The wait has begun

Monica spoke with Christy Penney, our adoption case manager, a few minutes ago. We mailed our dossier to AGCI two weeks ago but were missing one document that needed to be state certified. That arrived at AGCI's office today. We're now officially done with our dossier and on the waiting list! Christy called and gave us our official wait list numbers. We are #28 on the girl list and #14 on the boy list. That's great and all but here's where it gets exciting, scary, crazy, etc....Christy told us that there are only three families ahead of us waiting for a toddler girl and only ONE family ahead of us for a toddler boy! C-R-A-Z-I-N-E-S-S!

After we receive and accept a referral it will be approximately 3-5 months until we travel to pick up our child. Our case will go through the Ethiopian courts before we travel.

Laundry Room = Serious Progress

The laundry room project has been moving along nicely the past few weeks. Last week dad and I got the hardwood floor installed. I used various leftovers from Stoney Acres Hardwood Flooring and mixed together the wood species and finish colors. Before I installed it in the laundry room, I laid the boards out in the basement so I could get the mix how I wanted it. They even had a leftover transition piece I could use to go from the hardwood to the linoleum.





This week the cabinets and countertop were installed. As you can see from the pictures, we're still missing a few doors and some hardware but that part is almost done. Don Miller built the cabinets.



The cabinets over the washer and dryer area (they're still in the basement - not looking forward to hauling those up).



The mudroom locker thing I designed for Don to build. I still need to get the coat hooks installed.



Now we're waiting for the plumber to come out and hook up the sink and we'll be functional. Oh and the electrician (me) needs to wrap up a few things too. Did I mention we still have to haul the washer and dryer up from the basement?

What's happening with our adoption?

We're just waiting on the notarized copy of our home study report. The home study report is done, but the agency needs to get it notarized by an Indiana notary. Since they're located in Louisville, KY that makes it a bit harder. I guess they had it notarized once and then realized that something was done incorrectly. Anyway, we should get it sometime in the next week.

Once we get the notarized home study report, we'll compile that with all the other documents we've assembled that make up our Dossier. We have everything else we need for the Dossier. The report is the last piece. Once we turn in our Dossier to All God's Children, we'll be put on the waiting list for a referral and given our first set of numbers (i.e. our spot in line for a child). We'll get a number for the boy list and a number for the girl list. Some families are on both lists and some are just on one of them. Within the lists, the parameters for each family (age of the child they are open to) may be slightly different. Based on what I've read, I think a lot of families are looking in the 0 - 12 month range. The stated time for the wait list is 6 - 8 months. Because we're open to a child between Brennan and Sawyer in age, our time on the wait list may be shorter, but it might not be.

I'll update once we get the Dossier turned in.

In other news - I got one coat of paint on the walls in the laundry room. Progress!

Laundry Room - Drywall

Remember a long, long time ago I was working on a laundry room project? Well, I'm finally back at it. I've been blaming adoption related activities on my lack of production, but most of the paper chasing is out of the way for now so I've started to pay more attention to the laundry room again.

A few weeks ago I started making a push to get the wiring done so I could get the drywall up. I was able to do that and on Saturday, October 11, I finished the drywall hanging. The following week the drywall finisher was able to get everything done. As of last Friday (10/17), it's ready for a coat of primer, and it's still waiting for that coat. The cabinet man was out last Monday to take final measurements for the cabinets. We're going with white cabinets and trim in the room.

Here are a few pictures since my last update.


Generally when I'm working on the laundry room Brennan wants to be right there working with me.


Brennan had a great time nailing these screws and nails into the drywall.


Brennan also provided a little art work along the way. While I've got this picture here, note the two cold water lines (the blue ones) side-by-side in the bottom left of the picture. I have to give my mother in-law some credit here. I believe it was her idea to run a hard water line to the laundry room for watering plants. So, our laundry sink will have an extra spigot for hard water. The current system generally involves me filling a water jug out in the garage. Good idea Vi!


Poor Sawyer was stuck in captivity.


Here's what the area looks like where the closet used to be. I put new drywall up on the walls in that area because the walls inside the closet had been textured.


Here's a shot looking into the laundry room.


And here's a shot from inside the room looking over to the entrance.

In case you didn't know...

