Received PA Today!

After emailing our agency to check in on our pre-approval from China to adopt our boy (at day 15 because most families waited only 10 days for their's), I was told our PA had been in for days and I was not contacted by mistake. I'm glad I checked on it. It's not a huge deal really and not an official approval until they receive our dossier (homestudy and the other documents they need), but it does allow us to share with everyone his picture and we were able to send him a package for Christmas (which I ordered last night)! I'm excited for him to find out he finally has a family after waiting 11 years! Wish I could be a fly on that wall!

Our homestudy is just about completed. Mark had his physical on Tuesday, the kids have their's today, and myself tomorrow. Those get notarized and then off to our homestudy agency. They just need to plug in dates and our homestudy will be off to our agency to send on to Homeland Security for approval. That approval is taking about 70 days right now and once we receive that, our dossier goes to China (hopefully by the beginning of March). Having our homestudy completed also allows us to apply for grants. I really hope we receive one or two grants, it would help tremendously. I know a family who just received $15,000 in grants, I pray that will be us! Grants are not easy to get however, it all depends on the funding available. Please pray those come through for us, otherwise I am not sure where the rest of the funds will come from. If all things go smoothly and the wait times for documents stay the same and don't increase, we are looking at possibly traveling by August (fall at the latest but are really hoping for summer so if the kids go they won't miss school). I still can't believe how quickly this process this time is going! Thanks for the prayers and support!