5 Weeks and Counting!

We are at just under 5 weeks and starting to get pretty antsy. We really just want to be on the airplane at this point. I'd rather have had only 3 weeks to get ready instead of 3 months!

We've purchased most everything we think we're going to need for the trip. I've never taken so much non-clothing items in my life. In doing research on what other families do to pack for 4-6 weeks (esp. in the winter with the bulky clothes), it seems like most couples don't actually take many clothes for themselves, since there's so much other stuff to take for a trip that long. Just some of the random items we've purchased are: a sink stopper (to wash clothes in case there's no washer in our apartment - there are no laundromats); a clothesline to dry the clothes; toilet paper (it's supposed to be really rough over there, and not in most public restrooms); travel converters; money belts; lots of ziplock bags (don't ask - everyone just recommends them); hand disinfectent (lots of it); reading lights (some regions have regular brown-outs); our gifts for the orphanage workers and our facilitator; disposable cameras (so if the kids are old enough, they can take their own pictures of their friends and care workers to have); toys, games, and leapsters for the kids to keep them occupied and provide Scott some bit of sanity on the long plane ride home; etc, etc. Scott's also been burning lots of DVDs to his iPod, and we're taking a bunch of books, soduku, travel scrabble, etc.

We purchased a webcam for the computer we're taking and have set up a Skype account. If anyone has this capability and wants to Skype us, let me know and I'll email you our Skype account information. As long as we have an internet connection, this will be a really good option for us to communicate with people back home. We're also going to try to get on email daily if possible. No guarantees though. We'll also be blogging and posting photos as often as we're able.
But, until after the court hearing and the kids are officially ours, we're not going to post any pix of them - don't want to jinx it!

We had to re-do a bunch of our paperwork back in Oct so that it would not be close to expiring by the time we get there (most of the dossier paperwork is only good for 12 months). We think there are one or two more things that we'll have to get re-done before we go; we'll see. We have a doctor lined up in the International Adoption Clinic at Children's Hospital in Denver who can help us understand any medical conditions the kids may have (treatable or non-treatable; long-term or short-term illness).

My biggest hope, as I have way too much time to think about this whole thing, is that our choice is clear for us when we're looking at the pictures of the children. I hope we can get this done on the first trip, and not have to decline any of the kids we see because they're too ill or too old. A lot of couples have to go back for a second or third appointment (up to 90 days later) because the kids were sicker than they were willing to take on. Fingers crossed that it happens for us the first time.