School Traditions

K

In the life of a school, there are a lot of traditions. One of the traditions that occur while teaching at a high school is that of semester finals. Today marked the first of two days of finals, we had finals for periods 1, 3, 5, and 7. Tomorrow we have finals for periods 2, 4, and 6. Students are done at 12:05 and teachers at 3 pm. Then the tradition of two weeks off begins and all off the great things that come with the holidays.

Where your Mom teaches there is another tradition, having a shower for the female teachers who get married or welcome a new one into the family. Today, you were honored with a shower by some wonderful people. Since it is a crazy time at the high school, the shower occurred during lunch and was wonderful. Food was ordered from the local Italian restaurant and there was cake. Ah, cake.

 

The shower was in the lobby of the performing art center and I like to pretend all of the decorating was for us, Little Man. So you can't see it, but there is also garland on the window sills and these glittery snowflakes hanging from the windows.

Little Man, your Mom works with some great people. They really got you some great things to help welcome you home. Such as. . .

Okay, yes the items in the above picture is on your crib mattress. Why? I wanted to group them for a picture and the dinning room table has items covering it for our second trip. Plus, I can also tell you, you now have a mattress pad and crib sheets. They are already in the washing machine. I am really excited about the Melissa and Doug Doughnuts. You are so going to learn to LOVE math by counting those.

Although it isn't pictured, you also got this awesome sand and water table, where you can have both sand and water at the same time. I am so thinking our backyard will be the place to be this summer with your friends E, A, W, J, and L. We will be able to have archaeological and paleontological digs! (Fitting since the table is, in part, from the science department.) You got other items as well, so you will come home to a well stocked house. BTW- Your Dad is disappointed you didn't get a Blackhawks Bleacher Creature. (He has been asking for one since he saw them. He thinks it would be a good Christmas present to give me. Your Dad is also excited about your Star Wars lunchbox. It also came with sandwich cutters. I am foreseeing a Millenium Falcon sandwich in his near future.)

So K, I guess I should tell you the BIG news. That's right, I said BIG news, maybe I should say HUGE news. Your paperwork was submitted to Embassy yesterday!!!!!!!!!

So how did we learn  about this? Well, on the way home from school I heard my cell phone ringing. My phone was in my purse in the back of the Rav, Marcia couldn't get to it. So I pulled over, got out of the car in the rain, and got my phone saying to Marcia and Courtney it would be B. It wasn't. It was a reminder about my hair appointment tomorrow, but B had left a voice mail. I called her back and got her voice mail. That's about when your Dad texted me. Since I was driving, I asked for Courtney to read the text to us in the car. (Yes, once again your Dad gets the good calls.) Before we got to the ramp to exit the interstate, B called. Yes, I answered the phone while driving. I promise you I won't do that when you are in the car. I talked with B for about 22 minutes, in which time we got to aunt Marcia's and sat in her drive talking to B. (I am thinking B got to talk to her first car pool today.) So, what did I learn? Great question.

So what has happened in Ethiopia to get to this point?

1. Once your adoption was approved in the Ethiopian courts, the awesome folks at Hannah's Hope waited to receive the official Court Decree. Once they got that, they requested your passport and a medical exam from an US Embassy approved doctor.

2. The staff at Hannah's Hope submitted your file to the US Embassy. This was done sometime yesterday.

So what's next? Well, I suppose I need to make your bed, pack, pack a second and possibly third time, book some tickets (3 coming home), and starting tomorrow after school, make some dinners for the freezer. You probably want to know though what still needs to happen before we can bring you home to your awesome Star Wars room. Well. . .

1. The US Embassy has to review your case.  This could take one to two weeks.(Plus they are closed a couple of days for the holidays.)

2. After reviewing your case, a couple of things could happen. They could just clear us to come get you. More likely, they will request an interview of someone connected to you. They could also request more documentation. After this, they might review your case again. (They could also refer your case to Nairobi. So praying that doesn't happen.)

3. We get clearance to come get you!

B told us we can expect, at this point, to come back to Ethiopia 5 to 10 weeks from the time we passed court. K, I will be honest. I want to be another exception to the norm at AGCI. We have had some already, I want another. I want to go back to Ethiopia before the 5 week mark. 

So by Ethiopian law, you are part of our family. Now we continue the wait to have this happen in US law as well. 

Love,

Mom