Starfish Dreams

 I thought I would update you on our African adventures. :)  DH and I are home from our trip to Africa.  We left just under 2 weeks ago.  We were able to see one of the girls, who is now severely disabled and pretty unresponsive after a vicious bout with meningitis.  We never did get to see the other two.  However, we have good friends there who are now working to become their foster mothers.  If they are successful, at least we'll be able to get regular updates and pictures and can support them even more personally than we have been doing for the last 10 months.

 

When it became obvious that the people that we worked with last year were lying and stalling us (not a surprise, sadly), we knew that there was no sense in continuing to stay - that they would continue to stall us and never let us see the other two, so we chose to leave Africa.  Greg and I spent a night in a lovely bed and breakfast in Jo'burg, waiting for an open seat on the hop across the ocean.  We then took the LONG flight home to the states, but we stayed in Washington DC for a few days.  It was the vacation part of our trip and it was lovely. ;)  We were able to attend the LDS temple there, see a number of "downtown" sites and spend much of a day at Mt Vernon.  Very nice. 

 

We also wanted to go see our politicians, but they couldn't see us on such short notice.  We did talk to staffers and will be sending letters and pictures about our case.  We have our police clearance from Africa, will have police clearance from our state and from the FBI.  We are finishing up our next homestudy.  I wonder what reason USCIS will find to turn us down this time?  In any case, I will be working on getting a lot more politician buy-in.  It won't hurt that I'm really politically active and that this is an election year . . . . So - we're still working on things and still have no idea when, if, or how things will work out.

 

I did not miss my bulbs - yay!  In fact, it snowed yesterday on the way home from the airport.  Spring might be coming . . . My friend  did a great job with the kids - they all had a great time and some of her kids and some of my kids cried yesterday when they went home.  It's pretty cute.  The baby really grew while I was gone - I couldn't believe it!  We're looking forward to gardening and outside work - at least dh and I are!  Oh, and our cat is pregnant.  Very.  Anyone want kittens?!