San Francisco Day #1

We had a good flight from Detroit to San Francisco.  The flight was four and a half hours and the kids did great.  They had plenty of things to keep them busy.  We got into Sand Francisco at 2:30pm their time.  We took the shuttle to the hotel and checked in (which took a while since there were so many people checking in at the same time).  Thankfully, Uncle Rick already had a room, so we we hung out with him for a while.  There was a mix up with our room.  We meant to get two queen beds, but got a king size suite instead.  Thankfully, they brought two twin rollaway beds.  There's plenty of room for them and even room left over.  After getting settled we walked to the Cheesecake Factory.  Even though it was suppertime here, it was bedtime for the kids.  They managed to eat some food before Lilly fell asleep in the restaurant.  We walked back to hotel and crashed.  Everyone slept pretty well.  Lilly woke up at 3:30am, but I coaxed her into going back to sleep.  

Liam with Flat Stanley at the airport.

Cheesecake Factory

This morning while Dave attended meetings, the kids and I walked to China Town.  Liam wanted so badly to get a taste off what China is like.  Other than the smell, and smaller crowds, it was a lot like China.  After walking through China Town, we stopped at the Disney Store before walking back to the hotel for a little rest before lunch.

There are always fun things to do at the Disney Store.

Flat Stanley is checking out the view with a Chinese Luck Cat and Thanos.

After lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen, we took a trolley ride to Fisherman's Wharf. There we saw Alcatraz (from a distance) and the Sea Lions on Pier 39.  The kids and I walked 6.72 miles today.  They were excellent travelers.  They didn't complain, even when we had to wait in long, slow lines for the trolley.

Ghiradelli Chocolate Factory

Alcatraz

We ended the night with the Thrivent Hall of Fame dinner.  Uncle Rem arrived to San Francisco I time to watch the kids, so Dave and I could go to dinner together.

And Now We Wait...

The adoption process is a bunch of hurry up and wait.  You work feverishly on something, send it off, and then wait on others to do their part.  Waiting is hard and can be frustrating especially when not everyone feels your sense of urgency.
Our Homestudy is complete and we have received a copy.  A copy will be sent to South Korea soon.  Then, we wait to be matched with a child.  That process can take up to 8 months.  It all depends on if there's a child available that meets our list of disabilities.  There are many children who need homes.  We were pretty open with what we would accept.  However, there are also some disabilities that we know would not be a good fit with our family. Because of the high need for adoptive families, referrals have been happening quicker than normal.  We will not get our hopes up, though.  
While we wait, there are some things we need to work on.  
- The first is the I600a, which is a petition to the US Government to be cleared to adopt an orphan from another country.  We will have to get fingerprinted again for this stage.  We mailed the packet this week , so we should hear back in the next couple weeks about our fingerprinting appointment.  We need to be cleared by USCIS to accept a referral.
- The other thing we can do is apply for grants.  We put our grant applications in the mail this week.  We are really praying we get selected for one or more of the grants we applied for.
- We need to start fundraising.  We will most likely have our fundraisers after school gets out, but we need to get those scheduled so we can start planning specifics.

April 2018

Because we are going to San Francisco with the Thrivent trip later this month, we decided not to go anywhere for Spring Break.  The weather was cold and gross, so we spent a lot of time inside.  We cleaned the closets in the house.  We did take a day trip to Science Central, though.

Liam wanted to go to Build A Bear as an early birthday present.  He is trying to collect all the Pokemon stuffed animals.

Bed Forts & Adventures

Mars Glamour Shots

Liam took a field trip to the Botanical Gardens.  He loves the butterfly exhibit!

Lilly at her Young Authors conference

Central's Auction - we wanted to get a picture of our members of the Kenya Mission Team who were there.

Our Homestudy FINALLY arrived!

We have baby bunnies in our yard.