A nice surprise!

Today what I have been waiting for in the mail finally came.... our package from Kidslink (our agency). There was actually two packages. One was papers, and the other was thicker. Curious I opened that one first and was delighted to find a brand new copy of the "Lonely Planet Guide to Ethiopia and Eritea". Now that is a first class agency!!! I was SO EXCITED!!! I looked at it at the book store, but thought.. I'll wait, but here it was, with a lovely letter accompanying it. Wonderful! The other stuff was so well organized. It is so nice to be dealing with an agency to handle a lot of the stuff we had to deal with with our Haiti dossier. I mean they even included 2 copies of all of the forms we need for our Ethiopian travel Visa!! I was very very very impressed, to say the least! The only thing that has me stressed is the amount of money we have to shell out in the next couple of months. I have no idea at this point where in God's name it will come from, but we'll figure it out. That's what banks are for sometimes, right?

Anyway, it is too exciting. My Mom is even getting her first round of shots tomorro!! She is so terrifac! I have to call the doctor tomorro to schedule Ellie for hers. Ugh. She has a serious, I mean SERIOUS phobia to needles. It is so traumatic. So a nurse friend of mine suggested some kind of numbing cream I think we might try. I mean, even the belief that this cream would work might help a bit. Anyway, she has to go for 3 rounds of shots, and 4 total if we have to get Yellow Fever too. But on a positive note she was asking me all sorts of questions about Ethiopia last night ont he way home from piano. "Do we take a plane to get there?" That was a huge excitement for her. "Is it hot there?" Another bonus. When I told her we might get to have a stopover in London England (I am not sure if this is the case, but I understand it might be) that was a huge hit!! I then told her we would only be seeing the airport, and she said, "But Mom, couldn't we just open the door a little and peak out???" I laughed and said I guess we could! When we talked about WHY we were going, she seemed to forget again. Hmmm. not sure if she is intentionally forgetting, so I didn't press it. I just said we MIGHT adopt a brother or sister for her, and we were very seriously THINKING about it. Then she got into how she wants an older brother or sister, and we talked about that too. Then we changed the subject entirely and I haven;t meantioned it since.

Our criminal checks are done, and now we wait for those to come back in a few days and then our homestudy can FINALLY begin it's trek to Edmonton, which I am hearing is taking up to 5 weeks to process now! Then we get that back and send all of our paperwork to Kidslink and they get it together and authenticate it and send it BACK to Edmonton who then sends it to Ethiopia. Whew! So here is my TOTALLY UNINFORMED UNEDUCATED GUESS of when our paperwork will be in Ethiopia..... Mid to late March. Not bad. Then if we get a referral right away, well then we would actually be travelling 6 weeks from then. THE END OF APRIL. The is THE most OPTIMISTIC probably TOTALLY UNREALISTIC timeline in the history of timelines. But a girl can dream. A lady sent her dossier to Ethiopia a week ago and ALREADY has her referral. Did I tell you that already? I'm just saying. It could happen fast, it could be slow.. who knows. All I know is, I hope my Mom and Ellie get their shots in time. I hope our passports get processed in time. I hope the Alberta Govt approves our homestudy. Yes, let's go back there and take it one step at a time as we always do. Aaaah.. that's better.

Okay, it is now 8:57, American Idol is about to start. Yay!