Friday night and Saturday I felt very yucky. Running to the bathroom all day and just very weak and exhausted. After one bathroom episode, I laid down on our bed to try and gather myself. I ended up falling asleep before 8 pm and slept until 7:30 the next morning. By the afternoon I was feeling better and today I am back to normal!
We are both back on a normal sleep schedule and Mike went back to work today. We are settling in to normal life again with car pools, therapy, homework and church stuff. Thankfully soccer and choir both ended while we were gone, so we came home to the slow season. Three more weeks of school and then it is officially summer!
I looked at a calendar today and realized that we *could* be back for a court date within 3 weeks. Very exciting! Hopefully we'll hear this week for sure. Our agency rep said that we would have at least two weeks notice before court to book flights and make hotel arrangements.
There were four families in our travel group. Life circumstances and work schedules make it necessary that only the moms travel for court. We will meet up in New York and fly together and hope to stay in a king suite in a local hotel. Sharing a room will make the trip relatively cheap. Flights are getting crazy expensive though as summer is a popular travel time no matter where in the world you happen to be flying!
I have crunched the numbers for trip 1 and we did good on the expenses we could control. Food came in right at $600 for the both of us and lodging was $512. Agency controlled costs were, well, agency controlled. The cost for the driver and translator were about $600 for 11 days. Not bad until you multiply that by the four families who shared said driver and translator, and then you begin to smell a rat in Denmark. And of course, this was collected by the agency who would "pay the driver and translator out of those funds." Yeah, and skim a healthy chunk off the top for themselves.
We also learned of some new agency fees right before travel. More expediting fees. And two changes in travel dates (thanks agency) meant $1000 in change fees on top of $3200 for plane tickets.
Right now our adoption fund has enough in it to cover airfare and costs for my trip for court and a good chunk to go towards trip 3. We are praying for provision for the remainder of the expenses for our gotcha trip. We have a garage full of stuff for a garage sale and will have a fundraiser night at Chick Fil A as soon as I can meet with the owner to set a date.
And I am trying to come up with a fair price to rent out the children ;) If anyone needs extremely cute children for your family photos, to take to your high school reunion, or company picnic let me know! We have four and their schedules are wide open right now!
Our expenses for trip 3 will include:
airfare for two adults: $4000
one way ticket home for Asa: $1500
lodging for 14 days: $2000
food for 14 days: $1000
medical exam for Asa: $300
visa fee for Asa: $280
visa fee for Mike and myself: $400
transportation to the US embassy: $500
driver/translator services: $1000
orphanage donation: $250
We are praying for God's provision and trust that He will provide what we need to bring our boy home!
And did I tell you, I get to see him again in about three weeks!!! I cannot wait!!!
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