Strep, 5 year Prep, and new Visa steps

Oh my has this been a difficult week! I finally found my daily rhythm last weekend and we enjoyed Saturday and Sunday with our friends. Beautiful weather enticed us outdoors and now we're all longing for signs of spring! On Sunday Kendall returned from a friend's house feeling pretty bad, her throat mainly. By Monday morning we were sitting in her doctor's office, diagnosis Strep Throat. Poor kid. It was miserable for her. But in the way that only kids can, by Tuesday morning and 2 doses of meds in her she was up and about and feeling way better. Love that medicine!! She went to school on Wednesday and I went to my doctor, for the same diagnosis. This stuff is wicked! Hoping I'll bounce back as quickly??
Sweet Mallory turns 5 this weekend. We are praying she won't be a victim of this junk! Prayer is all we have left since the precocious little girl refuses to stay out of our faces and insists on a hug even as we're running the other direction. Let's hope 5 gives her more self control than 4 did!
We received interesting news this week regarding our second trip back to Ethiopia. The way the US Embassy gives dates was based upon your agency. So for our agency we knew that they have a standing arrangement every other Thursday. Having been briefed on the steps needed to get our paperwork to the Embassy, the timeline had us believing we were good candidates for the March 3 court date. We were so sure we even made our lodging arrangements for that week. But then 2 hours after we made those reservations we received an update regarding the Embassy dates. The Embassy has decided to do away with set days for agencies. It's a free for all! What?!? Not really. The way we now understand it to be is that in an effort to move more cases through efficiently they have decided to alert the agencies as soon as each file has been reviewed and is cleared to have a Visa Interview. Our agency will still try to group families together so that we have a travel group. Though I know now from experience how wonderful such a group can be, I'm quite sure the agency needs to group us together in an effort to not overwhelm the in-country staff and the travel coordinator here in the states. I'm hopeful that our agency and the Embassy will find a 'groove' that proves to be most beneficial to the children and their families who are waiting to be united again. This first full week apart from Ty has been a roller coaster! Many tears have been shed in anxiety and the inexplicable weight of separation from our child. He is on our minds constantly and we find ourselves reaching out to the other adoptive families..it's our one true connection back to the days with Ty. We are grateful to hear from them and so very glad they want to talk about our babies together. One thing that helps is to know that though he may be miles away he sleeps under the same moon and wakes to the same bright sun that we do. And always, we are all under God's ever watchful eye, the most comforting thought of all.
One more bit of exciting news came this week. One of the traveling families had stayed in Ethiopia and was scheduled to leave on Jan 31st. They had contacts in Ethiopia and were able to extend their stay. We learned yesterday that they had been told to extend their trip because it was a good possibility that they would get to have their visa interview next week. We are so excited for them and pray that all goes well. If this comes true for them it is a good indicator that our paperwork may be close behind. We, too, could be getting an invitation to return sooner than we thought! It's all in God's hands, and as I've said before His timing is always perfect!

Spring Break Bliss

Spring Break at our house is a gift to not only the kids, but mom too! Truly I believe that it must have been a woman, a stay at home mom kind of woman, who said one day "I can't wake up one more morning, pack one more lunch, assist with one more assignment until I have a full week of rest, or two" and thus the Spring Break Fairy was born. Because of the county we live in we are granted not one but two weeks off. Bliss.
How have we spent our days? The last official day of school my oldest and I attended a Girl Scout overnighter..much fun indeed. So totally exhausted when we came home I crawled into bed at 5:30 and didn't get up until the next morning. The next few days were spent just hanging out, sleeping in late, trying to get the house in order. On Tuesday we decided to take a road trip! Yay! Thursday we headed to Illinois, stayed 2 nights in Lisle, IL, right outside of Chicago. We took the train into Chicago, had a dinner party with our American Girl dolls (hubby was sooo stoked about that!), and visited the Adler's Planetarium. Then we drove down to Indianapolis, stayed two nights and enjoyed our time there with a trip to the Indianapolis Children's Museum and an indoor water park. While there my hubby had searched out an Ethiopian restaurant, and aside from getting lost in the area we are quite sure was not visitor friendly on the not so great side of downtown, the experience was Fantastic and the food wonderful.
We've been home for 3 days now. My youngest seems to have picked up Fifths Disease from someplace..my best educated medical guess (all moms come with a license to diagnose). No worries there, it has not slowed her down. My oldest is enjoying her last few days of lounging. We all stayed in bed until 9:30 a.m.! It's 5:45p.m. and we're eating popsicles! I don't have a clue what I'm making for dinner..what's the rush? The sun is still shining and the day just seems to linger on. I. Love. it. Hoping the hubby gets home with enough time to enjoy some of this laziness..maybe he will declare a Spring Break for all others, encouraging all workers to take a spring break. He could be the modern day Spring Break Fairy!! Guessin' he won't find the joy in that title the way I do.