Waiting patiently

Sorry we haven't posted for awhile (almost three weeks, to be exact!). We have been working on our house and continuing to wait. The army has a phrase ("hurry up and wait"). Well, we have really taken that to a new level. Things are on course for us. We expect to be going over to Ethiopia in late March to early April. Right now it is the dry season over there. They have a pretty stable climate (more so than Minnesota!), so we shouldn't experience any extreme weather.


Last weekend, our agency had their first family get-together. We ate Ethiopian food (delicious!) and had some great coffee. We got to meet the rest of the families and their beautiful children. So far, everything we have heard has been positive. We are continuing to view the whole experience in a positive and life-affirming way. After talking with the other parents, we are both eager to travel to Ethiopia. We will be the fifth couple to adopt through our agency. We are fortunate in that we will be gaining a "second family." (Our Ethiopian family here). We plan on being active in the Ethiopian community in the Twin Cities. We are also planning on learning Amharic (the most common language in Ethiopia).

Hopefully we will be posting more details next week. Once we get closer, things will be happening a lot faster, so stay tuned....

Link to our adoption website

Besides this blog, we have a website, steveandjodiwanttoadopt.com . At the bottom of this blog, there is a link to that site. It gives you a little history of where we have come to reach this point in our journey. There is also an information page on Ethiopia. You can also link back to this blog, by clicking on What's New. If anyone wants to leave us an email, that also is possible. We welcome any and all comments and questions. Check it out!

Biometrics Done

This weekend we went to Customs and Immigrations and had our fingerprints taken. They call it biometrics and it's pretty high-tech stuff. We saw our prints on big computer screens. They have been uploaded to the F.B.I. and Homeland Security. It was about an hour wait; most of the crowd was there to become U.S. citizens, the rest were adopting. We ran into someone Jodi knows from Bethel who are adopting from Peru. We also saw another couple with a beautiful little Ethiopian girl. They said their process went pretty smooth.

While it seems like we have a little lull right now (from most of the paperwork), we are realizing how much still needs to get done. Every week is filled with to-do's. We are getting our house in order, doing projects that needed get done. Good thing Jodi's dad, Don, is retired!

I was talking with my friend Eric about how our lives will change and realized there are a few things we need to do before we get two infants. This includes the following: going out to a movie, sports event or music concert, reading a book, etc. Last week we rented a stack of movies. The list keeps getting bigger....Unfortunately, our adoption to-do list is bigger. No matter what happens, Jodi and I will have no regrets about where we are. To be continued...