Mountains, Mountains, Mountains!

Definitely time for an update! So much has happened in the last couple weeks.

First, we found out May 8th that we are not eligible to adopt the sibling group I previously talked about due to our family size already. I was very surprised to find this out since I have never heard of Russia having a family size limit, but every region is different - so I guess it did matter in this one. Canada is like that too - every province has their own rules. I was just told that you basically aren't allowed to adopt sibling groups if you live in Ontario. Either way, door closed! So, now I will tell you that the possible referral was of twin boys who will be a year old in July.

Along with the sad news came news of another possible referral, this time in another region as well. It took days of consideration, stress, prayers, questions...but we again have decided to proceed with bringing these children home. It is almost funny to me how stressed and confused I felt just days ago when I have complete peace now. So what could be better than two little blessings and require so much stressful thought? How about three little blessings! Yup, this sibling group consists of three little boys - the oldest currently being 3 1/2 years old.

But, SO MANY MOUNTAINS! The mountains scare me at times. Some mountains we can't even climb, so I pray that if this is God's will He will move them. First mountain - getting provincial approval to adopt three when getting approved to adopt two wasn't very easy. Second mountain - getting Russian approval to adopt three based on our finances. Third mountain - getting our homestudy agency off of the Russian blacklist for missing post-placement report(s) (yup, when the blacklist was published in April there were only two Canadian agencies on the list, an ours was one of them!). Forth mountain - getting another dossier together, legalized, translated, and to this new region. Then we wait for Russia to call us with a meeting date.

I hate that everything takes months when these boys are getting older each day. I wish we were leaving next week to meet them.

On a good note, our agency has agreed to give us a cut on adopting three, so we should still end up just paying the $70,000 that I had estimated it would cost us for adopting two. That is especially helpful since now we will have to buy a larger passenger van since our Montana only holds seven people. I was planning on getting one of these anyways, I just thought that we still had a couple years before it would needed.

Another good item worth mentioning - a lady from Calgary should be leaving some time in June to meet the little girl she is adopting. This little girl is in the same orphanage as these boys, so she has offered to try to take some pics/video of the boys for us! That would be SOOOOO GREAT!