Finally Home

Last night at a little after 10 pm we pulled into our driveway. We were met by Holly's sister Nikki and her 3 girls who drove down from New York to spend the weekend with us. We also noticed that our friends Jodi, Ella, and Corey decorated our yard with signs and balloons and also hung a banner on the front of our house welcoming Sophia home. It was a very nice surprise to see that as we pulled into our driveway. Nikki and the girls then jumped at the opportunity to take care of Sophia while Holly and I unpacked and got settled back into our house. It was a late night for everyone but only helped Sophia sleep even better last night :-)

Today we had a very nice visit from Jodi and her son Corey who could not wait to see Sophia. Corey got a chance to hold Sophia and showed what a great "big brother" he is going to be to his "little sister".

We look forward to seeing many of our friends in church tomorrow and throughout this week. Holly and I are both off from work and are anxious for everyone to see Sophia. Holly's Mom and Dad will be driving down from New York on Monday to spend the week with us. Please keep them in prayer as they travel on Monday.

Heading Home!!!

We just got the phone call releasing us from Virginia. We are packing up and heading home. Thank you all for your prayers.

Day at the Museum

Hello from Virginia! Yep, we are still here...can you believe it?! We are hoping that we get the call sometime tomorrow. Since we are dealing with a state agency you know nothing will happen on Saturday or Sunday :-( So if not tomorrow, hopefully we will get the call early next week. We also wanted to thank everyone for all of the phone calls and prayers about us returning home soon.

Today was another hot one reaching a high of 97 degrees. We decided to make the best of it and drove up to the National Museum of the Marine Corps. We spent several hours touring the museum in the comfort of the air conditioning. We had a great time learning about the Marines and the role they have had in defending our freedom. We would highly recommend visiting the museum if you ever get the chance. It will be well worth the trip.

Hopefully our next update will be from Delaware!

Sophia showing off her new dog tags

Just Relaxing

Not much new today. We went out to lunch and then drove into Fredericksburg where we checked out the town and a few battlefields. The temperature was in the mid 90's so we didn't want to have Sophia outside for any longer that we absolutely had to. Below is a picture we took today of Sophia relaxing after her busy day.

Oink Oink

Today was Sophia's third and hopefully last pediatric appointment here in Virginia. The doctor's continue to be impressed with how well she is doing. We were also very surprised that she weighed in today at 8 lbs. 11 oz! The doctor actually called her a little oinker :-) Her steady growth is a great indicator of good health.

We also had an adoption meeting with a counselor here from Bethany Christian Services. Typically this meeting would have been at our house with our counselor but since we are still here it needed to be done here. The meeting was very quick and went well. No new news from the meeting. They still expect us to be heading home sometime towards the end of this week.

Tonight we are just relaxing at the hotel and spending some quality time with Sophia. Thanks for all of the congrats after yesterday's news. Hope everyone has a great night and we hope to see you soon.

Sophia is ours!!!!

A celebration is in order!!!!! As of 5 pm today Sophia is officially our daughter! The time has elapsed for the birth family to rescind their decision. We have had little doubt regarding the firmness of their decision as they had signed all of the paperwork several months ago. However, knowing they still have had this time has been in the back of our minds. We have always known that the Lord is in control, yet at the same time it is nice to have this behind us. Thank you for all of your prayers in this area.

We spoke also spoke with the manager today regarding our stay tomorrow night. She rearranged a few things so that we don't have to move out of the room tomorrow. I know it doesn't sound like much but we have pretty much moved into and are pretty settled in this hotel room. It would have been a headache to move out of here for just one night. We are also have this room reserved until the 9th but hopefully we will be long gone by then :-)

Today started off a little rainy but cleared up pretty quick and was cool enough for us to decide to venture outside for a little walk. Fredericksburg, VA is surrounded by Civil War battlefields which Jay has been anxious to check out. We got to learn a little history and also get Sophia out to walk on a trail and get some fresh air. Sophia will make her Grandfather Burns proud knowing that she is already a Civil War buff.

Family Visit

We just concluded another family visit with Holly's family. Her Mom, Aunt and Nieces all spent yesterday and this morning spoiling our little girl with a lot of attention :-) They left today at about 2pm and we are praying that they have a safe drive back to upstate New York. Check out the family photos page for more family pictures.

We are thankful that the temperature has really dropped here. We are in the low to mid 80's as opposed to the upper 90's and 100's that we had last week! Hopefully this week we can actually spend a few minutes outside with Sophia seeing some sites :-)

We just found out yesterday that we will have a room here Tuesday night but as of right now it is a studio which will require us to move. After Tuesday we will be able to move back into a one bedroom for the remainder of our stay. This will be a minor inconvenience but is an answer to prayer.

We will be spending the remainder of today resting and letting Sophia rest from her eventful two days with family :-) It looks like it is going to storm here so it will be a good day to stay inside and spend some time together.