Waiting to be DTC

"Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee: yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." Isaiah 41: 10

2008 is flying by in some ways. What a year it has been. I love Fall and the leaves are just starting to change in Virginia. The weather is gorgeous. It is in the 70's during the day and in the 50's at night. Last Saturday, September 27th was Mandy's homecoming at UCA. All seniors are on the court for homecoming and I am including a picture of her with Kelsey and Daphne. This was taken a few minutes before they left home for the big event. Mandy is a special young lady. With mom's passing, she had to step up this summer and babysit Nicholas and Shane on the days that I worked. She has had to make sacrifices for her family and she has done it willingly.

We celebrated John's 47th birthday today even though his birthday was last Saturday. It was bittersweet as I always enjoy the family getting together but there is always a void now because mom is not with us at the gatherings. Jeremy is home for Fall break so it was nice having him here for the past few days. He returns to Liberty tomorrow and we will miss him. I asked Mandy to take pictures of the boys so I could post them but as usual, she has trouble getting Shane to sit still long enough for a picture so I am including one of Nicholas and not Shane.

This past week has been a Chinese holiday so our dossier is not back from the Chinese Consulate and no new pictures of Abigail were posted on New Day this week so I am including one that was taken previously. We received our monthly update on her though and she is doing wonderful. The nanny wrote "One day, she saw Ben's parents come to take him to his new home in the USA, and she said, “I also have parents. I am called Abigail now!”. It so blessed our hearts to know that is looking forward to her parents coming to take her home. We are hoping to be DTC (dossier to China) this week. I'll post if this happens. For those of you that have not adopted internationally before, our next step after we are LID (log in date) will be LOA (letter of acceptance) and this could take 60 -90 days. We are really praying for a miracle and that if it is God's will, that we receive it sooner as once we are LOA, we receive travel approval shortly thereafter.

I have a trip to Blacksburg, VA this week for work and John and Shane are going with me. I really like it when they can go with me as I hate being away from Shane overnight. Another reason we are praying to travel to China in 2008 is that I have business trip to California in mid-December and will be gone up to 4 nights. I have never left Shane that long before and unless I am on leave for the adoption, I will have to go. I'll post again as soon as I have news!