House Warming and other things

Our housewarming went great on Sunday and it was very nice. Aaron and I were very overwhelmed by the generosity of those that came. Aaron stayed home with Hannah during church Sunday morning since she was still in the midst of her respiratory virus, then he met us in the parking lot at the church building. We got fast food for lunch and ate it at Mom's apartment, so that we wouldn't get our house dirty, then headed to the house, leaving Hannah with Mom so we wouldn't spread her germs. We didn't tell her that we were having people over to our house. The older girls kept mum about it and we played it up that Sunday afternoon was her special day with Grandma alone.
Anita, the lady that planned it all, arrived early to help me set up and some of the other planners and food bringers arrived early also. I think Aaron counted about 40 people that came, not including children. We had a good time. There were almost as many men as women, and the announcement in the bulletin did specify that men were invited. We had the Titans game on mute in the living room and everyone seemed to have a great time. The housewarming was from 2-3:30, but a few friends came and stayed until a little after 4pm. We had a lot of fun, and I am so thankful for our church family. If you have never moved away from your hometown or your parents, I think it is hard to understand how genius it was that God gives us a family here on earth, whether we are related to them by blood or not. When you don't have family around, and even if you do, the church family becomes your family.
Unless something happens in the next few weeks with Vietnam, Aaron and I will be changing countries...again. Lately, I have been pretty down about the adoption. But, God has given me hope and excitement again, and I can't wait to get financially able to start again. It will be worth it. All this excitement, then disappointment, then excitement, then disappointment, it is leading us to our child. The child God has chosen our family for. Yipee!
I guess I will go ahead and tell what country we are looking at now. Russia. Now this is subject to change, but it has some things going for it.
I started surfing the net again, reading about other countries, giving the info to Aaron and keeping quiet, letting him decide what to do. Trying to put my opinion in , only if he asks. Anyway, I emailed a few agencies wanting info, and one that I liked(on the internet) sent me a bunch of stuff by email, but also called me yesterday and we talked for a while. A side note...for some reason, our computer will not open links that people send us, arrghhh, which is what most people send from agencies. These last few days, I have had to go to Mom's and use her internet to open the documents sent to us. Unfortunately, Mom doesn't have a printer, so last night, Aaron unhooked our printer, took it to Mom's and hooked it up to her computer, so we could print off some of the information. What a pain.
With their agency and Russia, she said the wait for a girl was usually 10-12 months. I thought she meant 10-12 months after turning in the dossier you got a referral, then you waited months before actually bringing your child home. But no, she meant 10-12 months from the application to their agency to bringing the child home. WOW! Even better than that, we already have most of the dossier paperwork done. I mean, this will be the 3rd dossier I have done in less than 2 years. Since our homestudy is done, we have passports, we have registered with CIS, etc. it shouldn't take much to update and have it turned in. So having that stuff done will probably take 2-3 months off of her projected waiting time. I hope to be ready to start with this next adoption in less than 6 months. I would love to start sooner, but we'll see how many hours I can get in at work.
We have to take 2 trips to Russia. The first will be approx 5 days where we meet the child, accept the referral, and fill out paperwork. Then we go home for 1-2 months, the get invited back to Russia. That trip is 10-21 days long and you go to court, get the child, finish the process and bring her home. It is exciting and terr

Aaron's parents are coming this weekend. Trying to go cheaper by cooking all the meals here at the house, I was so proud of myself today that I made a menu for the weekend and bought all the food, now it is just a matter of cooking it. Not counting breakfasts, I have 2 lunches and 2 suppers, 3 of which are going to cook in the crock pot. I love the crock pot. Speaking of which, I was planning on getting it all ready in the crockpot inside pot, don't know what you call that part, and putting it in the fridge, so I can pull it out in the morning and start it cooking before we head out to coop classes. Better get to browning my cube steak.

ifying at the same time.