Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow . . .

You know the song ..... are we are singing it today. It's been a very mixed combination of highs and lows here today. Let's start low and work our way up. We found out that no one really likes how any of our notarizations have been done in ND!!! It was shocking to receive the news that even our agency license and social worker notaries weren't going to pass. But, we will keep pressing on through every hurdle. Kate, at KBS Dossiers, has been incredible and we now see why we felt led to hire her for the authentication process as there has been one hurdle after another. So ... we are hopefull that within the week this will be ironed out! Now we just need that insurance form (that the people did not want to cooperate sending quickly) and our CIS letter and we are pretty much good to go for our dossier!!! Listen carefully, because you just might hear us shout HOORAY all the way from ND when it's said and done!!

And .... another dear friend came over to bring meals from several gals for our freezer!!! We cannot tell you how much this blessed us!!! I will rest SO much better knowing that my family's tummies will be well cared for while I recover. You gals are amazing!!! .... it was overwhelming to see what you did for us.

So ... for those of you who want to know, my surgery is at 10:00 tomorrow morning. We anticipate a laproscopic surgery and back home late tomorrow afternoon. Since surgery is later than we'd hoped, Josiah and Nathaniel will be going for Plan B tomorrow. That's okay, because they are excited about Plan B as it means they get to go be with the family that Colton's been working for. Colton will be here holding down the fort with sis and studying.

Now I just want to see that CIS letter while I recover on the couch! :)

We are encouraged as we continue to see the Lord pave a way to unite us with the child He's put on our hearts to join our family. Please pray for her provision for nourishment and safety until we are able to travel. That is something heavy on our hearts every day. As much as we already love her ... it's incredible to know that God loves her even greater ... and we praise Him for her life and all that He will do through it.

Re-Done and Ready to Go!

We finally were able to make the trek BACK to Lisbon to have all things of our from ND re-notarized. We are thankful that these were all caught now, instead of creating a delay later. We are waiting for just ONE important document to arrive in our mail box before all items are ready for our dossier. Pray for us that it will be processed quickly and arrive soon!

There is never a dull moment around here in the meantime though. We are back part way into our fall school routine which feels good. On my good days while waiting for my surgery I am working hard to keep up with the SaCH project. On the bad days? ... well, let's just say I've never taken so many mg's of Ibuprophen in all my life. A couple of days, even the dose I can take hardly touched it. But ya know what?? .... this is really a small thing in the big scheme of things. Thankfully, my surgery should be quite routine and Lord willing I'll be back to my old self in a couple of weeks. My gall bladder and I are no longer friends and we need to part ways! A LONG ways!

We are soon awaiting grandparent visits and that always makes us very happy!!! Do you realize how few people travel to or through North Dakota? :) Thankfully the grandparents make their way out here. We treasure the time we get with each of them.

We appreciate you all for praying for us through this journey. And ... since it's a "good day", I best get back to cutting paper for the next batch of cards.

(note: the pic on this post was at the Great Smokey Mountains Nat'l Park)

If You're New Here . . .

Welcome! ... if you're new in following our journey, you'll want to click on the right under where you see archives. We began documenting our journey here in April. So go there if you want the "whole story". Please drop us a line and let us know you stopped by. ~The Roberts Family

A Few More Pics

Well, now that our laundry is clean from the trip and we're settled in a little ... thought you might enjoy a few more pics. Naomi absolutely LOVED her time at the Reimers in Georgia. She was NOT happy about coming home to an empty bedroom. She kept saying, "I want to sleep at the kids house!" (she was in Momma and Daddy's room there.) Big sis Emily Grace (who is in the previous post in the family pic) is such a blessing to be around. She is such a great helper and serves with joy. Naomi could not get enough of "dress up" with her. Shown in this picture is the "baby" of the family, Annabeth - 18 mo., same size as Naomi (well, if we smooshed down Naomi's hair, and she has heels on in the pic). She was CERTAIN she could handle wearing the dress up shoes too and we just hoped we wouldn't end up with a sprained ankle! She thought she was somethin' prancing around the house in this sparkly outfit.
The boys enjoyed walking out on rocks and they were great to stop all the fun awhile so Mom could get some pics. Looking back, man I felt rotten those days ... but am really grateful for some wonderful pictures. I am feeling much better now, by the way (definitely not 100% pain free - but very liveable) and hope to put an end to all this pesky gall bladder problems with my upcoming surgery.
We spoke with Kate today, who is working on the dossier process with us. The plan is to go have the current things that arrived notarized, along with all the rest we have to re-do the notaries for on Monday. We are just waiting for the CIS clearance letter .. pray that comes SOON and an insurance letter. Then we will be nearing the end of the dossier process!! This will be a huge milestone.

Home Again!

Well, we made it! Just under 4,000 miles and we're all still in one piece! ... well mostly. I, Shelly, have a pesky gallbladder this is hollaring to be removed ... so that is on the agenda for this week. Still waiting to get into the doctor. Hopefully they can do laproscopy and have me on the mend before ya know it.

In the meantime, we got 4 major pieces of mail!!! .... we are SO happy to have in our hands all three passports and our FBI clearance. We are just waiting on CIS approval. That along with some other items needing re-notarized, we are making headway on the great paper chase.

Our trip was overall wonderful, even though Shelly had several days of not feeling well. We all made it through with not catching any nasty bugs of which we are always grateful for!

We were able to stop in St. Louis and see Shelly's brother and his wife. Their "hospitality on the road" was amazing! They met us at the zoo for a very warm and wonderful time. (Little did we know that would be one of the cooler days on the trip!!, the rest was usually 100 and higher.) We then went to the hotel they had gotten for us complete with a large outdoor pool where the boys swam for hours!, while we got to enjoy a great visit. They brought pizzas and homemade brownies. Naomi could not be happier that Aunt Susann remembered her favorite food! - chocolate. :) That visit ended way to short and it was time to head on to TN.

We enjoyed a very warm stay in the Great Smokey Mountains. Now, we knew we were going "to a house in the mountains", but we had no idea how literal that actually was! Let's just say David did all the driving and Shelly did not always keep her eyes open. Ha. We will be forever grateful to the Cross family for opening up their home to us.

After a week there, we treked on down to Georgia ... just to see if we could find any hotter temperatures to enjoy. Just kidding. (It WAS hotter there, by the way.) Our time with the Reimers family was so wonderful. Even though we got to stay over two nights, it ended all too quickly. It was such an encouragement to see a family raising up all their little ones to the glory of God. We will treasure our time with them for a long, long time.

Then it was time for the LONG trek back to ND. It went remarkably smooth ... other than 20 miles of a NASTY storm near Omaha. Thankfully we never had to dive into the ditches to escape the tornadoes. The temp went from 101 to 67 in less than 30 minutes! High winds and heavy rains that followed made for some unpleasant driving. It was almost strange to drive today without the sun beating through the windows on us. Boy were we grateful for A/C all this trip!

We enjoyed time away as a family to really reflect on our lives. It was a long-overdue trip. We're anxious to get Shelly's surgery over with and onto our fall plans. We'd appreciate your prayers through this time. We have boxes of supplies sitting here ready to be put to use for the Stamp a Child Home project as well. They may just have to sit a few days. :)