Do we have a court date yet?

No. )=

We are hoping we will find out this upcoming week. Once we know our court date, we will begin to prepare to travel.

A couple of days ago, I realized Charles Tucker's birthday is in two weeks, September 25, 2010, he will be two. So I sent him a special mickey mouse musical card and a toy car for $8.00 through the postal service that will hopefully arrive on his birthday...but probably not likely considering it takes 10-15 days to get there. I think I have about 14 days to spare. The alternative was to pay 130.00 for UPS so it would arrive promptly in a week, but I felt the money was better saved for our plane ticket to get to him in person!! I will just have to pray that it gets there and doesn't get lost between the 4,000 miles to Ug*nda. In between purchasing his gift and the UPS store, I forgot to take a picture of the gift so we could remember it and show him when he is older what we got him for his second birthday...Oh well, "can't document everything"... as my husband would say!

When we first got our referral, two and half months ago, we thought there might be a chance of us traveling in September to be there for his second birthday. Well, it is still not God's timing for us to be with him, so we are waiting, waiting, and waiting some more. Do you notice a theme? When you sign up for international adoption you will experience a lot of WAITING. So be prepared! Yes, we are waiting on the Ug*ndan Government to assign us a judge and a court date, but we are ultimately waiting on God's timing for us to be with our third child. Waiting on God's timing is never easy, but Oh...so worth it!!

While we wait, I have been trying to do all I can now, so when we receive a court date we will just have to put everything in our bag and hop on a plane. We might only have three weeks to prepare to take our whole family to Africa, so that requires lots of thinking ahead. I am completely a "list person" and I love marking things off...it is therapeutic! I have two lists, one is for things I can do now before we receive our travel date and the second list is what I need to do once we receive our travel date.

One of the things on the first list is "clothes for travel". We need to make sure we have summer clothes, but fairly conservative and ones that provide more coverage because of the risk of getting malaria from a mosquito. We will be wearing bug spray every time we head outside our guest house to help prevent mosquito bits. And we can't wear skin so soft, it has to be full of "Deet", so lots of chemicals, but I guess it's worth it to prevent malaria...a disease people die from all over the world.

I also have a couple of things I want to make for Charles Tucker. One of those is a "lovey" that he can love on and help with his transition into our family. Both of my kids, received a special "lovey" when they were born and they continue to love on their "bankys" when they sleep and need something to comfort them besides mommy and daddy.

Henry, 13 months old, loving on his "banky"!

Mary Taylor, three weeks old, loving on her "banky"! Henry gave her a "blanky" and a "paci" as his gift to her. His two favorite things as of age two. Mary Taylor gave him a "Diseal", a Thomas the Train....another favorite, as of age two!

So I thought Charles Tucker would like his own special "banky"! Yesterday was the day I decided to mark one more thing of my list. My first attempt at making a "banky" with mitered corners, harder than it looks! Don't look to closely...the seems are definitely a big mess, but C.T. won't care!

 
This Saturday we are having a joint yard sale to raise money for our adoption expenses. It will be down the street from our house from 8:00-4:00, please email me if you want more information. We are also accepting donations from people who live in the Atlanta area. If you have a pile of junk you are trying to get ride of, email me and I will come pick it up! All the proceeds from the donations will go straight to bring Charles Tucker home! Hopefully sooner than later.

It's time for me to go to bed...we have a full day tomorrow as always!