Embassy paperwork

One step forward one step back. Our paperwork was submited to Embassy yesterday but we heard today that they are requesting a document that our region does not usually give so it is going to take another week or two to hopefully get this document before we are cleared for Embassy (to travel). The International Adoption process can be so frustrating.  Why does the US Embassy need a document that Crew's region does not even provide.  Please continue to pray for us and Crew as we wait to bring him home.  We will continue to keep you updated. 

swim lessons

I know that this blog has been used for our adventures in adoption but I decided that we have two other children that are doing fun things too so here is a little view.  Here are pictures of Parker and Hayley at swim lessons.  This is Hayley's first swim lessons and she really seems to enjoy them.  Parker has been taking lessons for a year and a half now and he is actually learning to swim.  It is very exciting to see. 

 Here is Hayley waiting for her lessons.

Hayley learning to blow bubbles. 

Parker learning the free style.  Yes he is swimming without floaties or a noodle. 

Parker going off the diving board.  He is able to jump off the diving board, come back up, and swim to the side by himself. Hayley actually goes off the diving board too but I could not get a picture of it because I help her off the end.  She jumps to her teacher at the bottom. 

Hayley listening to her teacher with her "seat belt" on waiting for her turn.

Pictures of Crew

Crew is Officially a Michels

We received some very unexpected news this morning.  We passed court!!  This means that Crew Abenezer-Kirkos Michels is now officially our son.  The next steps is to have our paperwork gathered and submitted to the US Embassy by our agency.  We have been given early March as a possible time frame for when we could go pick him up.  We are very excited and Chris will be posting some pictures soon as we can now share him with all of you now.

Cheetah Hunting in Ngorognoro Crater

We will see how this works, but I have been asked by several folks to post the video of the cheetah hunting the gazelle.  It happens quickly, so its not a long video, but pretty cool to see in person.  After he captured it, he eats it immediately. We could not see that real well because of our distance from the event.



 We would love to post video of little Crew, but until we pass court we are not allowed to post identifying pictures of him.  Hopefully we will be able to in February.

next weeks court date

I received an email from the travel coordinator at American World (our adoption agency).  She said that MOWA (the government agency that needs to write a letter for us to pass court) is relocating offices and will not be working until it is completed next week, Feb. 8.  She said that this will make it very unlikely that we will pass court since they will be focusing on moving instead of writting letters.  It is hard not to get discouraged but I know that God is in control.  Please pray that we will pass court in the next month and for our 3rd schedule court date to be sooner than later.  Thanks for continuing on this journey with us. 

Back Home

We arrived back home last night around 6:30 after around 44 hours of travel and very little sleep.  We both crashed last night after the kids went to bed, well, mostly Justin crashed.  We thank you all for your thoughts and prayers during this time. We are very excited to hear what happens on Feb 9th for our court date.  We are both excited to go back and pick up little Crew.

Thanks.