Well friends, it is finished: our dossier has been mailed! I can't tell you how frustrating the last bit of paper chasing was. Man. It was due to our medicals; we kept finding out that we needed more and more and then when we thought we had it, turns out there was a mistake by someone on the form or it was the wrong type of test results, etc. I'm not joking in the least little bit when I say that it took us two FULL weeks to get every medical test needed and to obtain every last little document. Robby made two trips up to the hospital, four trips to our doctor's office, and multiple trips to the post office all within the span of that last week. It was almost a maddening process, but we knew that it had to be done. And now it is!
So... now what? Simply put, we wait. Thankfully, our documents began being translated a few weeks early, so this might shorten the time span of our wait to hear back from Latin America. Ultimately, we were told to count on a solid three month wait, however we are hoping that we will end up hearing back earlier than that. There's no real way to know, though. Worst case, we hear back mid-December. I figure we will have our minds pretty occupied with the holidays and what not, so that will help somewhat. Either way, we are motivated to get our girl home! We are ready to jump as soon as we get the word for what is required of us next.
Right now we are having a family "staycation". For those who don't know what that means, here's a definition for you:
stay·ca·tion
A vacation spent in one's home country rather than abroad, or one spent at home and involving day trips to local attractions.
For four days Robby is home from work and we are driving around Northwest Arkansas doing fun, budget-friendly local activities. Saturday the twins had a photo shoot in downtown Siloam Springs for the October "multiples" cover of Peekaboo magazine (exciting!), so we spent some time there and had lunch.
Scotland and Jubilee on the set of their Peekaboo magazine photo shoot
Today we drove about a half hour out to Hobbs State Park where we had a great time checking out all of the exhibits in the visitor's center and then taking a little hike along one of the park's trails. Afterward we headed down the road to War Eagle Mill and walked along the gorgeous old bridge and played near the water. We called it a day and headed home after supper and some ice cream in Rogers. It was a good day!
Tomorrow we're using our time to deep clean this house (I know, not fun, but necessary), pull out items for our upcoming adoption fundraiser yard sale, and then in the evening I have a three hour training class for American Heritage Girls (which Ireland has joined this year and I am co-leading) at a local Catholic church. Whew! Tuesday I'm taking a quick tour of a local event venue in light of our 15 year anniversary and vow renewal next year (yeehaw!) and then we're all visiting Crystal Bridges as a family for the very first time. We are quite pumped about it! Wednesday it's back to reality.
All in all, life is beautiful, even if chaotic. It never really ends; the "busy, busy, busy" picks up and slows down, but it's consistently a reality for a large family like us. And that's okay, I've learned to go with it. I am grateful for this life with all of these needy, precious little people.
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