Surviving Crazy Town and Happy 2nd Birthday to Charles HyeonWoo!!

As I write this I am exhausted! Please excuse crazy random thoughts and grammatical errors :) Brent and I with the help of our family and friends have now accomplished so much in the past two weeks. My parents and family hosted Charlie's second birthday party as a fundraiser to help with our final adoption expenses we had a wonderful time and had over 100 of our family and friends to come and celebrate our Charlie! We received news three days later June 16, 2015 that our file had been submitted to the ministry for the purposes of Charlie's emigration permission (EP)!!!  This is a huge step forward in the adoption process however still more steps ahead.  We were then notified soon after this news that our home study needed to be updated as it has been approximately one year since our initial home study.

We were unaware that Korea expects the home study up to date within 1 year prior to court review even though in terms of NC did not expire until December of 2015. So within one week we were able to gather all documents necessary to update our home study including doctors appointments, fingerprints (yes that makes the 6th time R-I-D-I C-U-L-O-U-S), contacting our awesome references who all returned their forms in a record time THANK YOU guys so much, and several other forms/paperwork to complete.  This whole home study process is conducted in your home, makes sense right? Well, that's another thing we sold our house and purchased another within the past 6 weeks as well : )  We were so grateful that our social worker was able to come out on short notice to update everything as we are in a rush now that our file has been submitted to the government in Korea.  Once we get settled in our new house our social worker will come out again for a home inspection only and write an addendum to our updated home study and this should all work out before hearing when we have a court date and travel to meet Charlie!

It has been crazy town for us but looking back we are so grateful for the Lord's timing in all of this. For Brent and I both to be able to deal with and stay strong and positive with life and the adoption process over the past 2.5 to 3 years is a true testament in trusting and having faith in Christ.  Not just in hopes that everything will work out but that even if it doesn't we still trust and understand that He is sovereign over all things.  You cannot find peace and joy in this life without knowing and trusting Jesus, believe me I know from experience,  I have tried.  Our marriage has been strengthened in times where it could have very well been distressed or even destroyed.  We have learned so much about ourselves, our weaknesses and strengths exposed.   We take absolutely no credit in the ability to persevere, to remain positive, and patient in this process. We give all praise and glory to Christ our Savior.

Charlie will now come home to a house where we are not having to move, we can focus on our family as we begin the process of attachment.  With selling our home this will free us up more financially for paying off some of our adoption expenses and also for me to be able to stay at home with Charlie more during our transition.  We actually moved out of our house this weekend and hoping to move in our new home in the next few weeks!

Two weeks ago my parents hosted Charlie's second birthday party at their home with the help of our entire family.  We asked our guest in lieu of gifts to make a donation toward our adoption expenses.    We had a great turn out with our awesome friends, family, and tons of precious kids!  Charlie will have so many buddies, we are so grateful for this and so ready to see him play with all of our nieces, nephews, and our friends kids!  We thank you all so much for coming and contributing!  You have no idea how much your giving has helped in bringing Charlie home.  There is no way we could have made it through this entire adoption process without your love and support.  We are truly thankful!

We began this blog to keep others informed and share in our journey of adoption, but we also want to journal these details for Charlie to read someday.  Today is Charlie's second birthday!! It has been a busy day for us but a good day.  We (ironically) closed on our house this morning and could not have sold our house to nicer family.  They were aware of our adoption and we were able to share with all parties involved realtors, lawyers, etc that it was Charlie's birthday.  Everyone was so supportive and just congratulating us and wishing us the best, it was just fun to be able to be proud parents today and tell complete strangers of our son's birthday :)  Of course our hearts are sad that we have missed being with him yet again on his second birthday but we are so happy that he is growing and thriving in the loving care of his foster family. We will be forever grateful for this family who has cared so well and loved our son so much. We know the transition from his foster family to us is going to be so hard and so sad, but we continue to pray for all of our hearts in the difficult times we know lie ahead.

We all survived moving this weekend! We are grateful to Brent's parents letting us stay until we can close on our new house. 

Having a little sad moment walking through one last time in our home. 

Last photo in front of our house. 

Happy 2nd Birthday to our sweet Charles HyeonWoo! We hope your day is full of extra hugs, kisses, and fun! We look forward to celebrating with you on your 3rd birthday!! Oh what a wonderful day that will be. We Love You!