Baby Steps

Greetings on this somewhat gloomy, but nice and warm February 1st!  Hard to believe its really February already.  Once again its been a while since my last entry.  I really just did'nt have anything to write and still don't have anything just overly exciting but we have made a few baby steps;)  Reuben and I got our date in the mail from homeland security to go to Cleveland and get fingerprinted at the Federal Building.  The date and time is given to you by them and is non-negotiable.  If you fail to show up your entire application is void and you have to re-apply. Well the date was on a Friday morning at 8am which just happened to be the morning of the worst snow storm of the season so far. So we left at 5:30 in the morning and inched our way up there me chugging coffee all the way.  We finally made it to downtown Cleveland in about zero visibility roads totally covered and discovered that apparently folks that live and work in Cleveland don't go to the bathroom!  Ha!  Not a public restroom to be had.  It's funny now but wasn't at all at the time.  So anyway we made it to the building and my lovely husband decided to try and take a pocket knife through security.  nice.  Needless to say he no longer is the owner of a pocket knife.  Other than that it was un-eventfull and we got home safely. 
          So yesterday we got a letter in the mail from homeland security saying our I-800 imigration form is approved! yay So next we work on getting all the seals from the County, state, and federal goverment as well as the Chinese consulat.  It is so complicated even I dont understand so I wont try to explain it but once that is done we should be ready to send our Dossier to China to be approved!  Once that is approved we will be"logged in" with China and our agency can officially start looking for a baby for us!!!  This sounds like a few short steps but really is months away.
             While we wait we are trying to fill our time doing things to prepare for bringing our little one home!  We got the baby's room ready to be re-modeled which Reuben will hopefully work on tonight:)  Also we are planning a trip to Florida the end of this month.  It's exciting to think that, Lord willing, this will be our last vacation as a family of two.
             I also wanted to add that Reuben and I have been dicovering just how many local people have added to their families through adoption!  We are excted to get to know some of these special people and their children.
                            I will keep you all posted if and when we make any more progress!