Counting down the days

We leave in 16 days to go get our monkey :) Seem like the time is flying by. We still haven't decided on his name, still have to finish paperwork that we need to have while we travel, Still need to make appointments with the school principal for evaluations, and Still need to make appointment with social worker. The Elders Quorum are helping to gather donations for the orphanage for us to take with us: Cloth diapers 14.2inX 20.5 in, Rubber nipples 3-holes/cross cut- Gerber, Plastic bottles 150cc and 240 cc- Gerber, Sleeper M, L (cotton/rich), Underwear (onies) M,L, Gerber, Children's multi vitamins (chewable tablets), Vicks, Puzzles, books, coloring books, crayons, and markers. Thanks so much for their help I am sure the children will love having new stuff. During the last snow we had, when we were out very early delivering our papers and one of our subscribers was out shoveling her driveway when I stopped to take her paper to the porch she approached our car and asked how our adoption was going. I told her it was good and we are going to get him next month. She thanked us for our service and I told her how thankful we were to have the paper route to help us reach our $20,000 goal to complete our adoption. A few days later I was delivering the paper to her porch and there was a bottle of Sprite with a note to me attached sitting on her porch. Much to my surprise when I opened the note out fell a $100 bill to help with our adoption expenses. Yes, I finished the route with tears rolling down my checks. If it was not for the generosity of people like this we would have never been able to make this all happen and give this 6 year old little boy who has already overcome so much in his short life a forever family. We are so blessed to have friends, family and even strangers help us along this long journey. Thank you to everyone who has helped us get here today :)

The news is finally in :)

We could not be happier! On Jan 31st we got the news we have been waiting for since March 2012! Tayler, LuEssa and I leave on March 8th and we will be back March 15th with our new little monkey. We have never been out of the country so this whole trip is going to be crazy full of emotions! I am hoping to get lots of traveling tips to help make things go smoothly. I finished booking travel arrangements today, boy, was that a PAIN! Now I need to finish putting Griffin and "Percy's" room together, so far we have bunk beds painted with new mattresses :) We had a friend donate a ton of clothes to us so he already has drawers full of clothes and shoes (Thank goodness for that)!! We have gifts for his birth mom and the staff at his orphanage. I am working on getting together some donations to take to the orphanage. We need to decide on an American name for him, and many more things to do before we leave. We had a skype visit with him on Jan 29th, he was pretty restless. He loved our cat and tried to pet her through the screen, he showed us animal blocks and drew a picture of his hand. He blew us lots of kisses and said "I love you". I hope he is as ready to come home as we are to go get him.

Thank you all for the support you have givin us!!! We feel so blessed to have so many special friends and family!

We had our first skype :) and Hearing

I guess I should post an update since we have had a little activity since our last post. We were so excited to skype with "Percy" and see and talk with him for the first time. Our Skype date was the morning of December 24th his time (they are 15 hours ahead of us). It took him a little bit to get warmed up and figure out what was going on, the caretakers on his side had him put some colored blocks on some pegs and we were surprised that he knew all the colors in English. They gave him some paper and crayons and as he would draw he would hold up the crayon to the camera to show us. He was very quiet and followed the directions of the caretakers very well. They gave him some cookies and a drink, he wanted more :). They had him say "I love you Momma, I love you pappa, and Merry Christmas" in English. They tried to get him to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star but he only wanted them to help him with the arm movements and he thought that was funny. We were having so much fun and didn't want to miss anything that I forgot to take his picture while we were talking with him. Dean recorded some video of the beginning of our visit on his phone. After the skype visit there was a hearing scheduled in his country, we are still waiting for translations and to find out how that went. We are keeping our fingers crosses and saying our prayers that things will get finalized soon. We have another skype appointment on January 29th that we are looking forward to but in the meantime, the waiting continues............

Still Waiting!!!

All our paperwork has been translated and submitted to the court. The court sent us some questions that we answered a week and a half ago and now we are still waiting for a hearing date :( We did a fundraiser at Chick-fil-A, it was fun and we want to thank everyone who came and donated every dollar helps us bring "Percy" home.

Down Syndrome awareness month

Since October is Down Syndrome awareness month I would like to share a few facts about Down Syndrome..... 1. Down Syndrome occurs when an individual has 3, rather than 2, copies of the 21st chromosome. The additional genetic material alters the course of development and causes the characteristics associated with Down Syndrome. 2. There are more that 400,000 people living with Down Syndrome in the USA. 3. Down Syndrome occurs in people of all races and economic levels.

Dossier is on it way :)

All our paperwork is notarized,state authenticated and TECO authenticated and our agency sent our Dossier last Wednesday so now we are just waiting for a hearing date. It was rush rush rush to get the paperwork completed and now we will wait wait wait. Also,we have been told that we will get to skype with our little guy soon. It will be interesting to see how that goes since he only speaks Chinese and the only Chinese we know is Ni Hau and Ni Hau ma (Hello and how are you). We will need to think of something entertaining to do.

Updated picture :) Can't wait to bring him home!

USCIS Approval!

Yesterday we received our USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services)approval! It is just one of the big hurdles he have to jump for an international adoption. Now we will take all our official documents to the State of Utah for approval. Then we will send them to California to get a TECO (Taipei Economic and Cultural Office) stamp. Then off to Taiwan and wait for a hearing date. We are one step closer to bringing our little guy home!