Weekend number 2!

This is weekend number 2 in our birth certificate wait. Haven't heard anything since Tuesday, not that we really expected to.
I didn't think that being this close to the end would still be this hard. I think that it is still the not knowing of when we will get to travel. It could be 5-6 weeks, or it could be 4 months yet. It is pretty hard to plan anything with that time line.

We have Alex's award ceremony tomorrow for basketball and cheerleading. It will be pretty funny. She is cheering to start the ceremony off. I will somehow have to slip her basketball jersey on her over her cheerleading outfit as she will get both of her awards within minutes of each other. Life will be pretty relaxed for the next few weeks now until soccer starts up. I am looking forward to having another night of the week home for a while.

We are headed to Virginia for the day on Sunday. My nephew Andrew turns 4 tomorrow. Where does the time go??

Our nephew Ben turned 3 in January. Andy if you are reading this, we still have his present here to send. Sorry that I haven't gotten it out yet:0( At this rate I can just send it with mum and joe in April. (just kidding) I will try and get it out this week!!!

Sighting for a birth certificate????

Not yet. We got an email today from our lawyer. It has been a week. The civil registry said, "no movement yet, check back in 2 weeks." Our lawyer is so good. He said, "we won't wait that long. We don't want them to forget about us." :0)
Hopefully it will be a good sighting not a bad sighting and we won't have to resubmit!!

We are off to Alex's art show at school tonight. She has framed work on display. (I am sure we will buy it) Then we are off to our Cheerleading and basketball parties. My team' party is at 6, Gareth's is at 7. We both had a really good season. Alex enjoyed having both of us coach her teams. She wants us to do it again next year. We will have to see about that:0)

Our adoption is moving again!!

We finally received word tonight that our case is moving again. The final adoption decree was signed at the end of last week and we were submitted for new birth certificate yesterday. For the first time in three months, we finally got good news!!!
Now we wait. Nicholas was born in the same town as Callum. Callum's birth certificate in 2005 took about a week and a half. Right now, our lawyer is saying it should be 3-4 weeks, but we know some people that have waited 3-4 months. Needless to say, we won't be getting our hopes up that we will get it soon. It would be nice, but we also can't see anything in this process going ahead of schedule for us.
After we receive the birth certificate, then we are submitted for his 2nd DNA. Once he is taken in to the US Embassy in Guatemala City, the lab work comes here to North Carolina. Once we have the results back at the Embassy they issue us our appointment. That all usually takes about 2 weeks. The positive is that we now officially have another son. The negative is we still don't know when we can go and get him. Please pray for a quick turn around on the birth certificate. Our paperwork will start to expire for a second time this summer. Also, My mother and father-n-law fly over from England the end of April. What a treat it would be to have him here so that they could meet him.

It snowed here tonight. Church was canceled, so we had a nice family dinner and then a game of Candy Land. Alex won, but boy did Callum do well with his colors. It was very exciting!!!

Happy Anniversary!!!

9 years ago today, Gareth and I got married. (yes, Valentines day, believe me, not our first choice, but it just happened to work out that way)

The day started with Alex getting up at 6:15 and then proceeding to wake her brother up. You would have thought it was Christmas morning. She came running down all excited about her party at school and handing out her cards. Callum went along with it because he will go along with anything his big sister does. Over breakfast, we exchanged cards. Gareth has been working so many hours lately that to help him out, I picked out a new purse for myself so he proceeded to give me that. I Loved it:0)
I was pretty bummed because I ordered him a gift over 2 1/2 weeks ago and as of this morning, it hadn't come yet. I only had about an hour at home today, and as I pulled in to the driveway, there it was sitting on the front steps. I was so excited!! I got him a new watch from the Charlton store in England. (his soccer team) Very exciting!! I ran it by his work so that he could see it. He really liked it, but I knew that anything I got him with the Charlton logo would be a hit. He was supposed to work until about 9:30, so that was pretty much it for our day. We aren't ones to buy each other presents most years, so we did really good this year. Well, at 6:30, I get a call. I was at my parents house visiting with them when the phone rings. Gareth says, "I am getting off early and my car won't start. Can you come get me? Oh, and bring Alex." Ok, I knew something was up, but I figured if he was taking me for a surprise dinner or something, he wouldn't have me bring Alex, so I didn't think too much about it other than how much it may cost to get his car fixed. I left Callum at Grandma and grandpa's house, thinking we were going back there once I picked Gareth up.(mom and dad, thanks for keeping Callum) When I got there, he had booked me a massage. HEAVEN!! If you live in my town, go see Rhonda at Gareth's work. She is amazing. Gareth took Alex out to dinner while I was being pampered. Her poor husband will have big shoes to fill in order to live up to her daddy. Needless to say, I am the most relaxed that i have been in a very long time. I am hoping to get 8 straight hours of sleep tonight.

It is hard to believe that 9 years have passed so quickly. Over breakfast, we were talking about how it hasn't been easy. The last year especially when we have had more things thrown at us than any human should ever have to deal with. That certainly puts a strain on your marriage. I am so thankful to Gareth for always making sure that I knew that no matter how bad it gets, he is in this for the long haul. Life may be hard, but we will get through it and get through it together. We have grown so much as a couple and will continue to do so. I am so excited to think of what the next 9 years will bring us. Of course, I am hoping that it will ALL be good.(even thought I know that isn't realistic) I do know that I am very blessed to have the family I have. To have such a wonderful husband for the last 9 years, and beautiful children.

To those of you that celebrate Valentine's day, I hope you have a great one!! I am off to bed to read a book!!

Oh, you are gonna love this!!!

So, Friday, I went to my MOPS group. It is for Mothers of Preschoolers. there are about 50 women in the group and it is a lot of fun. We meet once a month and have topics to discuss, a guest speaker, etc. This month was on identity theft, credit card fraud, etc. My friend Lori's husband Brent spoke as he used to be in this division of the police. It was a great class, and Gareth and I talked that night about how we pretty much do everything he talked about. We shred all of our papers. We pay cash for just about everything rather than putting it on our card. Long story short, we have one credit card, but we really don't use it unless we need to book a flight to England. Normally, we don't even open the statement because we don't charge anything. We were getting our tax info. together today and Gareth opens it and says, are you flying somewhere?? (kinda joking, our anniversary is this week) Anyway, it turns out that someone got a hold of our card number and has been charging away. We still have the card, it isn't like we lost it somehow. The funny thing is the person that has been charging is in England!! How that happened, we have no idea. Luckily the women with the card company was very nice and put it through to investigations after putting a stop on it!!
We just have to laugh. It is a bit scary that we have no idea how they could have done it, but they did!!!

Are we suprised?? Another weekend......

So, lots have happened this week. We were told on Tuesday after almost a month of meetings between our lawyer and facilitator in Guat. that our adoption would be moving again by the end of the week. They would email the receipt for submission of his Birth Cert. as soon as they got it. GREAT!!! As Gareth and I were talking he had said, lets plan on hearing by the first of next week so we won't be disappointed if it doesn't happen by the end of the week. Well, so much easier said than done. I have to say that I am very disappointed. This is a HUGE step and the fact that our case hasn't moved at all in 3 month doesn't help. The little face to the right of this screen is the main thing that is keeping us going at this point!!!! I keep telling myself that it will all be worth it in the end!!


Wow, what will life be like when this horrible process is over???