Surprise! Dossier sent!

I went to check the mail yesterday already in a great mood because I was on my way to run a very special errand and there was an envelope from The Secretary of State! I opened it up and there was our document that we have been waiting for over a month! I was so exited, I called Gavin right away hoping that he would be home in time to take pictures with it and bring it to FedEx. I could have brought it in the morning but I wanted Gavin to be there. He would be home in time:) I ran my errand and got home to make sure everything was in order. I had to go make a few copies of the new document at Office Max and make a disk of all of the documents for translation. I then made sure that all of the checks were in order. We wrote checks that equaled $11,940! All the money we needed was there! Praise God! We took pictures of it and with it, we prayed over it an then headed over to FedEx.

Irelyn making sure we included all of the necessary documents.

Eight months of blood sweat and tears went into this dossier. When we started the process they told us we would have it finished in 1-4 months....yeah right!

It was a happy time getting to finally send this thing off. Gavin does not normally get exited about things until they happen and he was smiling and talking to Irelyn about her brother and sister. Such a sweet time! I made sure to stop a moment, thank God and just take in all of the emotions. I want to remember the feeling and excitement of being able to send off our dossier. This may be the only time in our life that we get to experience this. I honestly don't know how people do this more than once. It is so hard! I am sure that as soon as we get them home, I will forget how difficult it was and want to start over.:)

Lovin Irelyn's "cheese smile"

Praying over the dossier.

So it is in the mail on its way to our dossier coordinator in Washington State. It will get to her on Tuesday at which point she will check to make sure everything is in order(please pray that it is). She told me this will take about 48 hours. She will then send it to be translated which takes another 48 hours. Then it will be on its way to Ethiopia and we will be ready for our referral! I can't wait to see God's timing for this adoption. We just never know what will happen next and it is so fun!