Apparently God wants McCain to win this election and His reputation is on the line, at least according to one Rev. Arnold Conrad. Check it out. Wow! I realize there are extremists on both sides of this election. I think it's unfortunate that Christians get so caught up in this thing to the point that they make statements like Rev. Conrad just did. I'm not going to expand anymore on his statements other than to say I strongly disagree with him and think it is embarrassing to hear another Christian make statements like this.

A note of clarification for those who would read this and make false assumptions about what I'm trying to say in this post. I'm in NO WAY saying that I think it is embarrassing for a Christian to support McCain. I have never stated that. Don't just read the text. Follow the link and see how this man was praying. The manner in which he was praying regarding the election is what I found embarrassing as a Christian, not the person he is supporting.

Home Study Interviews

We had our home study interviews last Thursday and Friday. They went really well. Our social worker, Rhonda, was great. She was very easy to talk to. We had our individual interviews on Thursday and then a joint interview on Friday. During the individual interview, I went ahead and confessed that talking about my feelings and emotions wasn't exactly my strong suit. She seemed to get a kick out of that. She would tell me when we were done with questions about feelings for awhile. There was a finance piece in the interviews that I was all over!

A few minutes after Rhonda got to our house on Thursday, Brennan asked her if she wanted to see his room. Brennan proceeded to give her a tour of the whole house, basement included. It was pretty funny. Later she asked Brennan a few questions to see what he thought about us adopting. One of the question she asked him was how he would feel if his new brother or sister got into all his stuff. Brennan sort of chuckled while answering and said something to the effect of "oh that's ok, Sawyer already does that". It was pretty hilarious.

Hopefully in another 3-4 weeks we'll have our homestudy finalized and be ready to submit our dossier to AGCI and officially be on the waiting list.

We have an appointment at 8:00 AM this Tuesday in Hammond, IN to be fingerprinted for the Dept of Homeland Security. It has something to do with us getting pre-approved to bring an adopted child into the country. I think that's the last criminal/background check we have to get through.

Overdue Adoption Update

Fortunately, the delay in posting an update on our adoption process does not mean there was a delay in getting things done on our to-do list. One thing that should be sufficiently clear at the end of this process is that we are not criminals. We've submitted several different criminal background checks for the home study and dossier (local & national). We had to go over to South Bend to be fingerprinted at an Indiana State Police post. Hopefully soon the USCIS (Dept of Homeland Security) will be sending us an appointment to go somewhere else and be fingerprinted.

Home Study - We have submitted everything on our list for the home study agency, and our social worker called us today to schedule our home study interviews (09/18 & 09/19). She's going to interview us and JB & Carla on those days. Once we get through the interviews, I believe the agency will be able to get our home study written up. When that is done it will go into our dossier.

Dossier - The only significant item we have left to complete for the dossier (besides the written home study report) is our Statement of Reason to Adopt letter. It's partially written but we need to finish that up. Otherwise we just need to take a few pictures of our house and ourselves to include.

We also have a ten hour online educational thing to get through and a big workbook to fill out. We're 1/10 of the way through the online stuff and about 1/2 way through the workbook.

So, I think things are in pretty good shape. Once we submit our completed dossier, we'll be on the waiting list for a referral.

Floor Update

They finished sanding Mom & Dad's floor on Tuesday. They had to rent a special hardwood sander that's designed for houses that have the old hot water radiators. It's designed to be able to get underneath the radiators while sanding. They needed this to be able to get up close to the edges because of the logs.







Here's a shot of the floor I took tonight (w/o a flash). I believe they've put two coats of finish on the floor. I think they're going to put a top coat on tomorrow and then it will be done. Wow does it ever stink in there. I was in for a few minutes and my eyes were burning. We'll try to air the place out this weekend before mom and dad get home.

Our little boy's getting bigger

Today was Brennan's first day of preschool. He's going to preschool at the old Honeyville School, now Eden Worship Center. He has class on Monday, Wednesday, & Friday from 8:30 to 11:00. Today I picked up Brennan and his buddy Noah after class and they were both eager to tell me about how much fun they had. The highlight appears to be finger painting with chocolate pudding and then getting to eat the pudding. Throughout the day Brennan kept mentioning how much fun he had at preschool. Here are a few shots of Brennan getting ready for his big day. Sawyer filled his diaper right before Monica was ready to take pictures of Brennan so the photo-op got cut short.

