Prayers Please!

Hey guys,

I have been enjoying a lovely five week vacation in Arizona with my parents for all the holidays...I feel really blessed to have the opportunity to do this especially when I run my own business! We really need some prayers that we can finish up the last background checks and paperwork for this adoption. We are so close I can see the light at the end of the tunnel....wait list here we come! Then we will be waiting for our referral for about the next nine months but am eagerly looking forward to spending that time with Drew :)

As for him, he is working hard in Afghanistan and missing everyone back home. Time has gone by pretty fast though and I look forward to his return in April...woo hoo!

Thanks for all the prayers and I look forward to seeing what God has in store for us!

Jess

xo

Another week down.

Hey guys,

Well, it's Halloween and I just finished passing out candy to all the kiddos that live in the neighborhood...they are all so cute :)
Another week has passed and I can't believe it is November! Getting closer to the holidays and that makes me excited :) Drew is doing awesome in Afghanistan and is working non-stop....I guess he will be super busy until he comes home.
We are still waiting on our social worker to finish up writing our homestudy and I hope that she sends it to me this week so we can get the ball rolling again....frustrating as usual!

Happy Halloween!

Jess

Happy 3 Years!

Today is Drew and my anniversary and we have been happily married for 3 years...time really flies by and we have been beyond blessed throughout our marriage. All our thanks go to the Lord and I will miss my baby while he is away....if you read this, I love you and cannot wait for your return home!

HAPPY 3rd ANNIVERSARY!

Love-

Your Wife
xo

Visit from Dad

I got a nice visit from my dad this week. He was in Orlando for a dental convention and I got to go stay with him for a night this past weekend. We went to Epcot with some friends and watched Auburn win and Alabama lose (it was a good day to say the least!) Then he came to Tampa to visit me for a few days and we went to the Rays/Rangers playoff game, some good local reastaurants and Clearwater Beach. We had a great time and now I am just counting down the days to go to Arizona for the holidays :)

I'm still busy with my brides but am very thankful to be busy with the way the economy is right now. I guess people will always get married! ha ha

Drew seems to be in good spirits every time I talk to him...we are just heavily relying on the Lord and excited for the opportunity for him to go overseas and fight for our country! I'm busy, he is busy, the dogs are mischievious (lol) and we are doing well so far.

Still waiting for our homestudy to get written up and waiting on some approvals....wait wait wait! Other than that, life is very good and rewarding right now.

Lots of love,

Jess

xo

Waiting for Approval!

Well everyone,
It looks like it will be a waiting game to get our homestudy back and then get our agency & immigration approval. Also just waiting for our clearances to get back....so hopefully (fingers crossed) we can be wait listed by the beginning of 2011!! I must say taht it is nice to not be rushing around and doing lots of paperwork. It will be such a blessing to get approval and then we will be doing lots of waiting until we get our referral :) I have to keep telling myself that it will all be worth it in the end.
I have talked to Drew and he is safely in Afghanistan! So far I have talked to him everyday, if not twice a day so it has been great so far...well not great, but you know what I mean.
Thanks again for all the prayers and support. Updates will continue to come....

Jess
xo

Away he goes....

Hey,

So Drew and I completed our homestudy visits and we are pretty relieved to be done with the major parts of this adoption paperwork! What a blessing it is to be able to adopt this child and we couldn't be any happier about it. On a sad note, Drew is leaving for training tomorrow and I won't see him again until April as he serves our country and protects our freedom in Afghanistan. I hope everyone will continually pray for him while he is away....I'm sure he will appreciate the support and prayers very much. I will keep everyone updated on Drew and our adoption process over the upcoming months.
Thank you, thank you and thank you again for supporting our family :)

Jess
xo

Whoo...

Doctor's visits done!! Now just to finish our homestudy on Monday....getting more excited to finish some of the last of the major paperwork :)
Thanks for the prayers and keep them coming!

Love you all,

Jess
xo

Ups and Downs

Hello.

