We're back from Florida and DONE with our Dossier!!!

To our surprise we got our I-171H very quickly after sending off for it. Stephen then sent it off to get State Sealed and that too came back VERY quickly (was there for less than 1 whole business day!). Before you turn in your dossier you have to make 4 more copies of it. Which doesn't sound like a big deal except that the dossier has grown to some 130 pages, all stapled and folded together.

That's the tricky part. You can't take the staples out so your trying to fold things this way and that to get a good photocopy. So I spent about 2 hours at Office Depot (which was having a sale on B&W copies!) and made all of my copies. I then spent the evening trying to put them all together and staple them and fold them so they fit in the envelopes. Well this morning the kids and I took 3 copies and the original to Leah (our social worker), filled out our family preference letter and paid the first 1/2 of the country fee. So now our part is DONE!!!!

Leah will now sent it off to get it reviewed by Bethany Christian Services in Grand Rapids and then to be Authenticated and then sent it on it's way to Ethiopia!! I can't believe we are done and ready to start waiting for the call=) It kind of feels weird not having any paperwork to be doing. But my mind is swimming with things that need to be done before we get a referral.

We are not exactly 100% sure what the wait times are now that Bethany Christian Services partnered with a new orphanage but it looks like maybe 5-8 months. We all are SO excited to start our wait and can't wait to meet the little pumpkin that the Lord destined to be part of our family!!!
On a side note... if you were wondering why all the wedding pictures...we had a great time in Florida for my sister-in-law Joy's wedding. Everything went really good and we were blessed to be a part of it=)