Majority of Phase 2 Finished

We've had a whirl of a past two weeks. Brian's surgery was scheduled for the 26th, so we moved PRIDE training up two weeks. We wanted to be sure the large majority of our training and all was finished before that.

In order to sign up for an earlier PRIDE training, we had to agree to driving up to Bremerton, which was close to an hour and a half each way. The drive was nice, though. We played some tunes and enjoyed our time together. Sarah Richardson, Nita Barnard and Grandma McCall volunteered to watch the girls over the six evenings we were in class. Praise the Lord! It worked out!

While the training was held by the state and we had some different beliefs about the hopefulness of the situation, PRIDE was relatively painless, and free! We met a couple couples who are very excited to bring children in their homes and we were able to plug A New Forever, the group we belong to that is absolutely amazing. (You should really check out their website. It's listed on my links section.)

My favorite thing about PRIDE was all the resources we learned about. My favorite resource was TREEHOUSE, which you'll find the link to in my links section. There's also a place I found that will give you a fire ladder and a fire extinguisher free if you're in the foster process. Bonus!

Last week, we received our letter from Youth For Christ that we could go get our fingerprints done, so I made our appointments for last Wednesday up in Federal Way. They're done digitally now, so I hear getting the results of the background check doesn't take as long as it used to. I've heard we're looking at about a month turn-around time. Fingerprinting was free. Bonus!

I also made our appointments to get our TB Tests done. Our insurance doesn't pay for TB Tests, so I checked around. Around here the cheapest place I found that would do them was at Enumclaw Medical Center. They were $18 each for Brian and me.

Since I have to have Max's (our dog's) pet vaccine records, (and we didn't have him as a puppy) I had to call Kent's Veterinary Hospital. Their records showed that Max needs his shots updated. Man! So now we'll be taking him to the vet to get his shots updated.

After that, we'll just be waiting on the fingerprint results to come back and the homestudy to be completed. While we're waiting, we'll be locating bunkbeds and dressers, and getting the house completely ready for our new kids. Yeah!

Thank you for your continued prayer. We are still asking that the processing of paperwork be smooth, that we have favor with all the people involved in the process, and that the items we need (bunkbeds and dressers) we'll come across very inexpensively or FREE! Please continue praying for our family and our marriage as we spend extra time during this time taking care of necessary details, that it would build our family up and not cause it to weaken.

We love you!

Classes and Preparation

So, Saturday before last, Brian and I headed to Allenmore Hospital to complete our First Aid/CPR/Bloodborne Pathogens Course through Keep the Beat. It was relatively painless and quick. Uncle Mark and Auntie Berta took our girls so we could go. The girls didn't mind because the got to spend some time with the Auntie and Uncle and cousins and they also were able to go swim at Don and JoAnn's. "Hooray for us!" they thought.

Tomorrow, we start our PRIDE training through the state. Because Brian's surgery is scheduled for the 26th of August, we had to reschedule our PRIDE training for the 11-13th and the 18-20th of this month. Our friend Nita has offered to watch our kids for us each of those days. Since then, our Sarah has offered to pick up one or two of those. We love our framily!

Right now, we're waiting on a call from Youth For Christ to let us know when and where to go get our fingerprints done. While we're waiting on that, we're also trying to get our house ready for the homestudy that will come sometime after PRIDE training. For now, we're on the search for some bunkbeds that we can pick up for cheap (or FREE is always good!). If you know of anyone who is in the market to donate some--we need three sets--send our information to them or send them to this blog.

The day after we finish PRIDE, we go in for our TB test. We'll get the results for that the following Monday. We found the best place for us to go for our TB test is at Enumclaw Medical Center. They do it for $18. Best price around that I could find--even better than what YFC knew about. The least expensive place they knew about was for $26. I found that most insurance companies don't cover that test. If they do, it's done as a routine exam with your normal co-pay. FYI.

As we complete these, we'll post on them to let you know how it went.

Please pray for resources for the things we need in order to adopt, for expediency on behalf of those who have a part in the processing of our paperwork (Youth For Christ and the State of Washington) and for favor with them, for our daily tasks being completed while we are spending extra time on this, for our own minds to be able to keep up with all we have going on, for peace to cover our home, and mostly for our relationships with each other and with God to grow as we go through this (and not be damaged or depleted because of it).

We love you!