Week after Christmas

We were sad to see Chad, Teresa, and Gustavo leave for home Sunday after Christmas. But the following day, our good friend Jim flew in!! We were so excited to have him visit until Friday.

Jim was such a trooper as I dragged him and Jason around to complete some of the tasks off our list of adoption paperwork. Jason had to have his physical, including a TB test that had to be read two days later, we got fingerprinted for the State Bureau of Investigation, we got our police reports, and Jason had to have a mini-physical to buy life insurance.  On top of that, we replaced our downstairs furnace because it was on its last leg, and I started to feel sick and ended up going to the doctors office and getting a Z-pack - this made my tummy really upset!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

The whole Maurer family was together to celebrate Christmas!  We had an early dinner and then opened stockings and presents. Jordan had requested a "Fox" brand hat from us for Christmas. When Katie, Kelly, and I had been shopping at Urban Outfitters after Thanksgiving we found this fox hat...

I wish I had gotten a picture of Jordan in it, it was much cuter on her!  She seemed a bit disappointed when she opened her present to find our interpretation of a fox hat, but I think she also thought it was kinda cool. ;-) When all the presents were opened, we brought out her real "Fox" hat... she was so happy!  We all had a good laugh about all her reactions!

We spent the rest of the afternoon playing the Michael Jackson Wii dancing game and enjoying the time together!  Shortly before the Maurer's headed home it began to snow. As they were leaving, Jason started an impromptu snow ball fight!! Jason and I got Jamie and Mr. Maurer good!! ;-)

Jason, Gustavo, and I were committed to completing the Santa puzzle that evening. We finished it around 2 am!  We decided to write inside the box cover the year and all the people who contributed to putting it together and making it a Christmas time tradition. This year included the whole Maurer clan and the Rogers!  Here's a pic of the completed puzzle, it was harder then it looks!!

Christmas Eve

Jason and I left Chad, Teresa, and Gustavo at our house and went to my dad's house for my families traditional Christmas Eve dinner.  The Maurer's, Jamie, and Jordan went to our house to have dinner with our guests! 

At dad's I played some cards with the Malcolms and Kelly while dinner was cooking. Jason, dad, and Jake watched sports, of course! ;-)  Dinner was fabulous, as usual - thanks Kelly!!

After dinner we piled into dad's family room and guessed our Kris Kringles. We had been unsure whether of not David would be at dad's on Christmas Eve, so we brought his presents just in case!  When he finally did guess us, Kelly took a picture with her phone of the pile of presents we had for him and sent it to him. When it was our turn we were sure the Lever's were our Kris Kringle - but we were wrong!  We guessed everyone that was left and our last guess was Jake - he was it!  He gave us Wii Mario Galaxy 2! Yay!!

When all the guessing was over, we started to explain one of the presents we got David to everyone... but decided to show them instead!  We unwrapped the gift... a strobe light t-shirt!  It was black with red (pinkish) wings that light up to music (noise)... David will be a chick-magnet in it! ;-) The kids all had lots of fun playing with the shirt with music and making loud noises!

We were surprised when we arrived home late that Teresa and Gustavo were still awake and working on the Santa puzzle!  Jason and Gustavo worked on the puzzle while I hung that stockings by the chimney with care! :)

Tron and Jason's vacation begins!

Chad, Teresa, Gustavo and I met up with the Maurer's at the IMAX theater to see Tron.  I had never seen the original Tron, and didn't really know what to expect. I think it was a boy-movie!  Mr. Maurer, Chad, and Gustavo seemed to like it! ;-)

On our way home from the movie, we stopped by South Point mall so Chad could buy Teresa's present!  Teresa and I went on our own and Teresa got Jason a present. We left the mall and we were all hungry!  We headed back to the 'Boro and stopped by Friday's.

The next day, Jason came home to start his Christmas vacation!! I had to run back to the doctor's office to get my TB test read and was hoping that I could get the documents I needed, but alas, the doctor was not in the office.

Completing Physical Exam and NBA Game

After two weeks of working to get the blood labs completed for my physical in St. Simons, I gave up and decided to have it completed at Duke so my doctor would get the results in a timely manner.  I had attempted since December 6th to get the local Urgent Care clinic to accept the blood draw request from my doctor at Duke, we played phone tag, got bad faxes, and miscommunicated the whole time I was in GA between Thanksgiving and Christmas!

So, I finally went to Duke to get the blood lab completed and the final portion of the physical exam completed. The nurse had told me over the phone that I would need to also get a flu shot - okay, whatever! When I got to the doctor's office they also mentioned that I need a flu shot - okay, that's fine. I was in the chair getting poked when a nurse popped her head in the office and said, "Oh, this doesn't say flu shot, it says TB test!" Which meant I would have to come back 48-72 hours later. I had not planned to make the trek to Durham twice in a week while having guests, but it all worked out. The first trip was planned and Chad, Teresa, Gustavo and I all piled into the car for a day of driving. We went to Durham to my doctor's office for a short visit, then to the Weathervane to see Kelly's restaurant and shop at Southern Season. We then went home and rested for a few hours before going to Charlotte for a Bobcats game. It was Teresa and Gustavo's first time going to an NBA game!

