GOLDEN TICKET DAY!!!!!!!!

Wow!! We received the official "golden ticket" today from Immigration that states that we are fit to adopt. They are forwarding our paperwork to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia! Yeah!! I pulled up from bringing the kids home from school and Wade was walking back from the mailbox all smiles holding the letter up to show me that he was holding the offiicial letter. It was good to see Wade smiling over something with the turmoil at work and with the market day after day lately! Anyway, back to the happy stuff-I couldn't believe it was the actual document since I was expecing it to come from Fed. Ex or in a more official way than our regular mailbox that we hardly ever seem to find time to frequent. Anyway, it was 3:59 and our agency closes at 4:00 so I immediately got on the phone to let them know that we received the I171-H today and they said to fax it over tomorrow.

This is all so timely since our agency emailed waiting families this week. They said that the director just got back from the orphanages in Ethiopia recently and they are getting ready to give child referrals maybe next week!! They are waiting on medical reports and testings that the children have had. We couldn't get a referral without the I171-H, but now we can if they have a match for us. The immigration form only took 3 weeks to process and they usually take 6-10 weeks. God is good and we are so excited to move forward. I have definitely been nesting lately! The garage is cleaned, basement is clean, tonight I was scrubbing and vacuuming the inside of the car, the office that has been a catch-all paper mess is finally clean after about a year of me saying I would clean it, and I have been busy mucking out the kids' rooms. We have to find room for two other little ones-SMILE!!

We will keep you updated with any new news that we get. Please continue to pray for our country, economy, and elections at this time and praise, praise, praise we are moving along!!

Shonda