DANCING...

....with her sissy! 

DTC!!!

We are officially on China's time clock!  I remember thinking last spring, when we found Gracie through WACAP, that we wouldn't be DTC until the fall, and thinking that sounded so far away!  Thankfully, we have had a really busy summer and the time has flown!  It feels good to have finally arrived to this point!  Our agency informed us that there are a few holidays coming up in China, so while it's normally taking just a few days to be Logged In, it may take us longer to get our log-in date, but we can still hope for it to happen quickly. 

We (my hubby) held a garage sale this weekend, and were able to raise some more funds!  Every little bit is getting us closer to what we will need when we finally get that call to go get her!  We are so very thankful for friends who donated items to our garage sale, and for generous shoppers who donated extra, knowing that the funds were going to our "Gracie fund".  What a mighty God we serve, who is able to do much more than we can ask! 

While hubby was holding the garage sale, the kids and I were able to load up and drive to my parents, who took us camping in their trailer for the weekend.  We had a wonderful time fishing, eating and relaxing!  Thanks Mom and Dad for a wonderful weekend, and allowing us to crash your camping trip!  The kids can't wait to go again!!

Whittling, and a sister who is amazed at her brother's talent (or scared that he is going to cut himself!)

Fun games with Grandma!

Steaks, Scalloped potatoes, salad, and fresh green beans from Papa's garden.... did I mention we enjoyed EATING on this campout! 

WORMS!!!

Getting fishing tips from Papa!

This kids was born to fish.... caught the most during the weekend!

Campfires, and S'mores! 

Wonderful weekend!

Completed Dossier!

What you see here, represents LOTS of hard work, done all by my awesome hubby!  He has spent many hours working on gathering all of the necessary paperwork to get our Dossier ready to be sent to China.  He saved us $500 in our process by doing the legwork himself!  Our final document finally arrived in the mail this morning, so we were able to finally get all of this delivered to our agency today!  We should be DTC by the end of this week!!!  After DTC, comes our LID (Log-in-Date) which takes 2-3 weeks.  After our LID, comes LOA (letter of acceptance), and shortly after LOA should come our TA (travel approval).  Is anyone a little overwhelmed after reading all of these accronyms?  :o)
We are hoping to receive some updated pictures of Gracie, and as soon as we do, you know we will be sharing!  Thanks for the prayerful support in getting to this point!  We feel good, because everything that we can have some control over is DONE, and now we sit back and wait!  We should find out about some grants that we have applied for sometime in December, so we will keep praying for approval on at least one of those.