Our time together in Florida

Can you believe it? We made it to and from Florida safely!!! We had a wonderful time and we are glad that we had the opportunity to be together for the entire week. We thought it was important to take this vacation for us to get away and be together to discuss where we have been, how we are doing and where we are going. We also spent a lot of time doing nothing (a must on vacation) and also doing the things that we love. We spent some time with my family and we also spent some time at a couple of spring training games. We had a lot of fun at the beach and taking walks at night. I was excited that I was able to play games a few nights with my family. We took our Wii and we were able to play it one night. I think they really enjoyed it! I also really love palm trees (I really wish they would grow in Indiana). We had really nice weather while we were there. It only rained one day. It started out a little chilly at the beginning of the week, but by the end it was in the mid 80s.

You have questions, We have answers

I thought it might be interesting to ask if you have any questions for us regarding our adoption. In one of my next posts, I will try to answer the questions that we receive. I don't want anyone to feel awkward, so feel free to leave an anonymous question in the comment section. I will try and to do this at random times throughout this process.

Monday - a BIG day!

Yesterday, Chris and I met for supper at Panera in Noblesville and then proceeded to our first session for our HOMESTUDY! Yep, that's right folks! This is the last part that we need for our dossier!!!! We are pumped (or atleast I am) to fed ex the package to Washington DC and then to Ethiopia. We are getting closer!!!

The homestudy session went well. We met at the agency and the room we were in was comfortable. We sat on the couch and our social worker was across from us in a chair. She told us at the beginning that this process seems a little awkward at first. Who wouldn't think that? Here is a stranger that we met right before we sat down and she is asking us questions about our marriage. Just for insight purposes, the questions were all across the board. For example, she asked us about our marriage. She also asked us about being a transracial family and if we foresee any issues with our family or friends. She asked us to think about how we might respond to someone in the grocery store that might ask about our child. It is not uncommon for strangers to ask how much did he or she cost. What do you share or not share? How do you respond?

Chris broke the ice when he was answering the question about what we view as our strengths as a couple. She then asked about our weaknesses. He was telling her that we really balance each other out and then told her a few of mine. He goes on to say I guess thats it, I don't have any. Does that surprise you? She laughed. I went on to tell her that we really work well together around the house. I consider Chris the handy man and he helps me clean up the kitchen. I was telling her that I do the laundry and I cook the food. Her next comment was timed just right - she said, "and Chris...he eats it."

Our social worker is actually going through the adoption process as well. Amazingly, her and her husband are also adopting from Ethiopia! They received their referral a week ago. Their son is 2.5 years old and they will go to Ethiopia sometime in May. She is a proud mom and can really identify with us. We are thankful that she is our social worker. She also invited us to join the Ethiopian Adoption group in Indy. The next event is a picnic in the summer. We are already planning to get involved! God is so good!

We also had a wonderful weekend! We left on Friday to go to Ohio to see my family. When we arrived we ended up staying up late just talking around the table. We got up on Saturday and we went to Red Rambler which is a local coffee shop. We also went to the Sauder Outlet store (a must when we go out there) and the Sauder Inn. The big event of the day was the musical "The Wiz" which is a spin off of the Wizard of Oz. We had two of our cousins in the musical. They did a great job and we had a lot of fun spending time with our family! On Sunday, we went to a Charlie Hall concert at our church. We enjoyed it!

Tonight our electricity was out for over 3 hours. This ruined my plans for supper so we had to go to Greentown and pick up a pizza. Shucks! When we came back we played jenga (Chris's idea) and uno. If you know me, I LOVE games. Chris on the other hand could never play another one and be happy. He was a great sport. I always ask to play just one more game. He reminds me that moderation is better if I want him to play again in the future. Good point!

This Friday we are leaving for Florida!!! We are going to go and visit my grandpa, aunt and uncle. For those of you who know us and about our Florida trips...we just can't get enough. We ALWAYS have bad luck when we go so we are hoping the FIFTH time is a charm! Let's see...we have had the airbags of my parent's car on our laps the entire way home from Florida, our alternator went out when we were going to Florida from my friend Julie's wedding in Virginia, we never made it when we had to make an emergency pit stop in Tennessee for Chris to go into emergency surgery to take out his appendix, and the last one was this Christmas when I was in the hospital with complications from the IVF procedure. We are going to try one new thing...hopefully, this is a good thing. We are going to be driving our car and not my parents. Please pray for us while we travel. God knows that we need all that we can get this time around!

