Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land. Proverbs 25:25

This morning we received more photos of Liam. He is so cute! We just can't wait to get our hands on him...and the good news is that we won't have to wait much longer.

We leave for Vietnam next Sunday (9/3). WOW - THAT IS JUST 10 DAYS AWAY! We have so many things to do before then, but are so overwhelmed that it seems difficult to get started. We are agonizing over the fact that we are leaving our 2 year old son (Aiden) home. We have never been away from him for more than 5 days. But we know that it will be so great to have a few weeks with Liam and not have to divide our attention between children.

This week we finished all of our shots to prepare for our trip. So we are now protected against all sorts foreign ailments, many of which we can't even pronouce. The packing has started (sort of). It is hard to pack too early since we will need many things between now and when we leave. But we at least have a good list going of what we need.

Please continue to pray for us. Pray for a safe trip, and that we will be able to come home after 2 weeks. Also pray for my mother, as she is keeping Aiden while we are gone...and she is really going to need lots of prayer (he is quite the handful these days).

NOW FOR THE MAIN ATTRACTION - The photos of our sweet baby!

At Last...We have a date...

It is with great excitement that we announce that we are leaving for Vietnam. We received our official court date (also known as the "Giving and Receiving Ceremony") for September 7th. We must report to Ho Chi Mihn City no later than Tuesday September 5th. We just got word from our adoption coordinator at 10:19 this evening. It is likely to be a sleepless night because we are so excited.

We will post more details as soon as we arrange our trip. Thanks so much for all our prayers...we are so close to holding our little Liam now!

One Step Closer

Today we received news that our paperwork has been approved by the International Adoption Department in Hanoi. This means we are very close to getting our travel date. The paper work is now being sent back to the province that Liam is from. They will look it over one last time to ensure that everything is in order and then schedule our Giving and Receiving Ceremony. We are hopeful that it will happen quickly. But we are trying to remain patient just in case it takes longer than expected.

Keep praying.

Moving Right Along

Things are progressing as we had hoped. Today we received confirmation from Vietnam that our paperwork has received the next set of approvals and is being forwarded to Hanoi for final determination. Our agency said that the estimated timeframe will be 1-2 weeks before a final determination is issued from Hanoi. That final approval will then be forwarded back to Liam's province and they will schedule our ceremony date. Based on the other families that recently got travel clearance, we anticipate getting our dates sometime during the week of the 14th. Our travel should be approximately 10-14 days after that. So if things continue to progress smoothly, we will likely leave for Vietnam by the end of August (or very early September).

We just can't wait!

Now we need to finish all the minor details before travel.