At the neighbors

Mom and Dad are in Phoenix for this week visiting Melissa, Maury, and Isaiah. While they're gone, they are having their hardwood floors sanded down and refinished. Here's a few "before" pictures and a few shots of the sanding that was done today. The before pictures don't really do justice to the need to have the floors redone.

Demolition

A few Saturdays ago, I set out to remove the closet in our "mud room" to make way for the entrance to the new laundry room. Here's a shot of the closet before I got the sawzall involved. Brennan was on hand most of the time to help me out. I started by taking the closet doors off and taking all the trim off.













Once I got to the point of actually ripping the walls out, it got pretty dusty in there. Fortunately Monica and the boys were gone during this part.















Here's the current state of the area.

















Jon Swartz came out a few days later and helped me rip this hole into the garage for our entrance into the laundry room. I'm pretty confident I could've taken at least 2 or 3 times longer than Jon did to frame the opening and created a much bigger mess. The opening is covered by a sheet of blue styrofoam right not to try to avoid all of our cold air escaping into the garage.











Over the next few weeks I need to get the electrical work done and hang the drywall. The guy who is going to be doing the mudding can't get to it until a week or two into September so that buys me a little time, which at my current pace I'll need.

On the adoption front, we're starting to tick away at our to-do lists. We both got our autobiographies done this week. That's a pretty big accomplishment. Hopefully we can get far enough along to get our home study interviews scheduled soon.

Brennan and Isaiah

One day during Isaiah's last week in Indiana, Brennan and Isaiah were watching the movie The Incredibles and they decided they wanted to pretend to be superheros. Brennan decided to be Dash and Isaiah went with THE FLASH. Isaiah went for the mug shot photo shoot.

Under Contract

Last week we received our signed contracts and our Adoption Planner from AGCI which included our dossier information. Between that and the home study, we've mostly been stuck in the "wow, we've got a lot of stuff to do" mode. We have a call scheduled for tomorrow afternoon with our case manager from AGCI to review the dossier and get our questions answered. After that it will be time to buckle down and start picking things off of the list.

Some of you may already know, but in case you don't, some of our best friends, JB & Carla Hochstetler, are joining us on the adoption journey. They're also planning to adopt from Ethiopia through AGCI. We're looking forward to going through the process together. Since our home study agency is from Louisville, KY and we have to pay travel costs, we're going to coordinate with JB & Carla so that they can get our interviews in at the same time. Because JB is so busy with Bible Memory camps for a few more weeks, I've been using that to justify some of my procrastination. Thanks guys! I better build a little cushion though because Carla doesn't usually mess around.

I'll get a laundry room update posted later this week. (Sneak peek - It may involve some demolition).

Laundry Room & Adoption Update

I was able to make another dent in the laundry room project today. I started off my morning (ok, forenoon) by getting the dirty work out of the way and made a trip into the attic.

I had to crawl into this part of the attic to run a new electrical wire to the light in the laundry room. Previously this light was switched with the garage lights. I was pretty sure Monica wouldn't think it was very cool to need to go to the garage to turn on the laundry room light. It might take away some of the convenience of the main level laundry. Being in the attic brought back some good memories of working on JB & Carla's house.













Brennan wanted to get in the attic with me. I decided I didn't need any holes in our ceiling so I just let him peek in.













After I got back out of the attic, I spent some time framing up a soffit. The main purpose of this soffit is to hide the heat pump lines running between the unit in the bonus room and the outdoor unit.













My next big challenge is to re-frame this wall to allow for the opening into the house. Because it's a bearing wall, that makes it a little more interesting. Also, you can see that it's not just one big wall. Nope, there's a 6' wall and then another 3' wall sitting on top of it. I'm thinking of calling in a pro for this task (paging Jon Swartz, paging Jon Swartz, would Jon Swartz please report to Beachyville?).

















Tentatively the plumber is supposed to be out on Wednesday to rough in the water and drain lines for the washer and the laundry tub. The cabinet man was out last Monday to get our cabinet layout going. This week I want to start tearing out the closet in the mud room so that's done when we're ready to cut through this wall.

Adoption Update

We should get the word on Monday or Tuesday that we're official clients of AGCI. We sent in all our contracts and a chunk of cash last Monday, they arrived in Portland on Wednesday, and they take 3 business days to process them. After that we'll be assigned our case manager and sent our dossier packet to start working on.

