Resting Up and Finishing Up

The last several days have been glorious. Adam and I were able to sneak away to the beach for Labor Day weekend as a late anniversary trip. We spent our actual anniversary (5 years! Yay!) in our Crossings class for internationally adopting parents. While that was fun and very much worthwhile, it was SO nice to get away with just my man and not have to worry about a thing. The trip came at the perfect time, too, as we are really wrapping up our adoption "to dos." We spent the vast majority of the weekend soaking up the sun and catching up on some reading, and we came back feeling really rested and refreshed. And that was a nice change up for us. We have been running the adoption paper chase race for the last four months, and we are now approaching the finish line (just the paper chase finish line, though). As usual, I did not do a good job remembering to take pictures--something I need to seriously improve upon before little one gets here--and I only have two from the whole weekend (and I am hanging my head in shame as I type this). But here they are:

                                                            The view from our back porch

                                                     Lunch at Pickles before heading home

All in all the weekend was absolutely wonderful. It was especially fun to imagine what future trips to the beach might be like with our little one. Definitely looking forward to that.

When we got back to Birmingham, it was straight back to work. And today...we did the LAST thing we have to do on the paperwork side of the adoption. USCIS biometric fingerprinting. Sounds fancy, doesn't it? Par for the course, I got myself all worked up about it, but the whole process ended up being pretty easy. We just had our fingerprints scanned in, and they were automatically sent off to USCIS. I am not sure if I have explained what USCIS actually is before. So, here goes. The United States Citizen and Immigration Service is the department of the government in charge of letting people into the U.S. and allowing them to become citizens. When you are adopting internationally, you have to file a petition for permission to bring your child into the country. We sent off our application a little while ago, and part of the process includes yet another set of fingerprints (hopefully the last set). So that is what we did today, and we are hoping to get our clearance in the mail soon. Once that happens, we just forward it to Lifeline, and they send it to meet up with our dossier, even if it is already in Ethiopia. :)

                                                              Post-fingerprints--Yay!
                             Please ignore my sunshine eyes. Adam was smart and put on his shades.

So as of today, we are rested up and finished up. Thank you so much for all of your prayers. You have played such a key role in helping us get to where we are now. And now it is time to rest in God's unwavering goodness and faithfulness.

"Yes, my soul, find rest in God alone. My hope comes from Him." Psalm 62:5

Love,
Baylor