Hodge Podge

We have had more than usual going on lately and I've gotten way behind in posting. So, here is an attempt to catch everyone up.

The biggest thing we've had going on is getting Ryan moved. We found a new agency and have had many conversations with them about Ryan and a possible move to their agency. We found out yesterday that they are now working on the necessary paperwork to get him moved before October 20th so he will be come a client of the new agency very soon. We were very pleased to find out that he does not have to move to the Chicago area and will be moving to a home about 30 miles from us. We are very encouraged by the attitude of this agency and feel they will make the necessary changes that will make Ryan's life much more enjoyable, including a day program, which he really needs.

Ryan has also gone to visit the new house a couple time and will be going several times over the next couple of weeks, including some over night visits to help make his transition a little easier. It would be better if we had several more weeks in which is could visit, but since his current agency has decided to close the house he's living in now, we don't have that much time and are doing the best with the timeline we've been given.

We are still trying to get our basement cleaned up so we can begin renovations. The hope is that the remainder of the clean up will happen on Saturday with new insulation and sheetrock going up on Sunday. A good friend has offered to help and that will certainly move things along more quickly.

Here are some photos we took of the flood.

Our friend brought some of his kids with him the day he was helping Dave get the sump pump working to get the water out of the basement. His 4 year old says as they are getting ready to leave, "I like your basement better this way." It was so nice being able to laugh about the situation and kids have a way of making you see the brighter side of things.

Lili has turned into a little monkey since she's discovered she can climb on the furniture. All pieces of furniture are now fair game as far as she's concerned.

Here's the proof.

Lili doesn't seem to mind the fact that the office chairs are on wheels and swivel. She still likes climbing on them and standing on them.

She's so proud of herself.

Last, but not least, we submitted our application and required paperwork to our home study agency today. With everything going on lately, we thought we were going to have to wait until the end of the year to get started, but since things are moving in a positive direction with Ryan, we decided to really get things going. I'm now in the process of reading through all the paperwork from the placement agency so we can get our contract and other paperwork signed and submitted to them. Once that is done we'll get our dossier information and can really begin the paper chase. For those who have been down this road before, you know that this is really the only part of the process that you have any control over. Once we turn our dossier over to the agency, it is out of our hands and we wait. Our Ethiopia experience is going to be very different from our Guatemala experience. We will wait several months for our referral, accept the referral, the case goes through the Ethiopia court system and once that is complete we travel to pick up our baby girl. With Guatemala we received our referral a few weeks after our dossier was submitted and then we waited for birth mother interviews, PGN reviews, etc. which took 9 months and for those 9 months we watched Lili grown through pictures and doctor reports. This time around we should only have a wait of 3-4 month from time we receive our referral until our baby girl is in our arms forever.

I think that's enough hodge podge for today.