home. Wes went home on Monday and Tuesday, the letter came in the mail. So...what does this mean? It means that we are super close to being on the waitlist : ) Friday will be a day of signatures and then a quick trip to Pierre for the Great Seals on all of our documents. Then, we just turn it all over to Bethany's hands. It feels great to finally gain a little momentum again after that speed bump! We're Praising the Lord- we're so blessed!