Ain't No Mountain High Enough...

I have had this song in my head lately so I decided to use it for the title of my post. We have known for about a week that the SDA has changed their minds again and they decided to stop accepting more dossiers after all. Sigh. So if they do keep the list we will still be close to the front of the line. If not we are still the first family that our facilitator will submit when he gets a chance. The SDA will reopen in February. We are guessing that the soonest we will be there is June. You just never know though, do you? So in one week we went from going to Ukraine to in the dead of winter (brrr) to possibly the dead of summer (uck). I have a feeling these old soviet buildings will not be equipped with modern day air conditioners and I have heard the bugs can be bad as well. Oh well, we will be there to get our kids. :)

I was a little sad because our original dossier submission date (tomorrow) is the anniversary of my mom's passing 8 years ago. It would have been so special to have our dossier submitted on that day. It will be special when the time comes though. I know it will be.

Anyway, that is the latest. I am turning 29 on Tuesday and I am hoping that my twenties will be finished on a high note.

We drove up to the mountains today to look at the fall colors. The websites all indicated crisp, clear, fall weather. We got to the top of the mountain (where the viewing bridge and lookout are) and it was cold, misty, and you couldn't even see the bridge, much less the view. We didn't even eat our picnic. It was too cold to sit outside. We got hot snacks inside the lodge and had a great walk in the leaves. We did get great views from lower elevations where it was much clearer and a bit warmer. This is the second year our leaf looking plans have been foiled but we kept talking about going back next year. Third time's a charm? I will post pictures later. Keaton loved it! He literally bounded through the leaves that covered the ground where we walked. We took tons of pictures but we are both terrible at picking the correct setting on the camera and we have lots of blurry ones. We should really work on that. :)

What's up this week.

Not much has changed since I last posted. Our dossier submission may not happen a week from tomorrow, but it should be soon after. So that is good.

Yesterday we went out to breakfast with a family that lives in our neighborhood who adopted 3 kids from Ukraine. They had two kids and went to Ukraine in hopes of adopting two more. They came home with three more. :) It was so nice to talk with
them and hear their stories. They were very encouraging and so nice. The kids were darling, all 5 were sweet, well behaved, and really cute. The youngest one reminded me so much of my best friend when she was that age. It will be so neat to continue to get to know this family and to have someone near by who knows what Ukraine adoption and bringing internationally adopted kids home is like.

Today we were supposed to drive up to the mountains to hike, picnic, and look at leaves. When the alarm went off this morning Kevin decided that we should go next weekend instead. We have to be back here before 2 anyway because we made a commitment to be somewhere this afternoon. So the plan is next weekend. Kevin is colorblind and can't see the colors anyway so the fact that this weekend is the peak weekend doesn't phase him. We were a couple weeks late last year and most leaves were dead. I am hoping next weekend won't be too off-peak. I will post some of the "picture of the day" pictures from this month, taken from the place we were supposed to be on the way to now. These are for our family and friends on the west coast. Enjoy!


























































Hopefully next weekend I can post our own pictures. :)

News!

I have been way too exhausted to post lately and since I hadn't shared my blog address until now there was no point anyway. Good news though, we will probably have our dossier submitted in Ukraine in two weeks. It is looking like it will be submitted on the 29 which will be a nice birthday present to me. :) (My birthday is the 30th.) There are so many things that will need to continue to go right there between now and then, and that will be a small miracle.

If all goes well we are looking at traveling over there about March next year though. From there we will be able to go meet the children we are referred to once there and see if they are a good fit for our family. That is a dramatically simplified version of what will happen, but that is it in a nutshell. We will probably have to stay there for at least a month to get through the legal process but we should be bringing the kids home with us next spring! For those who don't know, we are hoping to adopt 2 kids (biological siblings) from Ukraine. We are approved for up to 3 kids, either sex, ages 6 and under. We have kept our options open because you just never know. We could come home with a 2 year old boy and a 6 year old girl, a 5 year old boy, little ones, older ones, 1, 2,or 3. We do not know. We are thinking 2, but we will see. :)

I will try to keep this blog up to date with our progress, but student-teaching is so tiring that I can't make any promises. Feel free to ask questions and leave comments. I think I have it set so that you can leave comments without signing in, but at least sign your name. Also, remember that since a blog is on the web we would prefer to keep our last name and specific location off the blog, for privacy reasons. Hope to hear from you soon!