So Drew and I had our first homestudy visit on Monday and it went very well! We have really tried to embrace everything that has gone on in the past month but it has been very stressful at times. We have been sending out huge portions of our paperwork to Gladney, our authenticator of our dossier and to the FBI and Immigration services for clearances.....most of what we have done has been good so far but we are having to do a few things over again and that is the most frustrating. I feel as though we put so much energy in to something and so much money and we just continue to take baby steps rather than long strides...we have made good progress but not as much as we would like (or maybe not as much as I like)! There is a lot of stuff that is out of our control now (i.e. waiting for clearances, background checks, agency licensing, homestudy review and so on). I guess it will just be a waiting game for about a year now :) We still have some paperwork to do and our final doctor visit and homestudy visit next week so I'm hoping we can get wait listed by the beginning of 2011!! Please pray for our paperwork to get through the stages appropriately and pray for our child who is in Africa awaiting to come home with us! :)

Love you all,

Jess & Drew
xo

A Weekend to Breathe

Drew and I had a relaxing weekend in Orlando. We went up there for an A-LO conference...this is an extra activity that Drew volunteers for and helps high school students get into the Air Force Academy. He is great at working with high school students and really great at recruiting them! :) We stayed at a Disney Resort and had a nice night away from adoption paperwork and work itself! We are getting the paperwork done very quickly and it has been a real blessing...we continue to embrace all that the Lord has given us and hope to be good influences and servants of His Kingdom!

Keep the prayers coming...

Jess

xo

Gladney Paperwork Almost Done!

I am thrilled to say that our paperwork for the adoption agency is almost finished. Besides finishing our home study and background checks, we are about through with that part :) Yay....God had been good the past two weeks (no matter how stressful it has been). We have a decent amount of our dossier finished and will start sending those documents up to New York to be compiled and authenticated.
I am happy to say that we have contacted the Immigration Services and they are allowing Drew to get his fingerprints done before he leaves for training! So that means we should be on the fast track to getting our child from Ethiopia...woop, woop! If there are no big delays, we should be able to pick him up by the end of 2011. Weird to think that we may have a child in a year considering I am not pregnant and going through all the physical aspects but it is awesome to think that we will be able to help this child in need....God is so good and I caught myself today saying that out loud to our puppies :) lol...and yes, I do talk to our dogs.
I hope everyone has an awesome weekend and please continue to pray for us to finish the dossier and homestudy with flying colors. We are still not technically approved yet so hopefully in the next couple months we will be able to get put on that long wait list!

Love you all,
Jess
xo

Overwhelming....

Hey...

Well, I have just recieved the application for Gladney and the dossier information for the Ethiopian govt. and I must say that we have to pay a lot of money, get a lot of papers notarized, request a lot of documents (marriage license, birth certificates, FBI clearances, etc) and get some doctor's visits and homestudy visits done very quickly....Need I say more?! I know that Drew and I can crank some of this stuff out pretty quickly if we focus on it and let God take the lead. The agency has told us in writing that we will become frustrated, mainly due to the delay and wait process of getting this paperwork done, not including the 6-10 months of waiting for a referral of a child! We are going to go into this with a clear head and lots of faith :) What else can we do?. Our goal at the end of this maze, is to bring a child into our loving home and give him/her the life they never would of dreamed of. FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS is the main goal right now....if anyone wants to pray for our paperwork to get done quickly and effectively, please feel free!

The picture is from our manual and is just a reminder that once we get all the little details done, we will get to travel to Ethiopia to pick up our child...YAY!!

We love you guys!

Love,

Jess

xo

Orientation

Hello. Hello.

Drew and I have just talked with the agency and had a great phone orientation! We have decided to leave our options available and adopt anywhere from a baby to toddler age. After talking to them, they told us how many babies they have that are in need...our prayer is that God leads us to one of those children. They also told us that they can try to speed some things up for us since Drew is deploying soon and how they will work with our family while he is gone....so exciting the doors God is opening up for us! We just scheduled our doctor appointments and feel ready for whatever comes our way at this point. Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us and who have been supportive....we can't do this without God and without prayer and it is good to know we have awesome friends and family that continue to pray for us!
The next step is the application and I will hopefully be starting that on Monday....

More updates to come.

Jess & Drew
xoxoxo

Committed....

Hey everyone,
Drew and I have officially committed and started the beginning steps to adopting a child from Ethiopia! There are no words to express how excited we both are to become parents...We know the process is going to be long and probably frustrating but the end result is what we are looking forward to. There are so many kids throughout the world that need a loving home, and our goal is to give just that one child our love and support! Everyday for the past month we have been praying and thinking about our child-to-be...thanks to everyone who is supporting us and we will definitely keep everyone updated through our blog.

Jess