I was finally right!

So, because things have been so crazy, this post is a little late.  The date I was finally right about receiving our LOA was Tuesday, January 15.  I was minding my own business, homeschooling my girls, and Logan called to tell me that our Letter of Acceptance had arrived at her office.  Very Excited!!!

Now to tell you about the craziness.  First of all, I should admit that I have a disorder known as "Time Optimism Disorder."  I always think I can get about 10xs as many things accomplished as humanly possible.  (A friend of mine coined the phrase "time optimism disorder" and I always thought she should try to get this diagnosis included in the DSM because I am pretty sure I am not the only one like this).  Anyway, when I got Logan's call, I had the delusion that I would have all of the paperwork done BEFORE the shipment came the next day and then be able to turn right around and overnight the package back on the same day.  Well, that didn't quite work out.  Between parental obligations :) and feeling absolutely horrible, I didn't get it done on Tuesday.  Or Wednesday.

Even though I was feeling quite sick, when the package came on Wednesday I was thrilled to see our long-awaited document.  One that originated in China.  Wow!

Thursday morning I got up really, really early hoping to get the paperwork done.  Nope.  Not done before I had to go into work for a couple of hours.  All day long I was weepy--crying at just about everything.  I was convinced that it was a medication side-effect, but I spoke to my sweet homeschool partner (who is also a pharmacist) and she told me that my crying was not a side-effect of the medication, but of something else: stress.

Todd came home at lunch and worked on the forms.  He had it almost completed before I came home from work.  I put the finishing touches on it and rushed it down to the overnight delivery place (that I will not mention for soon-to-be obvious reasons).  Todd was reluctant for me to overnight it because there was a snow storm coming through Birmingham (where the adoption agency is) and he was worried that it might get stuck on a truck somewhere, but I was determined to send our package on its way.  Tip from the Bible that I should have heeded:  Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord (Ephesians 5:22)

I got to the store with 5 minutes to spare.  As I handed the man my document I said, "You will take care of these precious documents won't you?"  And he assured me that he would.  The delivery promise was for 10:30 on Friday.

Friday afternoon...no package at Lifeline.  I thought about the snow.  I thought about the fact that I forgot to put the package to the attention to someone in the China program.  I wondered where our package was.

Monday morning.  Todd asks for a trace of our package and we are assured that they will look diligently for the package.  They tell us it may take several days.  Monday afternoon...the package is found!!!  At the store where I dropped it off...

Tuesday morning.  The package finally makes it way to Birmingham.  Logan turns it right around and sends it on the USCIS for processing.  In the same day!  Yay!!

In the meantime, we have also applied for our visas :)  And I took the little girls on a trip to Knoxville to see my brother and his family.  I know we may not be able to travel for awhile when we get home, so we are trying to make the rounds.

And, as the diagnosis for my tears last week was stress, my sister-in-law showed me the perfect way to treat it.  She took us to a drive through safari.  The kids had buckets of food to feed to the animals and the animals (llamas, rhea, various cattle, goats...) stuck their heads in the van looking for food.  The kids were alternately rolling down the windows to feed them and then quickly rolling them up when the animal encounter gets too close.  Sometimes one child was trying to feed while another one was rolling up the window so food projectiles were careening off all surfaces in the van with some actually reaching the animals.  I cannot adequately describe it other than to tell you that it was totally hilarious and I recommend this treatment for anyone in the Knoxville area that needs a stress release.  Here are a few photos:

Oh, and the good news?  We got our overnight fee refunded.  Saved that money!!

We have complete confidence that God is in control of the timing of our travel.  We continue to pray for our daughter and our upcoming travel and we welcome any prayers offered in our behalf!  :)

Baggage

We just got back from a cruise.  It was awesome and we had a great time.  However, we were headed home we discovered that we lost one of our bags.  We left it at the port.  Not on purpose.  Bummer.  More on that in a minute...

We had a party of 12:  our family of six, both sets of grandparents, and two friends.  Audrey wished for the cruise as a graduation present about the time that she started high school, so we have been saving for this--and it was wonderful!!

As we prepared for the trip, we talked a lot to the two little girls about what to expect.  We know that all of our kids do better if they know what will be happening.  Yuly was especially nervous about going to another country, but we talked about it extensively and by the time the cruise came, everyone was very excited.

The whole crew!!

 Here are the "big girls" of the adventure.

 My beautiful daughters in Cozumel.

 Headed off to our first adventure... Grand Cayman Islands

The girls loved catching and holding the turtles.

There were many, many happy memories made on this trip.  We ate dinner together every night.  We snorkeled (twice!).  We ate ice cream late at night and even for breakfast (at least some of us did!)

But, our lost baggage was not our only experience with a baggage issue.  We had another one during the trip.  One that was an even bigger bummer.

During lunch one day, Yuly said she wasn't very hungry so I ordered her a bowl of lentil soup.  When it arrived, her whole demeanor changed.  Something about the soup reminded her of a terrible experience in Colombia.  It took her awhile to process through it.  During the off time, she expressed fear and anger in ways that we haven't seen for a long time.  It is heartbreaking to watch my child deal with a horrible memory.  And for Yuly, what she needs when these situations arise is time.  Time to grieve, time to think, time to process.  And then time to reconnect.

This part of the trip was only a small fraction of our time.  For 99% of our trip, we were making happy memories, not dealing with past hurtful ones.  But these reminders of the ghost of her past show us how far she has come, but that she still has past events that she must deal with.  And we don't know when something will trigger those memories.  Unlike our lost luggage, we wish her baggage would be lost forever.  However, like our lost luggage, we must deal with the problem and figure out a way to correct it.  To help her heal.  We thank God, the Great Physician, for the healing she has already experienced and we are grateful for how far she has come.

We also thank God, our Provider, for providing positive memories for our family...fun times for all of us and for an opportunity for Yuly to build good memories to help replace some of the bad ones.