The Dirty Duel

This morning, as with every race I've ever run, solidified my love of running and racing! It was a tough race for me but I loved every minute of it! I came in 6th in my age group, out of over 70 women so I was pretty happy with that, for my first trail race. Now I have something to shoot for next time!

This is my favorite part, seeing my family at the finish line! As much as the girls can be grumpy about having to get up early in the cold to see mom run a race, which I totally understand, they are always so excited to see me come down the final chute to the finish line.

Team Orphans

This morning I'm running my first trail race. I decided to run to raise money for Team Orphans.
Athletes seek sponsorships for different events to raise money. All the proceeds go to Brittany's Hope. They offer grants for families who are adopting special needs children. This brings these children one step closer to their forever families.

The race is the Dirty Duel at Robinettes. There are 2 race routes you can choose from, a 5k and a 6k. The 5k is shorter but brutal. The 6k is a little longer, about 3.7 miles, but a faster, smoother course. To tell you the truth I'm not sure yet which one I'm going to do and you don't need to decide beforehand. I'll see how inspired I feel when I'm at the start:)

Boys Room

The boys room is all ready...the clothes, shoes, toys, coats....right down to their toothbrushes and toothpaste. Kevin and friends of ours, an architect and interior designer, designed and built the bunk beds. The height will certainly be new to Caleb but we're hoping with time he'll love sleeping up high:)
Now we just need our two boys!:)

***Disclaimer.... There will be a rail bolted onto the top bunk:) It's just been a work in progress.
I guarantee that we will not allow Caleb to be up there without it!

Visa appointment!

Yesterday Wednesday Nov. 13 we received the email informing us that we have exited USCIS and now would move onto the Dept. of State/Visa part of the process. We contacted our agency contact who informed us we would now await a visa appointment. We expected to get one next week but instead we received another email that afternoon stating that we had a visa appt! We were amazed!

Our visa date is set for November 25th, the Monday before Thanksgiving! We are in awe at how things are moving at this stage. Even though we have known that we'd get to this point eventually, you get so used to sitting in one spot for so long that any movement is joy.

USCIS

We are in! We found out today that we were submitted to USCIS on 10/24!

Our timeline breakdown shows that we could be in USCIS for 4 weeks, DOS (dept. of state) for 2 weeks then wait one week for an Exit Letter.

This is very encouraging and it is very likely that our boys will be home in early December...we will celebrate our first Christmas as a family of 6!

Passports!!!

On Thursday 10/3 we got an email from our agency letting us know that the boys have their passports!!!

This is awesome news!

At this point we are looking at an 8 week wait. This time will include our dossiers going through USCIS, Dept. of State/Visa and the Exit Letter. That means that it is possible for us to be traveling to Haiti at the end of November! We are very confident they will be home for Christmas and we are even praying that they would be home with us for Thanksgiving...that might be a stretch but I am asking God for it anyway.

Goodbye MOI!

Last week we got the call from our agency that we have exited MOI! We were only in for 5 weeks, which is very fast! And we are sooooo thankful!

Now we move onto getting the boys passports and having our whole dossier go to USCIS. This is when the US will grant the boys visas so they can come into the country. Once we clear USCIS, have their visas and the "Exit Letter" we can finally travel to Haiti and bring our boys home.

If all moves the way it could/should, we could be bringing our boys home in just 2 months!!

We have been praying for months that the boys would be home before the end of the year. Then we started praying that they'd be home before Christmas. Now we are praying that they will be home before Thanksgiving.

There is so much that can happen...we could get stuck in any of the upcoming steps or face slowdowns. We're going to ask God anyway :)

This is how we feel :)