Bryce's Big Day

Chocolate Brownie time (Bryce's request, he said cake was too chocalatey):):)

Bryce, Blake, and Faith before we went to Red Robin

Bryce on Feb. 5th (his 7th bday) playing football with friends in the backyard

Bryce loved his birthday. It was a beautiful day. He wanted a sleep-over but mom said let's wait until summer when we know it will be warm and we can be outside. Little did I know that it would be in the 70's on his Feb. 5th bday. Bryce has morning kindergarten then we went to Chuckee Cheese for lunch (Bryce's favorite). That night he had two friends come over for pinata, presents, and dinner at Red Robin.

Still Waiting.....

Fun in the snow after posing for a Christmas picture.

Faith~12, Blake~10, Bryce~6

We are still waiting for a referral. To pass the time Wade and I finished our 24 hours of credit needed to adopt after completing our last 7 hours of class today, YEAH!! We are #1 on the waiting list and we are happy to continue waiting on God and his timing for our referral. He knows where are kids are and the right timing for us so we will continue to wait and pray.

We are busy getting ready for Christmas along with the rest of you! Next Friday we leave for Iowa already. We are all so excited to see our family and to spend a week with them over Christmas.

Continue to check our blog, hopefully I will be able to add exciting news soon regarding a referral. After Wade and I accept a referral we will wait 3-4 more months to allow the adoption to be complete and to get through the Ethiopian courts. Then we will finally travel to Ethiopia to bring home the two little ones!! If you think of it, please continue to pray for God's hand to be in our journey. God's blessings to you this Christmas season!

Merry Christmas!! The Donels

Off to Ethiopia

No, we aren't off to Ethiopia but, our dossier is as of today!! Last week we had an update done regarding the ages that we are applying for because of a glitch. The update should have taken about a week and instead it took the agency about a month. I had it all certified by the Sec. of State in Denver last week. The dossier was sent to Washington last Thursday and came back to the Denver agency yesterday. Then, today it was sent to Ethiopia for review and interpretation. This is such a good feeling because it is a very official packet of documents that we took a lot of time to gather.

We are still waiting for a referral and we are number one on the list for a toddler girl. Wade and I took an adoption core training class on Sat. I have been patient up until then, but now I have been impatient since Saturday. I just keep telling myself that God has the children picked out for our family and I need to patient and wait for his timing.

I included pictures of our Juarez trip that we took a little over a week ago. That was such an amazing trip and was truly the best experience we have ever had as a family. It was truly life-changing. We are very anxious to go back next year! The needs are overwhelming in Juarez and for these people to have enough money to feed their family each day is considered "rich." We are truly blessed to live in America and it was so good to share so many materials and our time with these families.

This is a picture of Oscar, Jose, and their mom's house that they were currently living in.

Here they are in front of their new house that we built with other families.

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

WE'RE ON THE LIST!!!!!

As of today at about 12:06 p.m. we were officially put on the waiting list at Intenational Adoption Network. I watched them physically write our name on the whiteboard in the back of their office.
Whew-We are done with all of this time-consuming paperwork for awhile!!!!! We are #3 on the list for a toddler girl and then whatever sibling or un-related chld that they might refer to us between the ages of 1-5. We are continuing to pray that God's hand would be in the referral for the ages and gender that he would think is best for our family.

Today was a busy day of picking up our homestudy from the Secretary of State. It was certified and all of our other documents were certified for our dossier last week. Then Wade and I raced to the Immigration Office to hand in our paperwork to file our I600A form that allows us to adopt out of the country. Our appointment was at 10:30 and we walked in at 10:29 after a few wrong turns on the way by me, of course Wade was standing outside waiting for me. We then drove to another office to be fingerprinted and then I drove our homestudy to the International Agency to get us on the waiting list. It is so nice that we are using a local agency that allows me to drive the documents rather than wait on mail or delivery service, sorry mom!!

So now we wait to get approval back from Immigration. This can take anywhere from 5-10 weeks. In the meantime we also wait for a child referral. While we are waiting Wade and I each have to complete 24 required hours of education, the fun never stops. Tomorrow night we attend our first class.

It was an exciting day for us, but not as exciting as it could have been because of the weak market, almost bittersweet. This week has been very, very stressful for Wade. We are excited to be at this point in the adoption, but with today's market activity we can't help but wonder if addding two is such a good idea. The devil is working or God is testing us, we'll find our soon enough. Please continue to pray for our country during these difficult days with the market and leading up to the election.

Thanks for all of your support and prayers!!
Shonda

Moving Along

I wanted to give a quick update, maybe just to make myself feel better by seeing that the process is unfolding for us. Our homestudy is finally done-almost!! One more addition of when and where we were married by the social worker and it will be complete. It is amazing how a small detail like this takes time to get added as the homestudy gets tossed back and forth between the local and international agencies for pre-approval.

Today our short-version of the home study was turned into the state of Colorado for approval. We will wait only 4-5 business days to get it back. Tomorrow I am going to the Secretary of State to get our dossier documents certified. We should get these back on Thursday. When the homestudy is completely official I can get it certified as well.

Next Wed. we have an appt. to get fingerprinted to submit our I600A form for Immigration. It will take 5-10 weeks to get this Immigration Form returned to us. I have learned that this is called the "Golden Ticket"so we will be anxious to get it back. The "Golden Ticket" officially states that we are cleared for International Adoption.

I realize this might be boring details to you, but to us it is a matter of checking one thing after another off the list. It also leads us a few steps closer to bringing our sweet children home. I am so excited I can't stand it!

Please pray that these next steps will go smoothly. Pray that our immigration comes back closer to 5 weeks rather than 10. Next week we can be put on the wait list with our agency if our dossier is approved!! Yeah!! Thanks for your prayers.
Shonda

Agency Switch

I realize that I am writing another blog before I even sent out the first blog. I am still trying to figure out how to add photos and to add contacts to this blog system. I will get it all figured out now. The kids are in school as of today and now I can get busy with the endless list of tasks that I have been putting off all summer. The kids and I enjoyed summer break so much and now we are all ready to get back to business!!

Now an update on the adoption front! In the last blog I mentioned working with CHSFS in Minnesota. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled onto an international adoption agency right here in Denver! Wade and I were so excited to find this agency. We feel God's leading again! We were discouraged with the wait time that CHSFS was stressing to us and the next day I read another blog that listed this Denver agency. I quickly googled it and got on the phone. We spoke to this new agency multiple times. We talked to many, many references that have successfully adopted through this them. After prayer, phone calls, and discussion we have decided to switch to this Colorado agency. They are telling us that the wait time to go and pick up the children would be 9-12 months from start to finish-YEAH!! We are continuing to move forward. Our social worker is finally home from a two week vacation and I spoke to her today. She is going to write our report tomorrow!

Please pray that everything will continue to go smoothly. There has been some sensitivity among some Ethiopians lately. In the past they were very eager to have children adopted from their country. Recently, there has been some frowning upon by Ethiopians concerning whites that are coming to "rescue" their orphans and pull them out of Ethiopia. We are beginning to learn that anything can quickly change with adoption. We are praying that adoption relations would continue to be inviting, healthy, and smooth between Ethiopia and other countries.

Shonda