Just a quick update

Why is it that I seem to have less time to update you on what is going on in our lives? Oh yeah, I forgot that we are in the midst of our adoption, working, studying for my financial management test that I am going to be taking tomorrow, working out...Anyways, I wanted to let you know that on Monday we attended an educational session at our home study's agency. It was on attachement. I really thought we would learn a lot of things that we didn't already know, but we have already immersed ourselves in reading everything that we can that we really didn't learn as much as I expected. Oh well! We were able to meet another couple from Fort Wayne that will be adopting from Ethiopia! The world seems to be getting smaller and smaller. We are finding out about more and more couples that either know someone who is or has adopted from Ethiopia! We are really going to value those friendships because their story will be somewhat like ours in some way or shape.

This weekend we are going to Ohio to visit our family. My cousins are in a musical and we are going to go there and watch them on Saturday. We are excited to see the family and we always look forward to supporting them when we can.

People are reaching out to help us!

This is the first chance I have had to blog since work on Friday. What a day! In my last blog, I talked a little bit about my friend from work. His name is Deress. He instant messaged me in the morning to tell me that he talked with his parents and we have a place to stay when we go to Ethiopia to pick up our child! This is WONDERFUL news! I am not sure how many of you have been to other countries where you cannot speak the language, but it is not always easy to get around. Well, Deress already told me that we would be staying in the house that he grew up in and would be staying in his sister's room. She currently lives in Chicago. His parents are retired and are currently here in the states. In April, they will be coming to Indiana and we plan to meet them! I am so excited!!! I really wanted to meet them when we go to Ethiopia and I had no intentions of staying with them, but what better way to get to know their culture! Deress also mentioned that they would like to show us around while we are there. Since all the dates are tentative for us, we hope to be traveling in either October or November to pick up our child.

This is the only picture that I have on my computer of Deress. We went to a Cathedral High School game with him to watch my boss's son play football. We had a lot of fun cheering his team on even though they didn't beat Carmel.

On Friday, we met up with Greg, Cari, Syd and Katie and went to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. What a neat place! We weren't able to see everything, so I guess we better go back. We also went out to eat at Rock Bottom. Talk about the best salad ever...it was delicious! We spent the night in Indy and headed back home early Saturday morning.

We decided to run errands on Saturday and we purchased our first baby item! We went to the "Here We Grow Again" children's consignment shop and we bought the bedding for the crib. It was half the cost and brand new. What a bargain! We also bought some little shoes. They were adorable and we figured that we would need them sometime. We came home and had all intensions to start painting the ceiling in one of the bedrooms and finishing our touch-ups. Forget that, we took a 3 hour nap and then had supper with Chris's mom. I did manage to watch one of my classes. Only two more to watch before my test on Thursday.

Today we went to church and then we had my birthday lunch with my parents. It was nice to be with them. We ended up painting and doing the touch-ups today. It is nice to finish that project. I plan to finish watching at least one of my classes and we might start our Hague training tonight. We are atteding a class tomorrow night at the agency that is completing our home study.

Why God places people in our lives...

Last night, Chris and I finally found time to watch the DVD we picked up from the library, God Grew Tired of Us. We really enjoyed this video and it makes you so thankful for life. If you have the opportunity, we would reccommend it. It is about the Lost Boys of Sudan. Sudan is one of the countries that is on the Ethiopian border.

I thought today was going to be a typical day at work and for the most part, I was correct. During lunch, I was able to run a few errands and I also picked up some "buckeyes" (the peanut butter and chocolate piece of heaven) that my sister-in-law made for me to sell at work. While I was picking them up at her parents house, her mother made me a few dish rags to sell. People are so generous. From there, I went to the store, Our Friend's Closet, which sells used women clothing and dropped off some of the donations some coworkers gave me. Again, I am so grateful. As I was wrapping up the day, I decided to instant message (IM) my friend at work that is from Ethiopia. He actually lived in Addis Ababa for seventeen years.

The conversation started by me asking him if he thinks we should get a yellow fever shot before we go. We agreed that even though the CDC says it is highly reccommended, but not required for Addis Ababa, we should still get it because it is better to be safe than sorry. The conversation went several different ways for awhile including planning to get together for lunch and also meeting in Indy to go to the Ethiopian restaurant.