We got our information from the home study agency this past week. Oh yeah, it was an 86 page pdf document. When I opened it and saw the number of pages, I felt a little overwhelmed. Fortunately a big chunk at the end is just educational stuff, but there is still plenty of things to do to get everything they need. The biggest stuff for Monica and I is that we each need to write an autobiography addressing the following main topics: Childhood, Family, Education, Military Service (that should be brief), Criminal History (we won't discuss the length of this section:), Courtship & Marriage, Career, Self Evaluation, Physical & Emotional, and Child (adoption and parenting stuff). They are "interested in your impressions and feelings, not a list of events." Good times! That's right up an accountant's ally.

Alright, enough for now.

Laundry room update

I was able to work on the laundry room some more yesterday. I've got most of the main framing done, that is until I have to hack a hole in the wall between the garage and the house. That may require some outside consultation.




























The end wall was a far cry from being level and it was a combination of framed walls and trusses. So, I shimmed it out to get everything even and then overlaid the whole thing with 3/4" OSB. This should make life much easier when it comes time to hang cabinets on this wall. I did the same thing on the little angled section up top.

I think I'm ready to get my cabinet man out to get the cabinet layout finalized and I need to call my plumber to get on the list to get stuff roughed in. Hopefully I can keep things moving along.

Orientation Call

We had our orientation call with AGCI on Wednesday. There wasn't much new information that we learned. It was mostly reviewing their procedures that they outlined in the stuff they had already sent us and making sure we reviewed the contracts that we're about to sign. So, the next step is for us to sign a bunch of documents (contracts, fee schedules, etc.), get them notarized, and then send them off to AGCI along with the first big chunk of money. After that they'll send us the information to get started with our home study and dossier (DAH-see-ay). Estimated time to complete, 2 - 3 months. For starters, I need to apply for my passport, and we need to get a will (the legal document kind).

Random note for any NFL fans, while Muhsin Muhammad was with da Bears he adopted two kids from Ethiopia through AGCI. There was a video linking to the Bears site that showed the kids arriving in the US but it doesn't seem to be working now. I think the Bears may have taken it down since he's back with the Carolina Panthers now.

While we're on the topic of sports, I noted that Dan Wilson (former Seattle Mariners catcher) is on AGCI's board of directors.

The Journey Begins

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had something good coming in the future to post about that would be even better than the laundry room project. I think it's time to put my cards on the table. After several years of discussing this idea and a few weeks of really serious consideration, Monica and I have decided we'd like to add a third child to our family. We've even started the process and I've got the picture to prove it. Right now you're thinking, seriously we don't need to see that. Well don't worry, it's not what you think, or at least not what I've tried to get you to think.

We've decided to go the import route for our next child and adopt a little boy or girl from Ethiopia. We've applied and been accepted by an agency called All God's Children International ("AGCI"). There's a lot of good information on their site if you're interested. If you go to their Media page there are several videos and photo galleries that you may enjoy.

So, why adopt? Well, we'd like to add another child to our family and there is already a tremendous number of kids out there who need a family to love them. The need is great. As I mentioned, this is something we've talked about for years and we've decided to stop talking and start doing. So here we go.

Why Ethiopia and why AGCI? In the process of checking out numerous adoption agencies websites I would look at the various country programs that they offered. When I found AGCI's site and began to learn more about them, I was really impressed by their story and how God led them into the work they are doing. Looking at the pictures of the children in Ethiopia, we were just drawn to them. AGCI has their own orphanage in Ethiopia called Hannah's Hope. Knowing that we'll be working with people from AGCI here in the US and when we eventually travel to Ethiopia means a lot to us. It's also good to know that our son or daughter will be staying at the Hannah's Hope orphanage until everything can be processed.

What age and gender are you looking for? We're going to let God make the call on a boy or girl. At this point we're saying we'd like to adopt a child who is between Brennan (4 years) and Sawyer (9 months) in age, but we'd like to stay on the lower end of that range. We've been fortunate enough to have two babies biologically, we don't need to get the youngest child possible. We'll let others experience that. I like the idea of adopting a slightly older child who may not have quite as great a chance of being adopted because I think most people want a baby. I personally will be just fine if we skip the baby phase, but I also recognize that there will be unique challenges to bringing a toddler into the family.

