Back from Africa!

(For legal reasons, we cannot post pictures that show Eli's face until he's home with us)

We are home from Africa and adjusted back to Iowa time. However our hearts are still in Africa with a cute little African boy!!! Our time with Eli went even better than we could've imagined. From the first time we held him our relationship grew. You could tell that the nannies had prepared him for our visit. He was so laid back and interested in every little thing we showed him. Some of the things we loved about him are his smile with sweet little white teeth, his giggle, his huge dark eyes that lit up, and his playful personality!! The time with him flew by that we got to spend with him. He loved to carry around the "photo" book that we gave him and we said Lauren and Trey over and over again! He never did say there names though. He did say Dada, Mama, photo, yucky, and what. We are well on our way to him speaking english. :) Actually the communication went well, he seems to understand by our actions what we are trying to say. I think he will pick up english very quickly. His home where he is staying is so nice. The nannies love him and give him lots of hugs and kisses. It was so awful to leave him but good to know that he is well cared for while we wait.

The court date went well. At the end of our time with the judge she said, "Congratulation, he is yours!!" Those words were wonderful to hear. So he is officially a WEIMER!! It is so wierd to be his parents and yet not have him with us.

So now everyones question is.... When do you go back? We don't know forsure but we are now waiting on the US side of things. We are waiting to get his birth certificate, passport, and then be assigned an embassy appointment. They said it could be as soon as the end of this month or as late as October. Of course we are praying for the soonest possible date. Please pray with us that the paperwork goes quickly and we get him home!!!

Some cool God stories... the day we got home from our trip 3 little neighbor boys who had a lemonade stand while we were gone brought over a bag of money for Eli. How sweet is that! Then we sold Lauren's bedroom set for even more money then we listed it for in the swap sheet. God continues to provide! Thank you for following our story and praying along with us.

Me and Eli saying goodbye (for now).

PS - Our computer has a virus, so we haven't been able to check emails regularly. Hopefully it will be up and running soon.