Sometimes we don't know why our paths cross with others, but I can tell you that I know why my path has crossed with my friend from work We have known each other for at least seven years and it is neat how God's plan is unfolding right before our eyes. I always valued my friendship with this individual, but I had no idea that he would be giving us an insight to our child's culture. We are so thankful for our friend and his willingness to share his culture with us.

This is a picture that my friend from work sent to me. His friends recently went to Ethiopia and took pictures from their visit to the country.

We continue to move forward...

I can't believe it has been a week since I have updated this blog. Where does time go? Seriously, it doesn't seem like I have not had a free second for the past week. Let me do a quick recap...Wednesday we had adoption night. This means that we spend atleast 2-3 hours going through paperwork and filling out forms. We try to stay on top of what we need to do so we are not holding up the process. Since we just received the information regarding our home study, we organized our game plan on how we plan to accomplish the tasks.

That brings us to Thursday. For my birthday, Chris took me on a date to the Toby Mac/Jeremy Camp concert at Conseco in Indianapolis. We met up with my cousins, Greg and Cari, and had a great time. We are in the same stages in life and so we always have a great time talking about being "expectant" parents. Greg and Cari are expecting their baby girl in June. We are excited to share in their experience and are excited that our children will be close in age. On Friday, Chris stayed in Indy and hung out with Greg and Syd while I worked until 9:00. Don't worry - it was for API which is annual physical inventory and I was able to earn some extra cash for our adoption! I also woke up at the crazy hour of 2:30 a.m. and was at work by 3. I worked until 11 and then went to the child's consignment shop with my mom. We had a great time and I purchased our first baby item - a baby carrier! We will be able to use this while we are in Ethiopia.

Our nephew plays hockey (he is the goalie and I am always a nervous wreck when he plays) and this past weekend was semi-state. Chris went to his morning game on Saturday and I met up with the entire Ponsler family that afternoon. We cheered him on; however, they lost. It was fun being together and hanging out with this side of our family. We also went to his game on Sunday.

On Sunday, I went to Ashley's house! We decided to try and make bibs. It was kind of funny because Ashley was doing laps around me. I only finished one bib and cut out four. On the other hand, Ashley cut out 26 and made at least four. We had a great time catching up and even though I am slower than molasses, the bibs turned out cute and I plan to finish the project eventually. I just need some more time in the day. We also had our annual birthday bash with a DQ cake - thanks Andrew, it was delicious!

For my birthday, Chris took me out to Harvey Hinklemeiers (a 50's diner). I always get the same thing there - breadsticks and a tenderloin. It is super healthy. Luckily, we worked out afterwards! We also stopped by Meijer to pick up the necessities - milk - we were out for 4 days, bread - it was old and starting to mold and we had no fresh fruit in the house.

We had another adoption day tonight! We finished up our paperwork for the home study and we made a list of items that we need to complete tomorrow. We plan to finish our portion of the dossier by mid-March. This weekend we want to start our Hague training. We are also planning to attend an educational session on Monday for our home study. I think it pertains to attachement. I am really interested in this topic so I hope that will be the discussion.

It was a good day!

Just a quick update...we heard from our home study agency and they have received our information! This is a huge step!!! As soon as the home study is complete, we will be able to turn in our dossier. We are getting closer on completing our end of the paperwork. I picked up the letter from our bank stating that we have accounts there are in good standing. We are excited...this means that we are one step closer than we were yesterday. Tonight we also filled out the forms for the USCIS. We will be submitting the forms next week. I think Chris is still excited for that part of the process because we will get fingerprinted. I read online today that they do them electronically these days. I thought that was interesting. All in all, it was a good day!

I thought I would post a random picture that Chris took of me after we installed our diswasher. If you look closely, you can see my feet. We have fun at the Ponsler house!

Catching Up

Wow! Where has the week gone? I have been so busy that I had to take a break from updating everyone because I couldn't find the time. On Tuesday, Chris and I decided to take a break from the adoption information since that is all we did on Monday. On Wednesday, I headed to Michigan for work and I was able to spend some quality time with my nephews. They are adorable! Nathan, the oldest, makes me laugh! He wanted to play with me the entire time I was there. I was able to read to him at bedtime. As we were laying there getting ready to read the last book Laura came into the room and put some vasaline on his face around his lips because they were chapped. When she left he leaned over to me and said, "I just love you so much Aunt Sarah. Can you please be here when I wake up?" I went on to tell him I had to go to work and then he gave me a big hug and asked me, "Aunt Sarah, can I give you a gooey kiss?" How could I resist? I told him I would love it and he responded, "Oh, goodie." Children are such a blessing from God.

