Well, today is a momentous day for us in the Rice household, as we're celebrating our DTE (Dossier To Ethiopia)! It is leaving the America World office in Virginia this very afternoon. I have already started tracking its progress with the handy 12-digit number. It's still in Virginia. :) These photos were taken on Monday, when Ben, Maren and I drove down to Springfield, IL, (an hour's drive) to have two documents (a Power of Atty. and our Dossier Cover Sheet) certified. This took 10 minutes at the Secretary of State's (Index Dept.) office, which was well worth the drive, since they said if we would send it to allow 5 days for processing. Are you kidding? Not an option.
Since we were directly across the street from the very beautiful Illinois State Capitol building, we went over for some photos with it and with the fine statue of President Lincoln. This day was astoundingly gorgeous. We just kept scanning the sky, one side to the other, and it was all the same, the lightest, brightest sky blue and covered with enormous brilliant, eye-squintingly white puffy clouds. Ben said that it looked like the sky a little kid would draw. Love that.
We were off to FedEx next, where we made copies of the most recent sheets that we'd gotten, then put them in their correct order, and boxed it up to send. All together, we had probably about 125 sheets of paper and other things in there...so, we had them shrink wrap it for $.75 (Thanks for that idea, Davett!). It would arrive by the next morning, Tuesday, at 10:30, and if it did that, we were assurred that it would go out (DTE) by Friday, which is now today. It arrived out there (VA) at 10:33, but we won't be complaining about that. :)
Now, we wait. No, it won't be miserable, though it certainly could be. Because it's all in God's hands, and He has our very best in mind. Besides that, being miserable is a choice, typically, right?, and who needs that? We can only be thankful in all things. So, with his strength we'll venture to be Happy Waiters. (Ok, I'm sure it will be very hard...but possible.) Thanks for being happy and joyous with us! Love you all!
If you'd like to see a photo of one of 4 murals going up at the Transitional Home in Ethiopia where our kids will be in the months before we get them, you can see them at www.awaablog.org. Quite a bit of work is being done by a group that is there right now.
2 comments:
I have this image of you, Ben, and the kids with serving aprons on and trays or other such things with you so you can be "happy waiters." wishing you special times as you wait. It's been lovely to tell Anna some memories from the waiting time, such as crying when we got the call we had been matched. She loves that one.
Hi Rices,
I recently found your blog off of a friends and noticed that you lived in B/N, IL. I live in the suburbs of Chicago and my friend told me about a gathering for families who are adoption from Ethiopia.
Here is the info:
Sunday, September 13th at Miller Park in Bloomington.
It is a pot luck, bring a main dish as well as a side dish, salad or dessert. Familes should bring their own plates, eating utensils and drinks.
Meeting at 3:30 p.m. for some playtime in the park with the pot luck starting at 5:00 p.m.
Don't know if you knew about this but if you didn't I hope you can go. I think last year there were about 40 families in attendance.
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