USCIS

Well, we're waiting for a letter to come in the mail that gives us an appointment to go to Tampa and have our fingerprints taken for immigration. After our fingerprints are run through the system(s) and show that we're not criminals, we receive a form that is the final piece of paper to be included in our dossier. Our dossier will then be mailed to Ethiopia for them to approve and put us on the waiting list for a baby girl.

So, I'm checking the mail every day as soon as it comes and on Fri., we received the first letter that we have to receive from USCIS (immigration), which says that they've received our request to bring home an orphan and they're processing our request. Which is great news, and we were happy to receive that. But some people, we've heard, receive the actual appointment letter the day following the initial letter that says they're processing the request. So Sat., I ran out and there was no letter in the mailbox. And yesterday, I ran out to check the mail, only to remember it was a holiday. I felt so silly running out to the mailbox at my usual time and remembering Presidents' Day. I hoped no neighbors saw me!

And still nothing today in the mail... So hoping to get the appointment tomorrow... Waiting on God and His perfect timing...

On a happy note, we are LOVING spending so much time with Lisa and Danny and Michael and Kathryn, Luke's siblings and their spouses. Lisa and Danny are in town for 3 weeks before they move to Indonesia for 5 years to be missionaries. So we're seeing them as much as we can while they're here, which also means we're seeing Luke's brother, Michael, and his wife, Kathryn, a lot too, which we love. And tonight, Mimi and Papa are babysitting all 5 grandkids so the 6 adults can go out to dinner and a movie!! I'm so excited! I've been wanting to see The King's Speech for months and we're finally going to see it tonight (hopefully). It was sold out the last time we tried to see it. I love that I married into a sweet, close family who all loves each other so much. It's so wonderful. And Lisa has a fancy camera and has been taking so many pictures of the kids that I will post on the blog soon!

A funny thing Will said: He's so into Star Wars that we have to ration how much the kids are allowed to watch it because really, they all 3 love the movies. So they fight with light sabers and pretend to be Star Wars characters all the time. Hudson told me this morning that I could be Ventress, who is a terrible villain. But that's ok... Anyway, so they're into fighting and playing Star Wars and I've told Will I don't want him to say words like "kill", "murder", "shoot your head off", etc.,because he seems like he's saying them so often and it sounds terrible. So I told him to say the word, "defeat" instead. So at the family picnic the other night, he and Hudson were playing Star Wars with sticks they found on the ground and Will was starting to say some of those words, so I reminded him of the new word to say instead, and he said, "I defeated your head off!!" Not exactly what I had in mind, but still sounds better than the more explicitly violent words!

I'll update when we have some exciting news!