I was in Michigan for work on Thursday and due to the snow I arrived home a little after eight. On Friday, the team that I work with had a brainstorming session offsite. We met at my boss's house and we actually accomplished a lot of planning for the upcoming year. It was a nice change of pace and I really enjoy the ladies I work with on a daily basis.

Chris and I were able to spend some time together on Friday night since this week has been crazy. We decided that we would go grocery shopping in the morning since we do not have much food in our cabinets or fridge. We were even out of our main staple, peanut butter! After our trip to Kokomo, we came back home and started doing odd and end things. As I put the groceries away, Chris decided to organize the wires that were a mess going to our entertainment center. He also added some door stops, fault switches in the bathroom and a cable for a television in the basement this weekend. We are planning to move our excercise equipment from one of the upstairs bedroom to the basement and we wanted to watch TV while working out because it makes the time go by so much quicker.

The mail came on Saturday and we received the documents that we sent to the wonderful state of Indiana! We were so surprised to received the authenticated documents already. We expected it to take atleast a week if not two.

Today I was able to work on my master's class. I am still behind, but not as far as I was yesterday! The class is fine. I am just finding it hard to concentrate because I much rather work on our adoption stuff.

Speaking of adoption, we completed our first step of our home study information. We had to complete four documents and both of us had to do an autobiography. Although it was time consuming, I think we are ready to start the process because it brings us that much closer to our child! We are planning to complete a few more documents for our dossier this week. We are planning to complete our family photo page and also the letter from the bank stating that we are in good standing. I think I will probably visist the police station during lunch to start my police clearance. I still find it amazing how many steps we have to go through to become parents when I watch TV and a 13 year old becomes pregnant. I pray that the child born to the child will be cared for and loved, whether it be by the child, the family or an adoptive family.

One Small Step...One Giant Leap

What a day!!!! Chris and I were extremely productive today in regards to the paperwork for the adoption. Let me do a quick recap of our day...

We both are early risers so we decided to make use of our time and try to organize ourselves for Adoption Paperwork Day, a.k.a. President's Day. At 10:30 a.m. we left the house with our binder in hand. We decided to go the the State Department of Health first to get our birth certificates at the vital records department. This was the first time that I have been to this building in downtown Kokomo. The lady that helped us was extremely nice and was excited about our adoption.

After we received two copies of both of our birth certificates, we decided to go ahead and stop in at the department that gives the immunizations and vaccinations at the State Department of Health. I am so glad that we did and I am glad that it was Monday! Let me tell you why... Who knew that the state of Indiana has free HIV testing on Mondays? This is actually something that we need for our medical clearance from our doctor. Score! Now, the real good news...We also have to get several different shots in order to travel to Ethiopia. These include Hepititis A, Hepititis B, Yellow Fever, Maleria, Meningitis, Thyphoid and a Tetnus shot. Well, after talking with the nurses, we found out that if you get the HIV testing there, you can also get FREE Hepititis A & Hepititis B vaccinations! This will save us over $300!! We absolutely love Indiana! The ladies in the department were so nice and want us to bring our child back when we return from Ethiopia. We will be visiting them several times in the next few months. God is already opening doors for us when it comes to financing His plan for us! He is so good!

Since they only do shots between certain times, we had to run a few errands and decided to go back there around 1:45. In the meantime, we decided to complete a few more items from our dossier. We made a pit stop (that reminds me of Amazing Race - I love that show and would love to be on it with Chris someday!) at Walgreens to get 4 passport size pictures of ourselves for the dossier. Since there were several people in front of us, she suggested that we come back later in the day which worked out fine since we had to head back towards downtown Kokomo for the shots.

From there, we still had quite a bit of time so we went to my dad's office to do a few things. First, we talked to the person who is completing our taxes because he had a few questions for us. I have to say that is one benefit of your dad being a CPA. You can hand him all the documents and not pay for him to get your taxes done. We appreciate that service. Thanks, Dad! Next, we had my father print out the first page of our tax returns for the past three years. We need this for our dossier. Finally, we had Brenda (the notary and the mother of some of our high school friends) notarize a lot of documents for us. I think I have said this before, but we have to have everything notarized. It is crazy. We are keeping her in business! Luckily, this is also a free service as long as we take in our child when we return from Ethiopia so she can hold him or her. That works for us!

