Today we reached a very small milestone in our journey to bring our child/ren home from Ethiopia. We finished gathering all of the documents for our dossier, so we Fed Ex'd them to our agency today! Our agency still has to have a few documents sent to the Ethiopian Embassy for certification, and our Social Worker still needs to send the completed home study to our agency. BUT........the "busiest" part of the work is done. At this time there is nothing more *we* can do!
So, where do we go from here? Well, all we can do at this point is wait!! While our documents are being certified at the Ethiopian Embassy, our home study is being written by our Social Worker. She will send a notarized copy to our adoption agency, and this will officially complete our dossier, and it will then be sent to Ethiopia. Our Social Worker will also send a copy of the home study, along with our I-600A (Advance Processing of Orphan Petition) to USCIS, which will generate an appointment for fingerprints (yet another background check). Once we are cleared by immigration, we'll get the official "approval" from immigration to adopt from Ethiopia. Yes, we celebrate each small milestone as one step closer to our child/ren.
We have been enjoying the beautiful fall season around here. Of course we have spent some time fishing. As usual, Alina Jayne catches the first (and sometimes the only) fish! We went to a local apple orchard at the end of September-picked apples and enjoyed watching cider being made with a huge press. Pretty amazing to watch and it tasted even better! We also made our annual trip to the local pumpkin farm. Fall is our favorite time of the year. Alina Jayne really enjoyed picking her own pumpkins and petting the farm animals. She insisted on pulling the wagon full of pumpkins and gourds all by herself-she is soooooo independent.
Tomorrow her pre-school is going on a field trip to another apple orchard. This will not only be her first field trip ever, but also her first school bus ride. This is also the first time that she will go on a trip without her Mama or Daddy or Papa watching her-and I am not ashamed to admit, I am having a hard time with this! I am sooooo worried about her. Will she be watched closely enough? Will she be safe?? Will she be afraid? Geesh, you'd think the child never left the house!!! I find myself wondering if my own Mother ever stressed like this over my field trips? Or am I truly an overprotective Mama??? Never mind, I think I know the answer!
Visiting With The Chickens