How long is this going to take? We're not exactly sure but AGCI's website states a time frame of 12 - 16 months from application through finalization of the adoption. However, things could go more quickly for us because we're going to be open to a toddler. At this point, we've got lots of paperwork ahead of us. We need to get going on completing a home study and getting our Dossier (fancy French word for a whole bunch of documents). There is more information on AGCI's site regarding the adoption process.

Anyway, that's a lot of info for one post. We're excited to begin this journey. I'll try to keep the blog updated along the way regarding where things are at in the adoption process.

As promised, here's the picture of our efforts.

Slowly but Surely (emphasis on SLOWLY)

I finally spent some more time working on the laundry room this past Friday and Saturday. Thanks to the blog, I feel guilty when I don't work on the project because that means I can't post any progress. At my snails pace I managed to get down almost all of the subflooring. Brennan wanted to be part of the action so I kept him occupied by having him hammer short screws into some pre-drilled holes in a few scrap pieces of wood. He was enjoying himself so it was worth the loss of a few screws. Sadly the freezer is still hanging out under the laundry room floor. We'll get it out someday. Monica will probably force me to move it soon. It is fairly annoying if you need anything in the freezer these days.

Laundry Room Layout

Here's my highly technical drawing of what the new laundry room and improved mud room area will hopefully be like when I'm done with the project. Hopefully it will give you a better idea of how this flows with the rest of our house. I used the "powerful" Microsoft Paint software to modify one of our house drawings.

A few family photos

Here is a picture of our family hot off the press.














Sawyer is getting dangerously close to needing his first real hair cut. He's plenty shaggy for a Beachy.














Sawyer loves his mommy. I'm pretty confident the feeling is mutual.














Isaiah can really get Sawyer excited when he gets down on the floor and plays with him. Sawyer just laughs and laughs.














Brennan and Sawyer both got a kick out of this.














Isaiah caught with a smile on his face.

Laundry Room

We've been living in our house for a little more than 3 years. Naturally that means it's time to remodel. Back when we were in the final planning stages before building, I took the main level laundry room and turned it into a basement laundry room while I was trying to down size (i.e. fit into the budget). It's safe to say that Monica wasn't overly impressed with that decision. Well, I've come up with a solution and have started the process to right my wrong.

Out in our garage we have this handy corner just to the right of the door that goes into the house. It has a window and really tall ceilings (same height as our house). It shares a wall with the "mud room". So, I'm turning this space into our new Main-Level laundry room.













I'm going to need to take out this closet inside the house to make it work. The doorway into the mudroom will be just to the left of that wooden picture frame on the wall. I use the term "doorway" very loosely because there won't be an actual door, just a cased opening.










I got started with the project on Memorial Day by cutting out the drywall around the perimeter of the area so I could fasten a ledger board onto the existing walls to hang the floor joists onto. My buddy JB has one of those sweet self leveling lasers that I was able to use to make my line all the way around the room. I was also able to borrow JB's 12" Bosch chop saw and his framing nailer too. JB spends his summer directing Bible Memory camps so he doesn't need his tools. I'm happy to keep them company. I'm using yellow pine 2x8's for the floor joists. The span is less than 8'. I wanted to maximize my clearance underneath the floor joists. At the end of my first day I had the ledger board on all the existing walls and a little over half of the floor joists in. I took the opportunity to preview our future view from the laundry room.






















I finally got back to the project on Saturday (06/14) and Monday (06/16) and was able to build the two little stub walls on the sides, put my header across the angled wall, and get all the rest of the floor joists in. I'm now ready to put down subflooring. I've got about 46" of clearance under the floor joists that will still allow for good storage in the garage. I left the opening a little over 48" wide. In theory I could park the riding lawn mower under there in the winter to get it out of the way. That could be interesting. I do plan to eventually get the freezer out of there. It's kind of a pain to only be able to lift the lid up about a foot.





Now that I've posted this project, hopefully I'll feel a little extra motivation to keep it moving along so I have something to post about. Don't worry though, I've got some other good stuff to blog about but I'm going to make you live in suspense a little while until I make that revelation. I can't play all my cards on the first day. Just take my word for it, it's better than a laundry room. How you ask? You'll just have to wait and see (all three of you reading this).