Dinner and a Movie

This post probably doesn't require much explanation... the pictures say it all.

Saturday night= deep dish pizza from Lou Malnati's...

Accompanied by a glass of Schweppes on the rocks... oh, how I love you, Schweppes.  

Finished off with some homemade caramel corn for dessert...

You start with the air-popped popcorn, then mix in the caramel sauce (brown sugar, butter, and corn syrup- add vanilla and baking soda after the mix has boiled for 5 minutes)...

Bake for an hour, stirring every 15 minutes, and voila! Notice how I left in the un-popped kernels? That was a lazy mistake... you should sift those out before adding in the sauce- if you don't, your teeth will pay for it later.

If you want the exact measurements for the recipe, click here... you'll see I left out the peanuts. It's just the way we are.

After this, we tried for a second time to watch a movie we rented awhile back... the first time we both fell asleep within the first 20 minutes. Last night we made it for about the first hour before falling asleep. Either we're constantly tired or it's a boring movie... or probably both. 

As for these guys... their turn is coming- stay tuned!

   

Fall

I love all of the different seasons... but fall has to be my favorite. I love breaking out the fleece coats, having fires at night, cooking in the crockpot, drinking pumpkin spice lattes, and all of those other things that just feel more appropriate in fall.


This past weekend, we were up in Michigan for a very short trip to pick up some more of our adoption t-shirts, celebrate my brother's birthday, and stop at our favorite apple orchard.


I may be biased, but I think this is the best orchard in all of southwest Michigan, not to mention the best orchard within 3 hours of Chicago. Trust me... we've been to some orchards around here- way too commercialized. 

Isn't it amazing that fruit just grows perfectly on these trees?!

Sweet and ready to eat... right from the branch.

Some nice lady offered to take a picture for us...

Don's the photographer in our family, and he's always snapping when I'm not looking. Do you see all of the rows and rows of apple trees that you can just meander through and pick what you want?! I love that. Seriously, we went to an orchard in a nearby town (that I won't mention), and we were first greeted by Reggae music blaring from a mysterious looking Tiki hut, then we were told that we had to get on a wagon and ride for about 10-15 minutes out to the orchards where we could fill our $20 bag (which we had to purchase from them) with as many apples as we wanted. Just out of principle, we had to leave without getting a single apple... we just couldn't do it- it's not the way apple picking is supposed to be! At Crane's, we got out of our car with our target bags, walked all over the orchards, and then weighed our bags when we were ready to leave... we got four full bags of apples for less than $20. Perfect. 

Making sure it looks just right...

We always cap off our apple-picking trip with some desserts from the bakery/restaurant. Apple dumpling ala mode.

Rhubarb and raspberry pie...

27lbs. of apples, a gallon of cider, and a half dozen cider doughnuts later (plus the above mentioned desserts), and we were happy and full- very full! 


I can't wait for this weekend to put some of those apples to good use... in an apple-cranberry crisp, served with vanilla ice cream and a cup of coffee (of course)!

We're Planning a Trip!

Okay, so we probably won't be traveling for at least a few months, but it's still fun to think about! In fact, today I bought my first little article of clothing for our child... if it ends up being twins, I'm going to have to rush out to find something coordinating. Yes, I will be that mother that puts her twins in matching outfits. How can you not?

So, here's the little sleep set I picked up... isn't it adorable?! It's a long sleeve top with matching bottoms. Can't you just picture a little diapered bum crawling around in this snug little outfit (by the way, I love the tight little jammies that hug the belly and diapered bums... I think this is going to be just perfect!).

In case you are wondering about the "tough guy" part, we do know that we'll probably at least get one little boy whether we have twins or not... we requested an infant boy or twins of either gender. The wait time for a boy is shorter than for a girl in Ethiopia, so that helped us with our decision. Plus, Don needs a fishing partner! Someone who isn't afraid of touching the worms...


Back to the original reason for this post... I stumbled upon a great video of Ethiopia. It's absolutely beautiful, and we can't wait to go there!

Ethiopia: The Whole Picture from Paul Hassell on Vimeo.

So Close...

Well, tomorrow we send off all of our papers... we spent this weekend certifying our last documents, making copies of the dossier, checking to make sure everything looks right and is in the right order, checking again, and checking again. I'd take a picture of the entire packet we're shipping off, but I'm too nervous about something happening to one of those precious little slips of paper! You'll just have to trust me that it is huge!


We also spent some concentrated time praying alone and together to ask God's blessing on this next phase of our adoption and this next phase of our lives.


Here's a snapshot of how we're feeling now...


Joyful

• We're so close to having our child/children! We're in the homestretch, and Lord-willing, by this time next year, we'll be holding our precious little baby/babies!

Thankful

• For God's constant care for us- it is so evident that He is orchestrating all of the details of our lives! We trust Him and we rest in His love and care for us!
• For the support of so many of our family and friends. Many of you have prayed for us, donated money, bought t-shirts, and shared in our excitement. When we bring our child home, it will have been a community effort! Words cannot express our gratitude...

Confident

• God's way of ordering our lives is better than we could choose for ourselves. We trust and rest in His sovereign will. We have absolutely no control over how long this next phase will take or which child we will get... but God knows. And He has known for all of eternity. All of the remaining details (along with everything else), are working exactly according to His perfect plan.   

