Fundraiser!

I (April) am now officially signed up to run in the Portland Marathon on October 4th! I ran a half marathon with my two sisters in June, and decided if I have trained that much, might as well keep on training for the full marathon. This will be my first marathon. We decided to use this marathon as a fund raiser to help bring Josiah home. The marathon is the day before Josiah's second birthday, so we thought what better birthday gift, than being that much closer to being able to give him a family. If you would like to support us in being able to bring him home, you can click on the "chip in" button on the right of this blog. All donations are tax deductible (through our church's adoption fund). If you feel more comfortable sending a check, please email me at apriltranby@hotmail.com and I will tell you how to proceed. Thank you in advance for all your support.

DTC!!!!!!!

We just found out today that our dossier was sent off to China on Friday! This is a huge milestone, and such a relief to have all that paperwork done. It took us about 3 1/2 months to gather all that paperwork, and it was almost lost by Fed Ex. It was sent to the wrong city and delivered a day late, but now it is on the way to China! Now we wait to hear our log in date (the day our dossier is officially logged into China's system). Everything is in China's hands, and the timeline becomes even more unpredictable.

Here's some pictures of our camping trip this weekend. It was really cold on Friday but we still had a great time. Fortunately it warmed up a bit on Saturday and Sunday so we could venture away from the fire a little more.

Are we having fun yet? YES WE ARE!!!

Joel LOVES stoking the fire

Can I play with the fire too?? NOOOOO!

I'll make my own pretend fire.

Enjoying summer

Not much new here on the adoption front. We are still waiting to hear when our fingerprinting appointment is. We've gotten two letters in the mail from the USCIS, and each time, my heart beat goes a little faster to see if it is our fingerprint appt. Each time, it was just a confirmation that they got our application and paperwork. They are pretty efficient, huh, telling us twice that they got our paperwork? At least we know we sent it to the right address, though. We're going to a wedding this weekend, so on the way we are stopping by the secretary of state to get most of our paperwork authenticated. It will feel good to have that step of the paperchase almost done.

Here's a picture of the kids (with cousins and friend) at the pet parade on the 4th.

Home study done!

We sent off our homestudy and I-800A application to immigration last Wednesday, finally. It took longer than expected for our homestudy to be reviewed, so we are back on track with our initially expected timeline. Next we wait for our fingerprint appointment, where we get to drive to the Portland immigration office to get our fingerprints taken for a FBI background check (even though we already had an FBI background check for our homestudy). We really aren't criminals!!!

Last Friday, Hannah had her first dance recital. She did great doing a ballet dance as Tinkerbell, a tap dance as Minnie Mouse, and a dance with Joel as Beauty and the Beast. They did great, I was so proud of them! Joel was the only brother dancing. Everyone else was Dads or a boyfriend.



We also went to the beach a couple weeks ago with April's side of the family, so here's some pictures from that weekend.

First care package and good news

First of all, the good news. We are officially not criminals!!! Our homestudy background checks came back yesterday, which was faster than we expected (We had to wait 5 1/2 weeks, instead of the expected 8 to 9 weeks). Now our agency just needs to check the homestudy and then we will file with immigration. One step (out of a million steps) closer to our son!!!

We sent our first care package to Josiah on Monday. We decided to send this one on our own, instead of using a service, so hopefully it will get to him. We have no way of knowing if he gets it. When it is his birthday in October, we will probably use a service to send him a cake, but for this one we thought it would be more fun to pick out the items ourselves. David and I slept with the little dog for a few nights to help get our scent on it, maybe help with attachment???

Last day skiing of the season

We went up to the mountain on Sunday to go skiing for one last time. Had fun watching some "pond skimming," where people ski or board down a hill and skim across a pond of icy cold water, usually sinking into the water. The kids thought this was so fun (to watch!). Now we are on to warmer weather and will have to make the switch to water skiing.

Fun hiking day

We went to Smith Rock today to go for a hike that is normally to difficult to bring Joel and Hannah since Joel and Hannah are at Disneyland this weekend with their Nana and Grandpa. It was fun to do something with just Olivia, since we don't get to do that very often. She ate up all the attention.