16 Months

Today marks 16 months of waiting for our Little One...will it be "Sweet 16?". We have been very busy this month so the month flew by! We moved at the beginning of February and we've been painting for the past month. We bought a great house...that needed a lot of paint!! We saw the size and layout and loved the house... and figured "well it's just paint", a month later and the painting is only about half done... We've received a ton of help from friends and family and are not sure how to repay them - maybe cookies (!?) The place is starting to look and feel more like our home...so that is nice!

We have to start focusing now on setting up the basement for Tammy's mom who is moving in by April first. It will be an interesting change in our lives - but a very welcome one.

There weren't any proposals in Quebec in February :(

We're hoping and praying that our update will help our file get noticed and that we'll be getting our proposal really really really soon. We're keeping a level head about it though, we know that there are many couples who have been waiting longer than us, so we're starting to mentally prepare that we'll be waiting until at least the fall for our proposal.

The other big news in February was that Rachelle came home from the Philippines! She was there living in Mindanao for 6 months while working for Doctors without Borders. She loved it! She brought us home many stories about the Philippines, some travel tips and some dried Mango!!! Oh so Good!!

And so...back to painting...and waiting...

Update Completed

On Monday afternoon we received a call from youth protection to tell us that our update is completed and ready for pick up. I went to pick it up and I drove it directly to the Agency's office. The office was happy to see that our file didn't need to be translated! I'm glad to know that our update is now on its way to ICAB! We're ready! Little One....we're ready for you!

While we're waiting, we're settling in around here...doing more painting...most of the boxes have been unpacked...Once we're done upstairs...we'll move to painting the basement...Mom will be moving in before we know it! I think we may wait to decorate the Little One's room and the Playroom until after we receive the proposal...but you never know when the decorating bug will bite!

Waiting on others...

On January 31, we received notice that ICAB (Inter Country Adoption Board) in the Philippines requested an update for all families who were approved for adoption in 2008. So in the midst of trying to paint our new place so that it would be ready in time for the move on February 6th, we now had to do an update to our file with our social worker. We are actually pretty excited about the update, because there have been quite a few positive changes in our life over the past 15 months and we are excited to share them with ICAB. However, anytime there is paperwork to do...well...it takes time...the social worker...the youth protection office...the adoption agency...and finally...ICAB itself. It can be time consuming and exciting, but the waiting on others is the hardest part.