Dossier hopefully done!

Today I went to the post office and sent off the (2) copies of our dossier to our case worker at CWA. Since today is Friday and I sent it priority, it should be there Monday! She will review it for any mistakes. HOPEFULLY NONE. We are one step closer to finishing this "paper pregnancy"! Incidentally, when I made copies of our dossier (3 total - 2 for our agency and 1 for us) I had to make over 170 copies! Thankfully we have a Staples store near us and I didn't have to feed nickels and dimes into the one at the library! Pray that all our ducks are in a row and I won't have to re-do anything so we can get this thing movin' to D.C.

Speedy Gonzales!

Talk about fast! I sent our POA to Raleigh last Thursday to be authenticated and guess what arrived in the mail today, Tuesday?? You guessed it! I was so excited to see my self addressed stamped envelope in the mail. Who says rainy days are gloomy?!

Almost...

Well, I know many people have asked us if we have sent in our dossier yet. And our answer is.....almost. Unfortunately, we had a little hiccup at the same time. One of our very important papers in our dossier just so happened to have an upcoming expiration date on it. This was not anything in our control, but our adoption agency was waiting for their renewal of their license (or something else similarly official) and this date is on our POA (Power of Attorney). SO....we had to wait for their new one, which now doesn't expire until 2012, re-fill it out, then have it notarized, then send it to our state for Authentication. So that is where it is. I expect it should get back to us by next week and then we should be ready to move on. Hooray!

Quick explanation of what moving on means. (And this is all according to my understanding of it, every time I read my directions I seem to pick up on something else!) I will then take all my dossier documents (minus two that CWA sends me) and make two copies. I then send the copies (and that all too precious big check) to our Case Worker and she reviews for any mistakes, etc. Then she sends us the two important papers needed to officially complete our dossier. From there we courier our dossier to the US Dept of State in D.C. Then they authenticate it and whatever else they do to it and we have it couriered to the Ethiopian Embassy in D.C. Somewhere in that process it is put in a really pretty binder and looks all official! Then it goes back to our adoption agency, CWA, where it is FINALLY sent to Addis Ababa (capital of Ethiopia). Also, somewhere during that process it is translated into Amharic, the language of Ethiopia. Although I have also learned that there are actually over 80 languages spoken in Ethiopia, with hundreds of dialects - Amharic is the official.

Hope that clears it up for those of you that are following this. From there we hope for a "two to four month" wait time for a referral. We'll see...we know God has His hand in all of this, so it's really up to Him.

Injera Anyone?

I know it's kind of hard to see, but here we are at Meskerem Restaurant in Charlotte, NC. It is an Ethiopian restaurant that Jamie's sister, Allison, discovered while eating at a similar one in Boston. Who knew we had such cultural gastronomic fare! We went there this past Labor Day weekend with Jamie's mom and two of his sisters, Lauren and Allison. It was a fun adventure to share while they were visiting from Florida and New York.

If I would have thought ahead, I would have had a picture taken of the food - it is certainly presented and enjoyed in a much different manner.

The way it works is the main course is placed on the center of the table. There is a large communal dish and at the bottom is injera. Injera is like a spongy, type of thin bread. We thought the closest thing to describe it for an American palate would be a pancake or crepe w/bubble holes in it. Injera is made from teff, an Ethiopian grain. They then put the entrees on top of the injera. We ordered Meskerem Tibs (lamb), Doro Wat (spicy chicken), Chicken Tibs (less spicy chicken) and a veggie combo that gave us a little Miser Alecha and Miser Wat (both lentils), Shro Wat (chickpeas) and some cabbage and string beans and carrots. For all you "southern food" lovers, there were also some collards! The dishes had various seasonings and were all really tasty. But the really fun part is how you eat it. NO UTENSILS. They bring a side plate of injera, rolled up, kind of like empty soft burrito shells. Then you break off a piece of the injera and scoop up the food you want to eat in that bite. Delish! You also can break off the injera that has been at the bottom of the meal, it has soaked up all the flavor and sauce from the food that was on it. Unfortunately by the time we got to that point we were all stuffed. Going there with a group of 5 definitely made it more fun, as we got to try so many different things.

Jamie and I look forward to going back and bringing new friends to enjoy the experience! It definitely takes any nerves away about what the food will be like when we actually travel to Ethiopia.

If you're up for a new dining experience, let us know! :)

USCIS approval

Hooray! Last Friday we received the all too important I-600, which basically is our "official" approval from the U.S. Customs and Immigrations Services to bring an orphan into the U.S. We started on this at the beginning of our adoption process and, true to the estimate, it took about 6 months. We are excitedly getting the last details together on our dossier so we can send it to Washington!!