After spending almost an hour at Dad's office, we stopped for a quick bite to eat before heading back to get the photos from Walgreen's and the State Department of Health. Everything went smoothly and we have received our tetnus shot along with our first round of Hepititis A and Hepititis B vaccination. Our next appointment is April 1st. At that time we will get tested for TB, get our second round for the Hep A/B and also get the shot for meningitis. What a day to look forward too! You would assume that I would be used to shots after going through the IVF cycle, that is not the case, I still hate the site of seeing a needle.

Since we were big kids today and accomplished so much, Chris took me to one of my favorite places - Ivanhoes, in Upland. We used to go there all the time when we were dating and we haven't been there for years, just to get ice cream. It was a great time and we think it would be a great place for the show Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives (food netowrk show) to visit.

Tonight we were able to organize the information that we did so it will be easy to know what we still have to do in order to complete our dossier. We feel like we are making progress, but we still have a long way to go.

We have heard from several people this week and we have been encouraged to keep moving right along. We are so thankful to have such a great family and group of friends. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers.

Busy Weekend...

Talk about a busy weekend...we have been going non-stop! We decided we wanted to try and get a jump start on all of the adoption information from our Ethiopian Planner. So, on Saturday morning we started bright and early with a trip to Lowe's. For our home study, we needed to make sure that we have a fire extingusher on both levels. We already had one in the kitchen, but we had to purchase one for upstairs. While we were at Lowe's we also decided to pick up some paint to paint the foyer and hallway. We painted this when we moved into our house, but it desperately needed another coat. It looks so much better! Hopefully our social worker will be impressed!

After picking up a few more items at Lowe's, we decided to stop in to visit my mom. She has been so excited about us adopting her 4th grandchild! I think we picked up about 30 dish rags that she has knitted. If you are interested in purchasing any of these, please let me know. We are selling them for $2 each. She also spent her Saturday making some candy. I am going to start selling the candy at work to see how it sells. Hopefully, it will go really fast! If you would like any, please I am taking orders. More details to come in another blog all about fundraising items...

From my parents home, we went to Meijer to pick up a fire ladder. This is another requirement for the home study if you have a two-story house. We picked up a few groceries and headed home. We had several small projects that we wanted to finish before we started painting and we were able to finish almost all of them. We put a dimmer switch at our table in the kitchen, switched out several outlets that were cream colored to white, changed some light switches for the same reason, touched up some paint in our game room and patched up some holes in the popcorn ceiling. We still have a few more things that we want to accomplish before our home study. Luckily, we are a good team and really enjoy doing home improvement projects together. The next project that we plan to do is to paint the ceiling in one of the bedrooms.

On the paper front, we plan to tackle a big chunk of it tomorrow. For Chris, Monday is a holiday. Unfortunately, I had to take a vacation day; however, I am excited to get a good part of the dossier complete. We just haven't had the time to do it.

Today we completed the "Adoption Parenting" test that is required by our agency. We received the book on Thursday and we had to read it and answer 78 questions. By completing this test, we have now completed two hours of required training for people who adopt internationally. We plan to take the Hague online training soon because it is required by both our agency and for our home study.

Friday Night Friends

Tonight we had the wonderful opportunity to get together with some friends of ours from North Manchester. Sam and Jolane came to our house and brought their children. We loved having the noise and we absolutely cannot wait to hear the chatter of a child more than just when we have visitors. As the children played, we were able to catch up around the kitchen table. We enjoyed some pizza from East of Chicago and some dessert (cheesecake & homemade smores) from the Pastry Diva in Greentown (which I highly reccommend)!


The kids were adorable! Their oldest son told us about the A+ he received on his 6 page unit test, their daughter told us about the plans for her birthday party and their youngest boy wanted to watch Charlie Brown Christmas over and over.

On Thursday, I met Chris in Indianapolis and we started looking for baby things. There are a lot of things out there that people can buy. We are trying to think ahead and prepare for our home study. We didn't buy a lot, but we decided to start baby proofing our house. We are also starting to look at baby furniture.

Today I sent information to our home study provider. We have to fill out an application this weekend and we should hear back from them in a few days. Chris is off on Monday for President's Day so I decided to take it off and we hope to get a good start on the paperwork. We plan on getting several copies of our birth certificates, passport photos and several other items completed for our dossier (doss-ee-eh).