The past week...

So, a lot has happened in the last 7 days. Some of you may be wondering exactly how we got from Adoption decree to receiving entry visas, huh?

Well, as you saw, we did pass court and recieved a final adoption decree on last Wednesday. I was at our weekly Classical Education co-op when I got the call from Erik! At that time we expected to travel in 2-3 weeks. Boy, were we in for a surprise! The next day we got an email from our agency director that we could plan on traveling in 10 days. WOW! That will make your head spin!

This adoption thing is weird. You wait and wait and wait and then when it is time to hustle you have to really HUSTLE. We had to make arrangements for our kids, dogs, cats, get our entry visas, get our airline tickets, finish gathering all our paperwork, obtain one more "approval" for the US Embassy, send payment to our adoption agency, and get some baby stuff (like diapers, wipes, formula, bottles, pacifiers, baby wash, etc)!

Saturday morning, Erik and I had a plan to go to the aiport, bank, pharmacy, FedEx shipper, and maybe the tailor. We started at the airport to purchase our tickets. Since we are doing an adoption fare (discounted, refundable tickets), they had to be purchased in person at the airline counter. We had to have a copy of our airline itinerary for our Ghana entry visas (to prove we weren't planning on staying in the country). For the visa, we had to provide a copy of the airline tickets, a bank statement (showing were are financially stable), 4 passport photos per person, and a money order to pay for our expedited visa fees. Oh, and a pre-paid fedex return envelope for them to return our passports with the visa. While we were at the bank getting the money order, we also picked up our certified check for the adoption agency. And in the middle of all that, we also managed to make it to the tailor to get some pants hemmed for Erik. Accomplishing all this took about 4 hours!

Then it was home for a quick "lunch" - which consisted of choking down half a chicken strip from my son's lunch. A quick "freshen up" and then Mom, E and I were out the door to run a couple errands and stop by a friend's house for a church meeting (and some cake to celebrate the adoption). Well, here's where it gets funny!

That little "cake" at the "meeting" was actually a huge ruse to get me to show up for my own SURPRISE Baby Shower! There were about 30 ladies attending and the most adorably decorated table and cake. I really had no idea what they were up to! Well, needless to say, after the baby shower there weren't many more things we needed to purchase for the baby before the trip. I'll post some photos later - it really was such a nice afternoon.

The past couple days we've been getting various tasks accomplished: school lessons planned, laundry done, errands run, kids clothes gathered, our clothes and travel needs gathered, etc.

Right now the kids are all packed and ready to leave this weekend to head to our dear friends' home (Hi, Pete and Karen!) in Arkansas. Then next week Erik and I leave for Ghana. Hard to believe!

I'm proud to say that we are packed with two small duffles for carry-ons. We have packed so that should our checked bags be lost, we could live for two weeks out of our carry-ons (of course purchasing what we need while in country). But I sure hope we don't have to! I'm so proud of my packing prowess (ahhhh, aliteration, don't you love it?), that I will have to post photos.

Erik and I are really looking forward to a couple days of peace and quiet between the time the kids go to AR and the time we leave for Ghana. So, please forgive us if we seem to drop off the face of the earth for those couple of days. :) It may be the last calm we have for quite some time!