Marching on...

We have officially moved on to March referrals! We are getting closer to our referral because we are one of the first April families to send their dossier. Our agency does not give out exact numbers, but we are pretty sure that there are less than ten families ahead of us waiting for a referral.

We have made a big family decision... we have decided to go to Ethiopia for Christmas! We have been thinking about the idea for a few months now and we have decided to go whether we have a referral or not. If we have a referral before we go we will be able to spend 2 weeks loving and bonding with our new baby.

If we do not have a referral, we will not be able to spend much time with the children. We will be able to visit, but we can't volunteer before we have a referral. We will be a little disappointed if we don't have a referral before we go, but we will still have a great time.

This is a chance for us to experience our future child's birth country and culture. We are taking Jackson and Olivia with us and they are very excited. We will not be taking them when we travel to get our baby, so I am glad that they will get this opportunity to visit now.

We are very excited and are looking forward to giving you all some great news soon! And I will definitely give more details about our trip as the time gets closer.

2009 Holiday Project Kickoff

September 30th officially marked the start of Adoption Advocates International 2009 Holiday Project. This is the 4th year in a row that Mandie Doak -an adoptive Mom and AAI volunteer- has agreed to organize a wonderful celebration for all of the children AAI cares for in Ethiopia and Ghana. AAI also plans to use a sizeable portion of the total collected to provide food aid in partnership with Hope Enterprises in Ethiopia and to several small orphanages they are assisting in Ghana.

AAI's Holiday Project is a great opportunity to buy a special gift for those people on your Christmas list who "have everything" and also help some great children at the same time! For each $30 donation (this year's minimum), they will send a special holiday photo card to a grandparent, teacher, or someone special who would appreciate receiving this kind of gift in their honor. Donations can be made online at this link and you can enter in the "in honor of" name and address in the space provided or mail it to Susan Poisson-Dollar at AAI separately.

For more details about the holiday project, visit Mandie's great blog at http://www.destinationdesta.blogspot.com/ She's also creating beautiful jewelry with material from Ethiopia and Ghana to benefit this year's Holiday Project and you can shop for these items at this link.

Thank you so much for considering to help the children that our agency cares for. As the holiday project progresses I will put up periodic updates on where they are pertaining to their goal. They have set an ambitious goal of $21, 630 that will nearly double the humanitarian assistance portion from last year!

Jennifer

Still waiting

I feel like I have not been giving very many updates since I started this blog, but I feel like there is never anything really happening to talk about! If I had started the blog sooner I could have talked about the beginning parts when there were actually things to do, but I didn't start the blog until after we were on the waiting list.

I did call in for an update a couple of weeks ago and they seemed pretty confident that we would get a referral in November or early December. I have heard that things may start to move a little faster, but I haven't seen that yet. I am really hoping to see some referrals this week so that things look like they are moving along.

They are still in February for infant boys and November for infant girls. Our dossier was sent in April so we are still looking at waiting a little while longer!

Jackson and Olivia have been so great about the waiting. They talk about the adoption a lot, but seem to be content with waiting. They are probably waiting more patiently than their parents! Both of them really enjoy playing with younger siblings of friends and kids at church right now. I think they are practicing for when they have a new brother or sister to play with.

We are still debating names. It is a lot harder this time since Jackson and Olivia both think they get a vote in the name and none of the 4 of us really agree on the same names! I may have to put a poll on the blog to get some extra help!

Hopefully we will have some exciting news soon!