What turning a quarter-of-a-century means to me...

Well I finally turned the big 2-5 yesterday! I have been counting down the days until I turned 25 because this means I can finally officially adopt from India! Woo hoooooooo!  We are confident that this is what God had planned for our lives all along but it so fun to look back and see how he is bringing things together.  You can read here about when we found out India had changed their age to adopt!

Here are a few pictures from the birthday! 

Yummy birthday lunch at Stone Mill!

Coldstone birthday cake!

Birthday breakfast including french toast and fresh peaches made by my sweet husband, Brian!

These were on my desk when I walked into work yesterday. I have the best husband (flowers) and co-workers (basket of goodies)!

Spent the evening at Kingston listening to some wonderful music and visiting with family. 

I don't know how I ever made it through college without rain boots!  My first real pair :) Thanks, Bri! Now just bring on the rain!! (I have a slight obsession with chevron print because it reminds us so much of India!)

So many of you have asked about a timeline for our adoption, which is very unpredictable.  We have not heard of a successful international adoption taking place from India>US since they implemented their new adoption guidelines.  About all we know is that our Home Study should be ready to go at the beginning of September. After that we fill out a form for the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) which could take up to 90 days to get accepted (hopefully sooner though), then prepare a few more dossier documents and mail the complete Dossier to India! We know that CARA (India's Central Adoption Resource Authority) will only accept a certain # of new home studies each month but will not tell what that number is.  So starting there it will be a waiting game to get a referral. It could take months or a year or two years or who knows! Our patience will be tested in a big way when it comes to all the waiting but we know this is where we will probably grow in our faith the most.  I added a current timeline on the right side of the blog so y'all can see what the process has looked like so far for us and will try to keep that updated.

Our last Home Study meeting is a week from tomorrow so we would appreciate your prayers as we have some hard decisions to make before that time.

Thanks for following along this journey with us! Love y'all!