Thankful

We received our USCIS approval in the mail yesterday! Now, we head to the secretary of state to have a couple of documents certified and then everything will be sent to Washington D.C. to be approved by our agency and then on to Ethiopia.


Once this happens, we will receive our official "wait list" number! We're actually super excited about this next round of waiting... mainly because this time we'll be waiting for our child!

Family Vacation

A couple of weeks ago, we headed to northern Michigan with Don's family for our annual family vacation. It was a great week of quality time with each other, relaxing at the beach, and eating tons of food! Here are some of the many pictures that we took.


At the ice cream shop- an every night occurrence...

Playing with my sweet niece at the park..

At one of the many scenic outlooks on M22...

Beautiful sunsets...

Storytime... precious.

Sleeping Bear Dunes... we climbed and climbed but didn't end up making it all the way to the lake. 

But, we did make it to The Cherry Republic in Glen Arbor!

Impromptu picture that actually turned out pretty good!

And, more ice cream- seriously, every night.

Dress up dinner... obviously not a fancy restaurant, but they do dim the lights. 

Everyone in their Ethiopia shirts- can't wait to show this to our little one! Or, little ones!

After a heated ping-pong battle... we look pretty happy here, but I think just before this we were wrestling and throwing punches! Or, maybe running around trying to give each other wedgies... one of those. 

Classic "sisters" shot- love these girls!

T-Shirts

Our t-shirts have been printed! What do you think? Cute, huh?


This first one is a ladies' shirt. It is pretty form fitting, and I'd recommend ordering a size up. It is a burnout style, tealish color, super soft, and long. I'll post a picture soon of me wearing it so you can see what it looks like. Sizes s-xl. 

This is the a shirt for men or women. It's super soft and fits true to size. Sizes s-xl.

This is the children's shirt. It's super cute, light blue, and fits true to size. Sizes xs-xl. 

We're working on setting up an easy online ordering system with PayPal, but for now, if you want to order a shirt, just send me an email (jones.saraj@gmail.com) and we can work out the details. We are asking for a minimum donation of $17 for the more traditional t-shirts and $22 for the ladies' burnout style. 

As for fundraising, we're also in the midst of waiting to hear back from some organizations regarding adoption grants. One of the things we are hoping to do is set up a tax-deductible account where people can donate towards our adoption. Some of our friends and family have already graciously offered to help support us, and this fund will be a great way to give. Once this is set up (Lord willing), we'll give more details about how to give in this way. 

Immigration Update

Well, we never heard back from the email that we sent a couple of weeks ago regarding the need to change our fingerprinting date, so last week Monday we just drove to the office and pleaded with them to give us a new date. 


They kind of looked at us like we were crazy, but they did tell us we could try to come back this Friday (the 13th)- they didn't give us a guarantee, but they told us we could try, so we will. 


Basically, this is the last form that we are waiting on so that we can send all of our papers to Ethiopia. If we don't get the fingerprints this Friday, we'll leave our vacation two days early next week and drive all the way home to spend 5 minutes in their office being printed. Crazy. 


Please join us in prayer that they will allow us to be printed and that we will get our papers sent off soon! 

Ethiopian Cuisine

Last night we drove in to the city with friends to try some Ethiopian food. I was a little nervous about the food because when I looked at the pictures from the restaurant online, it all kind of looked like "slop" to me. Plus, I have a hard time eating food when I can't tell exactly what it is... but, I was pleasantly surprised. The food was delicious, and it was so fun to spend an evening out with friends! The two couples that we went with are also in the process of adopting... we are so thankful to have such precious friends to share in this experience!

My friend, Christina, and I outside of the restaurant. Christina and her husband are also adopting from Ethiopia.

At the table, getting ready to literally "dig" in to the food. 

You actually use your hands and these pieces of "injera" (which is kind of like a sourdough pancake/sponge bread) to pick up the food. And, everyone eats from the same platter.  

Dan and Jen... they are funny (and cute!). Dan was really loving the food (despite the funny face he is making). They are in the process of adopting from Korea. 

Drew and Christina, also funny (and cute!).

Don and I

We actually finished most of the food!

Apart from the delicious food and spending time with friends, I really loved just seeing Ethiopian people. They are so beautiful! And, our servers were very friendly, which helped develop all of my positive stereotypes about Ethiopian people! 

Happy Late Anniversary

I originally was going to post this last Monday... I had put together a little video to celebrate our first seven years of marriage. Since this is probably going to be our last child-less anniversary, I had wanted to put together something special. I think it turned out pretty great, thanks to imovie and some fun pics and music. The video ended up being a little too large to post here, but I'll include a few pics that represent some of my favorite memories from our first years together.


Of course, these pictures only capture some of the special memories... I think our favorite times together are the kind that you don't normally capture with a camera- like an impromptu bike ride, going out for coffee, getting a late night pizza, renting a movie, or just being together doing normal things at home. Even though we would have loved to have children many years ago, I am thankful that we've had all of these unique, pre-children years together!

Leaving the church after the ceremony... happy day!

Super fun vacation in San Diego, CA. It was one of those weeks where everything seemed perfect!

Outside one of our favorite restaurants in the city. Delicious!

In Michigan- I love this state!

Our recent adoption photo shoot... so thankful to be on this journey together!

As a special surprise, even though we said we were NOT going to get any gifts this year, Don surprised me with this pretty little Africa necklace. He is generous and sacrificial to the core... love this man (for many, many reasons!).