To celebrate or not to celebrate...

Last week I heard from our caseworker at Dillon and according to JCICS all of the pending 600 cases had been granted NOC, but we were waiting for Ms. Roy (ISRC Director) to confirm. Great news to my ears!!!! However, until Ms. Roy has our NOC in hand we cannot proceed to the Kolkata courts for Scrutiny and according to an early morning email today, as of yesterday she did not have it. Grrrr..... I feel like I'm always waiting on someone else!!!!! Please pray for our NOC to reach Ms. Roy so that we can enter the court process.

On a good note...

Schooooool's out for summer.... schooooool's out for summer!!!

Today was the last day for all of us!! Yippee!!! Poor Austin has "the bug" so he missed his last day. Bummer eh?! Good thing it was only a half day!!

Father's Day weekend was fun... we made 24 jars of strawberry-rhubarb jam on Saturday, and a strawberry-rhubarb pie, a rhubarb pie and strawberry shortcake for Father's Day. All from our own homegrown berries and rhubarb!! We picked around 14 quarts of strawberries this weekend and the season is just beginning. Hope I don't get "berried" out!!

A "Swedish" surprise!!

A huge THANKS to Rod Pflederer for forwarding some very treasured pictures of Sweet PEA this evening. Rod and Michelle have been in contact with a Swedish family that just got back from picking their child up from ISRC. We received 4 great pictures of Pala and she looks happy and content. Her new hair cut is even beginning to grow on me! :)

Not the news I was hoping for...

So, today I was so excited to get an email from our wonderful case worker at Dillon asking when a good time to call me about our NOC was. I responded and as planned she called me during my lunch break.



BUMMER!!! Still no NOC!!! Arg.......



However she sounded like we could possibly have it in the next week or so. We are the last 600 family with Dillon to go through so we are caught up in a mess at CARA. With all of the changes, there has been some confusion between the process for 600 and 800 families. We are not the only family in this situation so a number of agencies have joined forces with the Joint Council on International Children's Services and they have really come through for us- the families in limbo. CARA has asked that JCICS create one list of all the 600 families that are waiting on NOC and they will "expedite" our cases rather than each agency trying to go it alone. So, hopefully next week we will have NOC!!! Please pray for us!!!

They cut her beautiful hair!!!!!

When I left for vacation
my Sweet PEA looked like this!!!

and today,
my princess looks like this!!!

Her beautiful hair is gone!!!!

I keep telling myself that it'll grow back but...

I was totally unprepared for this!!!

The Drinkard's are in India now picking up their little boy Cole Debjit and were able to take some pictures of the little ones there. Sara had emailed and told me that Pala was crying in most of the pics so I WAS prepared for that but not the hair cut. We were guessing that she is starting to have stranger anxiety but after seeing the pictures maybe it's because they had just cut her hair. Poor lil Sweet PEA!! Mama promises that once you are home and in my arms you will NEVER have to go through that again. There are many reasons why the children are always getting their hair cut but I was led to believe that this round was most likely because of the hot weather they are experiencing. The kiddos with nice thick hair are usually the ones that are continuously getting their hair "chopped". Our caseworker did comment that when we get closer to travel they will stop cutting her hair.

Thank you for the pictures Sara! Prayers for a safe trip home!!

From New York to Iowa and back in a car w/3 boys and NO DVD player...

Nobody ever has to go to the bathroom at the same time! Our DVD player wouldn't work (and the boys left their PSP's and DS on the table)... "I'm hungry"... "How long before we get to Uncle Chuck's?"...And we had only been on the road for about an hour and a half.... BUT, we survived just fine and are now home getting back into the routine of things.

Treyton had reminded us over and over for weeks that we were going to be in 6 states all in 1 week during our trip. It was exciting for him to check off each state as we entered it. Started in New York, then on to Pennsylvania, then Ohio (stopping in Cleveland at the zoo), through Indiana, stopped in Illinois for a bit and then finally landed in Iowa. Just to make things interesting for him we added a state and crossed into Michigan for dinner to say that we had been there. :) We had a wonderful time in Chicago with my Uncle Chuck and his daughter Stacy. They took us all over the city! Millennium Park, Michigan Avenue, Navy Pier, Chicago Children's Museum, Peggy Norton Nature Museum, Chinatown, Indian village, Uncle Chuck's Fire Station, and the highlight... a White Sox game! We obviously didn't see everything because we were only there 3 days but our days were filled to the max. The boys tried frog legs and alligator on one of our outings and we ate at "Ed Debevic's" one night. Funny moment... when we were at "Ed's" the boys kept staring out the window across the street at HOOTERS saying "I wish we could go to HOOTERS." Shad commented, "Yeah! Me too..." Ha!! Guess you had to be there in the moment! It was cute! The looks on their faces were so hysterical!

Camel ride at the Cleveland Zoo

Shad and I at at the "Bean" at Millenium Park

Dinner at ED's

Austin eating frog legs

Treyton and Stacy dancing at Navy Pier

All of us at Uncle Chuck's Fire House

Treyton and I at the Sox game

Chicago Children's Museum

We had a great time in Chicago and can't wait to go back and visit Uncle Chuck! Well, this was only the first part of our trip, more to come later with Part II "The Odyssey Finals and Iowa!"