We're getting there!

He's all set!
Just a smidgen of what we need

What a whirlwind!!!!

It has been quite the last couple of days! WOW! As most of you know we recieved our embassy appointment for August 19th! We found this out while we were camping, and being that this is a week earlier than we had originally been thinking, it means less time for booking the trip! Luckily Ryan had traveled with his laptop, and we were able to spend almost a whole day trying to arrange some sort of flight plan. Is it the one that is "perfect"?!, Nope-but whatta do?! We actually will be leaving from Detroit now, and we are leaving on August 16th (the day of Ryans dads wedding, so we will miss that) (so sorry guys). We will arriving in Addis Monday morning around 8am! We are staying at the New Flower guest house near the airport, will get our stuff to our room, do some sight seeing for a couple of hours and pick our little man up in the late afternoon/early evening! We leave Friday night to come home and arrive Saturday afternoon around 4:30 back into Detroit! This is our flight plan as of now (and are 90% sure it still will be) however, they are keeping us on a wait listed flight, if that clears we can get on that which is about 1/2 the cost of this, leaving a day later and it's out of Grand Rapids, we will know if this is still an option throughout the week....

So, we obviously are still going to hope and wish and pray that we can see some familiar faces when we arrive back in Detroit, but understand if ya'll don't want to drive there....we will keep you posted! So, the next 3 weeks is going to be ridiculously busy and Im going to get more anxious by the day, however-this all means in about 4 weeks our baby will be home with us forever!!!! We cannot wait!

We have an embassy date!

We have an embassy date of August 19th, meaning that we'll be leaving on August 17th! More to come......woooohoooo!!!!

Items needed.....

I just got an email from our agency director and she said the items needed for the transition house right now are:

CRIB SHEETS
KIDS/BABY BLANKETS
UMBRELLA STROLLERS

It's possible we could be leaving in 3 weeks or so, if anyone is interested in donating any of these items or cash and would like to drop it off to us so we can get these, please do so! Thanks so much guys! We'll keep you posted......

Thanks so much!

We just wanted to thank ALL OF YOU for all of the emails, calls, cards, flowers, gifts, etc. that poured in yesterday! We had so much fun last night and are so blessed to have all of you in our life! We have already started sorting through all of Rylee's things to see what we're going to need for the trip, and have been going off of a few packing lists that people have put together-those are great, we would really have NO idea of ALL of the stuff that we needed to take! It has all really been kindof surreal, and I dont think that it's really sank in yet that we are really his mommy and daddy-we have a son!!!! We are working on getting a flight plan together, so for all of you that are dying (and we will so appreciate seeing familiar faces) to meet us at the airport, we're working on flying in close to home, lansing-flint-grand rapids. We'll keep you posted, but it's looking like we will be flying home on the 29th of August, in the afternoon sometime! More to follow.......

INTRODUCING OUR LIL' MAN

WE ARE OVER THE MOON! WE PASSED COURT TODAY AND ARE OFFICIALLY THE PARENTS OF RB! THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR CONTINUED THOUGHTS, PRAYERS, EMAILS, CARDS, ETC! WE HAVE SUCH AN AMAZING SUPPORT SYSTEM! AS YOU KNOW, IF YOU CAN MAKE IT HEAD OUT TO CHAMPPS TONIGHT AROUND 7 FOR A LIL' CELEBRATION!

Let's kick it into high gear!!!!

Ok boys and girls-with under a week to go, we've got to kick these prayers and positive thoughts into over drive! We (mostly me, the head case I am) are extremely anxious about our court date next Wednesday and pray that we pass with flying colors!!! I pray for Bona's mom to be able to make it into town and sign the papers, and our file is all set! I think Im going to have a week long anxiety attack!!!! OH GOODNESS!

Great Week!

We just got back from camping with the fam' and our good friends The Hitchens for the 4th of July and it was a good getaway! It was great weather to add to it! We went on a tour of the Sand Dunes at Silver Lake and had a riot with all of the kids! We had 6 children under the age of 7 with us, and they had a blas! There were lots of BBQ's, Sherri's yummy burritos and an occasional margarita in there as well : ) And I think (haha) we have something like 9 days to wait before our courtdate, but im not really counting or anything! Hope you all had a great 4th of July weekend!!!!