Unfortunately, our team did not win the game, but it was still a lot of fun!!

Not quite court side like David's pictures!! ;)

Indian Food

While in St. Simons I discovered a delicious Butter Curry "flavor pack" as I like to call them, a package of seasoning to put on meat. I think the brand is "Taste of India" and it's sold at Harris Teeter.  While grocery shopping over the weekend with Teresa, I saw it on the shelf and mentioned it and Teresa said she had never had it and would like to try it. I have made it for dinner a few times in St. Simons and the last time I made nan (Indian bread) to go with it. I found the nan recipe on allrecipies.com.  Teresa and I worked on preparing the bread this morning, it has yeast so it has to be made beforehand.

I had planned to take Teresa and Gustavo to the Woolworth Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro, luckily I checked online to see the hours only to realized that it's closed on Mondays! Poor Chad was not only feeling badly, but he also had a paper to write for his class. So, he stayed home while Teresa, Gustavo, and I went bowling! It was a blast!! We are all not professional bowlers, we just had lots of fun!

For dinner we finished preparing the nan (Teresa did this - she did all the hard parts!) and I cooked the chicken with the flavor pack. It was so yummy!!

Christmas Shopping Debacle

Dad and Mom M. came over to greet our guests and then we all headed out to Hanes Mall in W-S.  Once we found parking spots, we headed inside and decided to split up and meet back up in 2 hours. Jason and I were quickly done with our shopping at the mall and we needed to go to Costco, which is just down the street. We got in our car to go, thinking we had plenty of time to get there and back - boy were we wrong!  About an hour later, and still trying to get out of the mall parking lot, we called Dad M. to see if they could all climb in their car and meet us at Costco when everyone was done at the mall. We made it to Costco (it was packed!) and thought the Maurer clan were headed our way, but then Jason got a phone call saying that they were already on the highway headed home!  The whole area was so crowded, it was they decided to get outta there! Jason and I met them back at home, we were all very hungry after fighting the crowds.  We made chili (as in chili, not chili with beans - Jason always makes the distinction because he doesn't do beans!) and had a good dinner together.

Christmas Time Guests!

Jason and I drove home from St. Simons, GA to Greensboro today.  We arrived just a couple hours before Chad, Teresa, and Gustavo (their exchange student from Mexico).  It sounds like they may have taken a bit of a detour through the mountains by accident due to the "avoid toll roads" option on their GPS. But they arrived safe and sound!! We are so excited to have them staying to celebrate Christmas together!

Yahoo Group

Today I made my first contribution the the AWAA Ethiopian families Yahoo Group.  I have checked it out once and a while prior, but felt moved today to contribute as there was a new family from SC.  I chimed in that we are from NC and are in GA right now, and was pleasantly surprised that there are several other families in NC and in the GA area!  I hope we will get to meet some of them and maybe even have our children meet some day!

Homestudy Meetings

We cemented our first 3 (of I think 4) meetings with our social worker, Michele, today. We will be meeting with her January 9, 14, and 16.  She is so gracious to give up some of her personal time on weekends to meet with us so that Jason doesn't need to take too much time off work! 

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving, there is so much to be thankful for!! We were blessed to have the Tuttles staying at our home over the weekend. They arrived Wednesday evening.  Jason flew in Wednesday evening as well, once we were all together we had dinner at one of our favorite Greensboro restaurants - Natty Greens.

While Bonnie was getting the kids into bed, I recruited Jason and Steve to assist me in peeling a bag of potatoes for au gratin potatoes.  The whole thing was a group effort, Maura actually cooked the potatoes Thanksgiving day at her house! Way to go team!!

Thanksgiving Day was packed with activity!  We went to Dad's house Thanksgiving morning to get professional family photos taken, then stayed for lunch, and after lunch I went and saw the Mega Mind movie with the Tuttles and Katie. When we arrived back at Dad's we had a few a bit of time so the kids and I completed some Turkey plate crafts Kelly provided. We ate a very large, delicious Thanksgiving dinner! Thanks Kelly!! During dessert we picked our Kris Kringle, the ornament was beautiful! Thank you Natalie!! We headed home to get the kids to bed after such a long day!

Friday everyone came to our house for crafting and playing. The nieces and nephews had a wonderful time making some gorgeous ginger bread houses together!  They also made nutter-butter turkeys and some ornaments. We ate some yummy pizza for lunch. Then it was time to play, Wii being the main event! Once the Levers headed home, we relinquished the TV to the grown up boys to watch football and Steve, Colleen, Liam, Jonathan, David, and our neighbors grandson, David, all played two-hand-touch football in the backyard!  We had Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner and we all chatted the night away.

We were very sad to see the Tuttles leave the next morning. We have been so blessed to see them so many times this year!! We hope they come back soon!!

