I had a great reason to be thankful this Thanksgiving!  I got off work early on Wednesday because of the holiday and when I came home...there it was.  A nice white package I had been waiting for for about a week, my long-awaited completed home study. 

A lot of things ride on this home study.  You can't apply for any grants without a completed home study, you can't apply for the last application needed without a completed home study and you can't submit your completed dossier paperwork to the Ethiopian embassy without a completed home study. 

I already had my last application ready to go.  It's called an I600A and it's an application that is sent to the US Immigration Department for them to look over and make sure you are eligible to adopt the specific age range and gender we have requested.  They also set a fingerprinting appointment for us which is one of the last steps before we can send our paperwork to Africa.

If everything stays on the timeline that is average for most people then we should be able to submit all of our paperwork - which is also known as a dossier - to the Ethiopian embassy by the end of January.  This simply means that we will get in line for a child that meets the requirements that we have asked for!