End of Summer Smorgasborg!

Getting everything in order to finalize the adoption and travel arrangements to South Africa completely filled our evenings through the end of the summer so keeping pictures updated easily slid to the back of the to-dos.  But for our own record keeping and our desire to keep others updated, I wanted to go ahead and get up a couple blog posts from the last couple months before we meet our sweet boy and free time becomes even more limited! :)

And those last few months were quite full! We had some great times with friends, family, nature, and enjoying our city.   Much of my days was spent rearranging and reorganizing our home to prepare for our new addition so we tried our best to sneak in as much weekend and evening fun as we could!

 So happy to have Nana & Pop-Pop after their trip to France!

 2nd annual pizza/ice cream/movie night with Maelee's best pals :)

Quick meet-up after church at a nearby park with some of our church friends. She's got a caterpillar in her hand :)

 Loved celebrating Nana a little early with a birthday lunch and brownie cake at our place, then out for breakfast on the big day itself:

Happy Birthday to my dearest, mama!!!

The girls got to attend one VBS this year with our good pals so we had lots of kid swapping that week- pool, popsicles, then pizza + movie!

Enjoying a date night while our friends watched our kiddos!

Fun with daddy's childhood car mat :)

Neighborhood stroll

During the 2nd week of August, Maelee participated in a drama camp which she of course LOVED and got to play a lead role as the "queen" in the play they created:)

Haircuts!

Homemade popsicles :)

Lemonade stand to help our South Africa fund!

Grateful for another date night while Nana & Pop-Pop kept the girls overnight!

Met up to view the solar eclipse the next day!

Neighborhood fun :)

Celebrating news of our court date over brunch!

The girls all drove up for a quick visit to see my Too-daddy and Too-Mom in DE the week before school started.  It was so great to see them and Maelee loved listening to Too-dad's stories about himself and about her Nana as kids!

Meet the teacher day!
It was so great to chat with Maelee's teacher about our long absence and she was so supportive and helpful!

Super blessed by our neighborhood friends who suprised us with a beautiful cake during our Labor Day "braai!" (The South African term for "bbq!"

Enjoying a last outing in Old Town with brunch and some ice cream :)

Can't believe she's in 2nd Gr!!!

Cute video link here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/TEw0kSSj5vmGOVzp1

1st day was a success!  Time to celebrate at Baskin Robbins...

And Lilee's 1st day!

Another cute video link here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/DclSSslSl19fYtTi2

Growing up too fast...

Ice cream social at Maelee's school

Enjoying time with Chloe:)

And that just about does it with this random assortment of pics from July (not including our NC trips, haha) into September.  Another blog post is coming right up (yup, brace yourself...) with A LOT more pics of our various summer outings/activities through August.  And THEN, another one with pics from our first few days in South Africa!  WHEW!  This is what happens when I don't have other paperwork filling my evenings and Steve has to work! :)

Link to more pics from July:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ydsoi7HAaUdAzoPy1

Link to more pics from Aug/Sept:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/KPbYYlx2izDpp3zk2

Almost there!!!

SEPTEMBER 28TH!!!

We are SO excited to have received a court date after A LOT more waiting this summer for various forms to come back to us with approvals.  Another trip to Richmond for another apostille...  More unexpected delays.... LOTS of rearranging our home to prepare it for a 3rd child... And we are almost there!

Praise the Lord!!!

As we near the finish line, we are praying hard for financial provision.  God has been faithful throughout and we are absolutely confident in how he provides.  For our own records and for those who like to see actual numbers, below is a quick, albeit not totally complete, rundown of the costs associated with our adoption.  There is no fee for this precious boy himself, but as this is a legal process complete with more documentation than we can count (!), the costs add up.

But it is all so totally worth it and we are beyond grateful for the support of those who have committed to walk alongside us financially to bring our son home!!!

The numbers:

I-800 (visa) form and biometrics~ $860

Apostilles ($10 per apostille, over 25 individual Apostilles required)~ $250

New birth certificate for each person~ $20-$30, depending on the state

Agency fees (home study, paperwork, social workers, coordinating with the country) ~$18,000

South Africa fees (legal fees, doctors, shipping fees, social workers and other specialists in country) ~$11,000

Visa fee~ $325

Passports~ $380

Flights ~$5,000

Housing, transportation, living expenses in South Africa~ $10,000

Doctor visits and vaccinations before travel ~$700

Misc costs for mailing, copies, printing things ~$500

Adding all that up gets to over $45,000, and doesn't include several other little things that would bump it up even more. So far, we've raised just over $16,000 - thanks to the generosity of so many! We've also spent another $15,000 from our reserves. This still leaves us over $14,000 short of where we need to be, and we have one of the most expensive parts - travel - coming up! We are praying we can raise close to $10,000 more to get us where we'd hope to be.

What a journey this has been!  It will be amazing to look back on it all some day and we hope our little boy will know just how loved, cherished, chosen, and wanted he is.

We can't wait to hold him in our arms SOON!