Paper Preggers!

Our adoption agency affectionately calls all the paperwork that must be completed as part of the adoption process our "paper pregnancy" because it is laborious. It is tedious, exact, time consuming, and frustrating... Good thing God prepared me for this by having me be an auditor for 5 years! ;-)  Note: most adoption agencies refer to the paper part as "the paper chase."

No really, at first I must admit that I felt overwhelmed with the lists of documents we need to collect and obstacles to complete.  But as my very wise parents always told me when I was overwhelmed with all my make-up homework or piles of stuff messing my bedroom, just take it one step at a time - or as my wise hubby says "the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time!"

So, Monday I spent the afternoon getting my head around what needed to be done and going to the library to print applications for our birth certificates and social security cards and making copies of our passports.  After talking with my neighbor I realized it may be more effective to go the social security office, and today I spent an hour or so at the SS office waiting with my number - 95R - it was 82R (R for reissue) when I walked in. I quickly learned that there were several different "number lines." R for reissue and M or N got you a pass into the actual office behind closed doors, must be for some more personal issue. As I am a chatty and friendly person, I got to talking with the people around me who all did not share with me why they were at the SS office, but were intruiged that I was there to reissue our cards as part of an adoption process.  And when one couple saw I had an iPhone they requested directions to their next errand for the day and I happily obliged. I always like those random interactions with strangers, somehw they always remind me that we are all God's creation!

Once I arrived home I worked on writting both of our autobiograpies.  I know by definition and autobiography should be written by the person it's about, but this is not our first time writing them so I stole parts from his other autobiographies and pieced it together to fit this agencies questions.  We have other autobiographies from starting paperwork with another agency and deciding not to persue an adoption through them.

Much more to continue...

Dossier Packet Received

Our Family Coordinator, Christina, emailed us with our dossier information. We perused the 18 documents and honestly were a bit overwhelmed!  We will take it one step at a time, and luckily one of the documents puts everything in steps! :)

Home Study Packet Received

We received our home study packet this evening in an email from the NC Director of Social Services for AWAA. We have perused the 13 attached documents, but have been instructed to wait for our family coordinator to contact us this week to assist with getting our heads around it all!

Agreement

We signed and mailed the AWAA Agreement, Ethiopia Disclaimer, Client Grievance Procedure, and Client’s Rights and Responsibilities along with our first installment of the program fee.  Once Sara receives and processes it, we will be given a family coordinator and social worker.

We're In!

AWAA called tonight and said we are accepted into the Ethiopian Program!  We will be signing an agency agreement and making the first installment of the program fee this week.  We will be given a family coordinator who will work with us through the completion of our dossier (paperwork for international adoption) and a social worker who will complete our home study (interviews, home visit, etc.).  We are so excited!!

Dr's Note Received!

After a week of phone calls back and forth between my doctor's office and the adoption agency, the agency received the doctor's note!  Sara called me this afternoon to say she has the note, our application looks great, and she has put it on her director's desk for her sign off.  The director won't be in the office until Monday, so we will be waiting patiently over the weekend for our phone call Monday to say that we're officially accepted into the program!

Dr's Note Continued...

Jason and I had been anxiously awaiting notification that we were accepted into the program, so we called Sara to see what the status was.  Sara said she had not received the note from my doctor yet. I immediately called my doctors office to see what the hold up was and the nurse said she would have the doctor complete the note by Monday. We'll keep you posted!

Dr's Note

I spoke with the nurse at my doctor's office and they are going to fax over the letter I requested. I emailed Sara at AWAA to let her know that the letter was on it's way!

...To my surprise, she emailed me right back with a thank you for letting her know... I am guessing this is just the beginning of a great professional relationship with this agency! What a prompt response! Although I am not that surprised, as this agency is highly recommended and known for their caring hearts and family feel.

AWAA Contact

We received an email from AWAA's Intake Coordinator, Sara, requesting some clarification about my congenital heart disease and our child request. After giving her some background on my health, she said she would like a letter from my cardiologist briefly describing my condition, treatment, future health, and fitness to adopt. She also discussed our child request with me and said that at this time the agency does not place two unrelated children together unless there is 5 years between them in age and that it is rare to have siblings available both under the age of 4. She suggested we write our request to be two siblings under the age of 4 or a single child under the age of 1.

Sara said other then those two items our application looked great!

I called my cardiologist directly after talking with Sara and left a message with his office for his email address or for someone to call me back.

Application In!

After over a year of consideration, prayer, and discussion we finally decided to dive into the deep end of life and start a journey to grow our family. We have submitted our application to American World Adoption Agency (AWAA) along with a recent picture of us and the application fee. We will hear within 10 days whether or not we will be accepted to the Ethiopian Adoption Program. We have requested a sibling group with children between the ages of 0 and 2 or a single child between ages 0 and 1. We emailed or immediate family and those we listed as references on the application to share our wonderful news! Please pray we are granted acceptance into this program.