Passports back! April 8, 2008

Who says the government works slow?! We were expecting to wait another week or so for our passports to come back but yesterday both of them came in the mail so things are rolling! We paid a little extra to get them expedited and it was well worth it. Now we have to continue to put paperwork together and fill out forms to send to the Rwandan embassy in Washington to get approved to adopt and we also have to file some paperwork with the US government as well to do an international adoption. Of course there are costs associated with both of those filings.

Heidi continues to do a great job doing a lot of the research on things with of course a lot of guidance and help from Tina. A lot of phone calls, internet research and driving around, it requires quite an effort but Heidi is really getting after it, she deserves a lot of credit. I am truly blessed to have her as my wife. We talk daily about the status of this or that and it is nice to see progress almost everyday. I don't think either of us realized how mentally and emotionally taxing this was going to be. I guess that comes with the territory when you take on something this life changing...

We have started to look into other fundraising opportunities and are looking seriously at having a silent auction at a local restaurant as an option.

This past week we opened a bank account a the local bank called the Hanson Family Adoption Fund so we can keep track of any donations we get (See bottom of blog). We also have the donate button at the bottom of this blog which goes into a Paypal account and then will be transferred to the bank account. We have been truly blessed to this point and have already recieved over $1000.00 dollars in donations. This takes a lot of stress off Heidi and me since the expenses are already starting to add up. Heidi did some research and got some pricing on flights and by all accounts it looks like we are going to be in the $2500.00 range each for our round trip flights. That does not include the extra tickets we will have to get for the boys we adopt. We continue to say a lot of prayers and have faith that GOD will provide for us in this area. Again, thanks to all of you who have contributed to this point!

Our girls (Asia Grace and Macie) are getting excited about the possibility of having more kids in the home. We talk alot about moving the bedrooms around and arranging things to accommodate the new little ones. It is all very exciting. One of the things that Heidi and I have started to prep them on is the fact that we are going to have to be away for possibly 3 weeks. Asia Grace can grasp this to a certain extent but I don't think she realizes just how long that is. Macie really has no understanding and basically thinks it is like going to the store and back..... Being gone for that long is really the biggest struggle for Heidi and I and we continue to prepare ourselves for it and pray a lot about it.

well that is it for today. Thanks again everyone and thanks for reading! Stay tuned and take care, GOD Bless!

Pete