Whirlwind weekend

Luke with his friend Behr
Cleaning out boxes of toys
Matt preparing Andres' room for new paint
My friend Laura who brought me to tears with her kindness!

"How beautiful a day can be when kindness touches it." 
Author:George Alliston

Simply put, I can't tell you how incredible the last few days have been. They have been exciting, emotional, and most appropriately, overwhelming. Often times in life, we hear only the bad about humanity--the violence, the unrest, the poor decisions--and rarely do we get to celebrate the goodness in people's hearts. Well, right now, Matt and I are experiencing the most incredible amount of kindness unlike anything we have ever witnessed. Since announcing that our children were referred to us last Friday, so much kindness has touched our every day that we can not come close to thanking everyone enough for all that has been done, said and offered. We've had people offer bed sets, various pieces of furniture, bedding, clothing, toys, as well as offers to help paint, mow the yard, take Luke to events, go shopping with me, search for clothing at garage sales, etc. In three days time, two showers have already been planned--one with family and one with my co-workers at school.  People have dropped by the house because they were "just out shopping" and decided to buy a few things for the kids. Luke's good friend, Behr, dropped by a home-made card congratulating him on becoming a big brother. A couple I met for the first time the other night at our monthly adoption meeting extended an offer for us to leave our car at their house if we didn't want to leave it at the airport. You get the picture. . . I mean, seriously, it's overwhelming. I wish everyone could experience something like this in life. It restores all faith in humanity. Not that we didn't know it before, but we realize on an even deeper level how blessed we are to have every one of you in our lives and what a gift your friendship is. I have been brought to tears multiple times each and every day. One of the pictures above shows me with my friend, Laura, who has been so incredible through all of this and then brought two, huge bags of brand new things for Maria. I weeped even more upon hearing that all of the items were selected by her daughter because she thought Maria would like them. Laura--you will just never know what this meant to us! To all of you who have e-mailed and called, and I haven't replied, please know that we are so grateful for all of your inspiring words and kind offers. Our days have been consumed with what needs to be done but we are enjoying EVERY MINUTE OF IT!

Over the weekend, we continued trying to grasp all that has happened to us. As you can see above, Luke helped me to go through boxes of toys. My mom and I went shopping so I could decide how I wanted to decorate Andres and Maria's rooms. Matt began doing some work in Andres' room. And then, there was a large amount of time organizing, filling out and creating certain pieces of paperwork. Today, we sent off our acceptance letter, got fingerprinted again so that the FBI in West Virginia can check our backgrounds, requested updated letters from our doctors, and I finally spoke with a CHI representative. We have decided to request May 19 as our date to get Maria and Andres. We will not hear until probably Thursday is this date is confirmed. So now, we must wait until we have that information before we can arrange our travel and send for visas to bring the kids to the States. We have been told that we will stay in Bogota the whole time. This is somewhat comforting in that it is obviously a little more touristy and there are more things to do. Other than that, there is nothing more to tell. We THANK YOU ALL for what you have done. Blessings to all!