What have we been doing lately and how is the adoption process going?

Life has been a whirlwind and a blur these days, from making summertime memories to filling out grant applications to planning a family reunion to a certain handsome little fella turning 7 years old!

Eli turned 7 on June 16th.  SEVEN!!! We celebrated with lots of family and friends at the park with donuts and juice!  He had been asking for MONTHS to go skating, so we also rounded up a handful of his friends and hit the local skating rink up for a couple hours.  He had a blast and as we rounded out his birthday week with some Sonic shakes, he told Jay and I that this was one of his best birthdays ever.  He melts my heart faster than ice cream melts in the sun!

We have a family reunion coming up that has been over 2 years in the planning.  It's on my mom's side of the family and she is the youngest of 7 siblings... SEVEN! It's going to be a BIG reunion! :) The last one we had was when Jadyn was just 8 months old.  We are looking forward to seeing lots of old and new faces and making new memories! The past 2 years have flown by since we first began planning this and now we will soon be in the Ozarks!  This has given me something to look forward to and helped keep me busy and not twiddling my thumbs in the adoption process!

Speaking of the adoption process.... where are we at in it?

We are currently awaiting our I800A Approval to go through authentication process.  We are half way through the waiting process of authentication (it went to the Secretary of State and will go to the Consulate next).  Once our adoption agency has that freshly authenticated paperwork back, all of our documents will officially be DTC (Dossier To China)!  Man, I can't wait for that day when we can say we are DTC!! That is a HUGE milestone in the adoption process, and once you hit that milestone, you are usually traveling 4-5 months later!  We anticipate traveling around November to bring our little girl home!  We recently got an updated video and pictures of Annika and we were THRILLED to learn she now knows she is being adopted!!!  I put together a photo storybook that introduces us to her and it will be delivered here next week.  I've had the words translated to Mandarin and when I send our first care package to her, she will have the photo album written in both English and Mandarin, along with her set of goodies from us!  In the midst of all this, we have been filling out numerous grant applications and continuing our t-shirt fundraiser.  In all, we are over 1/3 of the way into our adoption costs.  That means, over $10,000 has come in through donations, fundraisers, and our first approved grant!  God is good!!!  We continue to trust Him to provide ALL of the funds needs to bring our little girl home.  If you feel led to donate, our crowd rise fund link is still active too.  You can donate here.  We know that it is His desire to bring Annika into our family and we know He will meet every need we have for our little girl.  Just this week, we decided that the boys will be staying home and Jadyn will travel with us to get her sister when we go.  All 3 of the kids are thrilled with this decision.  Eli can't wait to have adventures with his friends for 2 weeks and Asher is the same. (Whatever big brother is thrilled about, so is he! Ha!)  Jadyn has been praying from the get go that she would get to travel with us, and the Lord confirmed it in our hearts over the last week.  She is ECSTATIC to travel to China and bring home her sister!  We went this week to get her passport application turned in and her picture taken.  This big sister was all smiles! 

To God be the glory in all the we do....

Love Never Fails,

Shannon