Fingerprinted and Waiting to Go.

Tim, Kirsten, and I headed up to Portland last Wednesday to USCIS (United States Citizenship & Immigration Services) office in Portland to be fingerprinted. Because Kirsten is now 18, she needed to be fingerprinted as well. We left early Wednesday morning, Tim driving and Kirsten and I sleeping. It worked out well because Tim was supposed to be in Portland for three days to meet with his business partners, and our appointment was on day two of those meetings. We went to where Tim was staying and then Kirsten and I headed out for a day of fun. We had called some friends of ours that we met through our speech and debate tournaments and went to lunch. After lunch we did some shopping at Powell's (coolest bookstore in the world), checked out the Goodwill store (not so good), and then headed over to IKEA. After a snack of meatballs and Princess Cake, we checked out the baby section. I managed to make it out with only one pack of baby bibs...oh yeah, some tealights too. After IKEA, I took Kirsten and her friend Joelle back to their house where Kirsten got to stay overnight and headed out to stay with Tim at a place called Edgefield. Thursday morning, after picking up Kirsten, we headed downtown to try to find the USCIS office. I am very thankful for the GPS feature on our phone. Took us right there. I think we were all expecting somewhat of a TSA experience there, but we were pleasantly surprised. Greeted by large pictures of President Obama and Homeland Security Director Napolitano and a very nice receptionist man, we were quickly checked in and before we knew it we were being fingerprinted. Tim got a very talkative, older Hispanic lady who wanted to know all about the babies and the adoption. Kirsten and I got a very...very quiet, efficient fingerprinting specialist who had both of us fingerprinted before Tim's first hand was done. It was overall a fun experience.
So now we wait.

Our adoption story so far...

It has been a little over a year since the Lord placed in our hearts a desire to adopt. We began praying about it and in October we began the long, arduous paperwork process. After several months of waiting and anticipation, the Lord has blessed us with two, beautiful, twin daughters from Ethiopia. Kirsten is so happy to finally have, not one, but TWO sisters! All of us are overjoyed.
The next step for us is to travel up to Portland to be fingerprinted for immigration approval. Then we wait for the court in Ethiopia to approve the adoption. So we have several months of waiting to go. We are praying that everything goes smoothly and quickly. Now that we have seen their sweet faces it is very difficult to wait.
We have been thinking about names as we will be keeping their Ethiopian names as middle names.
I will do my best to update this blog as we have more information. For now we would ask for your prayers as we bring these precious lives into our family.