My School Friends Shower at Haley's-- August 28th

Thank you Haley for hosting such a lovely shower for Jameson and I. I'm blessed to work with such a great group of ladies. I love you guys!!

China was nicely represented with Mia and Charli Grace in attendance!!
Got a stressful call on Wednesday of this week. Great Wall (our adoption agency) let me know that our final form from US Immigration must reach them by AUGUST 31 in order for us to be able to go to China before NOVEMBER or DECEMBER!!

I had still been hanging onto the hope that we would be traveling in September. Unfortunately, the American Consulate in China has no more appts available in September, leaving October as our earliest to leave. Well, I find out that October is just festival central for China--Great Wall only schedules ONE trip to China during this month. IF ALL OF THIS ISN'T CRUSHING ENOUGH, my travel advisor at Great Wall reminded me that our family's travel approval expires in October. If we do not COMPLETE our stint in China before our approval expires, we could very well be delayed by several months and have paperwork to re-do!! Hang on, there's more....

To get this coveted form from Immigration, we have to have our newest batch of fingerprints completed. Our fingerprint appt. was not scheduled until Sept. 7. There was crying. So many obstacles to overcome. I was feeling very, very hopeless.

I devised a plan for Brian and I to take off work the very next day, Thursday, drive to the Immigration office in Bham, and beg them to do our fingerprints early.

I guess my teary eyes bright and early Thursday morning tugged at the heart strings of some government workers-- WE WERE ABLE TO GET THE PRINTS DONE!!

We are one step closer, now just praying that yet another, hopefully undisgruntled, government worker will feel the love and expedite our paperwork for the August 31st deadline.

Is your head spinning? No one else in my family understands what all is going on either. IT'S CRAZY!!!