It's the little things...

Yesterday was a wonderful day! But first, a little back story....I had previously messaged my neighbor about the possibility of getting fingerprints on base. Our entire family had been struck with a nasty virus, so I only wanted to communicate online where we wouldn't get anybody else sick. Eventually, D felt good enough to venture outside with the dog and ran into our neighbor. He asked her again about the fingerprints and she said that she didn't really know of a place, but maybe we could just go to a gate and ask. The night before I had wondered about the same possibility. D suggested to me that I email a friend from church who had adopted 5 children already and see where she did their prints or see if she had any suggestions. I was so glad he suggested that because between the sickness and focusing so closely on these problems, I had not even thought about asking her! So, I sent M an email Sunday morning briefly explaining our fingerprinting issues and asking where they did theirs. That night, she sent me an email that she had forwarded it to her husband and she also gave me a lot of encouragement that I badly needed. Monday, her husband and I emailed a bit back and forth and we were able to get an appointment for Tuesday! Those are my favorite kinds of answered prayers!!

Yesterday (Tuesday, for those keeping track), we loaded up the entire family and headed to the gate where we were going to meet M's husband, MP. (Are these initials confusing anybody else? Maybe I should keep a running list over on the right for easy reference...lol!) He helped us get signed onto base, which was surprisingly easy this time around. I guess it helps that we know the drill now. ;-) We following him onto the base until we got to the right place. I had brought some toys to keep the kids occupied, but the wait was a bit longer than I had planned for. The kids still did pretty well considering. I think the biggest inconvenience was that the building was HOT! MP knew the lady doing the prints for us, so that was pretty cool hearing him talk about how they first met because of a rug! Small world!! They had a machine that did prints digitally, so we didn't have any ink to wash off, just a little water. WAY better than ink prints! The lady was very friendly and printed off 2 copies for each of us just in case we needed a spare. She said that if we end up needing more, it would be really easy for them to print more too. (Should I be worried that they are stored in their computers now?) As icing on the cake, this whole process was free! If we were doing this in the states, we would have to pay $85 per person!! (Just D & me, but still, that's $170 we saved!) D was quick to point out that we're paying more for almost every other service, but I still like thinking that there's 1 thing that we got to save on!

As if that wasn't awesome enough, MP asked after if there was anything we wanted while we were on base, like Taco Bell. D & I had talked about how cool it would be to get that, but since MP was already doing us such a huge favor, we weren't going to ask. So, we all went to the mall and MP watched our kids play in the play area while we went and got Taco Bell! We all ate and talked and the kids played and made new "friends" and it was so perfect! To top it off, I went and got some Cinnabon's that we enjoyed for breakfast this morning! It isn't often that life feels so right, but hanging out at the food court and talking while the kids played was definitely one of those moments.

I'm *almost* grateful for the screw-up at the USCIS office just so we could have that day. In one of the emails from MP, he listed a bunch of rules that he copied off the USCIS site and one of them specifically says that citizens residing overseas are supposed to send fingerprints along with their application. If it wouldn't be such a long drive, I would be tempted to print that off and hand deliver it to the USCIS office in Frankfurt with a great big "I told you so!" But, if they had done it, we wouldn't have had the opportunity to get blessed by M & MP and waiting for the home study would seem so much harder. Speaking of, right now we are waiting on our home study agency to send an "inter-agency agreement" and some supporting documentation to our placing agency. (This was supposed to be done months ago, but they apparently "forgot") Once that's done, our placing agency can review our home study to make sure it meets all of their standards. THEN, our home study agency can sign and seal 3 copies and mail them to us. Once we get them, we will finally be able to submit our I-800A for approval. *sigh* Always waiting!! I'm trying to not get so frustrated because God must have a reason for all of these delays. I still have days (lots of them) when I want nothing more than for Z to be here, but I don't blame any agency/person/organization. The bureaucracy is tedious and there is no way around it, so through the red tape we go!