Frustration

Today we got word from our agency that whoops, our court date is March 23, not March 13 as they have been maintaining for the last two weeks. Argh! I am so angry! So now we get to be all stressed out for another week and have sleepless nights and who knows what else... and we sat around waiting and waiting all weekend before someone could tell us that today. Yes, we are all human and mistakes are made, but this one has greatly upset me. Not happy.

STILL Waiting

I'm trying not to get discouraged or pessimistic. It's hard.

Waiting

Due to some extenuating circumstances, we still haven't heard if we passed court or not. The waiting is torture. :(

Round two

Our second attempt at passing court is tomorrow... we're on pins and needles here.

Diving in The Windy City

Anna had a regional diving meet in Chicago this weekend. We drove eight long hours to get there, made longer by the fact that we couldn't leave until late Friday afternoon; we arrived at our hotel at about 1:00 a.m... yawn! Saturday morning, we went to Navy Pier for lunch and some shopping. This is Anna (on the left) posing with her two teammates and her two coaches.

Little Taylor dove on Saturday afternoon and she did great. Saturday evening we had dinner with my parents, who drove up from Indianapolis to see Anna dive. They treated the whole team to a tasty dinner. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Anna and Elyse competed on Sunday. Anna placed 29th out of 35 competitors which is really quite good... it was her first big meet and her first meet ever with the tougher standards of USA Diving. She hit all of her dives and just needs a higher degree of difficulty. She's only been diving for one year. It's hard to get decent pictures of diving with my camera, but here she is doing one of her dives. She's the blur in the middle. :)

I really love my dog

This is Bruno. Although he's looking mighty jaunty in his bright kerchief, he is actually recovering from surgery. He had to have some suspicious lumps removed today. Our vet thinks it will all be fine, but I'm worried anyway. Bruno also has cataracts which might need to be removed this year too. He's my senior citizen dog; our other two are young whipper-snappers. I love him lots. :)

Postponed.... :(

Our case was postponed until March 13. Apparently of the six cases heard from our agency today, five were from the Nazret area and there is a "new requirement" that wasn't met so the cases were continued. The bright side is that we were assigned a court date that is only two weeks away instead of two months. Our coordinator, Lisa, said that Grace from Hope is confident that the cases will pass next time.

Of course we are disappointed. I hope you will all continue to pray for us to successfully bring our girls home.

Jitters

I am a nervous wreck. Our court date is February 27. Since Addis Ababa is 9 hours ahead of us (see the clock on the left side of the blog), that means that our case will come before the court sometime in the wee hours of the morning while we are sleeping. My stomach is in knots.

Thank you all for your prayers and well-wishes. I hope to have good news to post tomorrow!

Just one more week...

...until our court date.

A one-track mind

I'm having trouble concentrating on anything and I'm not sleeping well because I'm very preoccupied with our upcoming court date. It's only nine days away now. That's not very long... but it's like waiting for Christmas when you're a kid, or that last week or two before your due date when you are pregnant. It seems like it will never get here. And, unlike Christmas, we don't know what's going to happen when it does get here. Will we pass or not? If we pass, how long after that until we travel? At this point, we are planning to all go to Ethiopia as a family. So this is weighing heavily on my mind because I have three teenagers with busy schedules to consider. Of course, bringing the twins home is our top priority, but I would hate for our other kids to miss anything important to them. Fret, fret, fret. It's one of the things I do best.

Happy Valentine's Day

My husband, Tom, sent me these...

Two weeks and counting

Our court date in Ethiopia is two weeks from today. I am feeling tense and nervous as the day approaches. So many people lately are not passing on their first try. I am trying to relax and leave it in God's hands, but it is hard! Praying for patience... but also praying we pass!

Another non-sporting mistake at Westminster

I'm sorry, but isn't this
so much better looking than this?
Stupid poodles always win. :P

Just because she's cute

My younger daughter, Anna, is a high school cheer- leader. I like to say she is the World's Cutest Cheerleader. This is a picture of her cheering at one of the varsity girls' basketball games. She's the cute little one on the left.

"Hi, Mommy!"

This evening we got to see videos of Candace Selam and Sarah Fikir. They look shy, but so sweet. They say their names, then they wave at the camera and say "Hi, Mommy!"

Wow. Tears!

Thanks again, Celeste. :)