A slight detour....to an even better destination (literally!)

We have a life update on something that's adoption-related but not "about" adopting: we are moving (again), this time to our own home! Yay!!

If you've read our "adoption timeline" page, you know that we moved to our current place because our previous home, a basement apartment, was sans windows in the bedrooms and thus not fire-inspection-approvable and thus not adoption-home-study-approvable (bummer). Our current home has been amazing for us! For the past two years we have rented from friends of ours who had to move out of town for work, and have shared a lovely home with two wonderful housemates and their dog. The rent is great for our area, allowing us to save and save and save toward our adoption and future life in general. And our housemates have been so supportive of our adoption plans, which involved them by way of background checks, TB tests, and vaccine records - even the dog had a role to play!

But now it's time to move on, literally. As our two-year lease drew to a close, we talked and prayed about whether we should stay or try to find a new place. For our future long-term home, we have wanted someplace a bit bigger (to adopt multiple children, God willing!) and also eventually someplace to ourselves. This home we thought would make us stronger adoption candidates as well because we will be able to share with birth mothers that we own our own home. So we decided to dip our toes in the house market pool and just see whether in fact there was anything we could afford (and liked) in our rather challenging and expensive area. To make a long and tedious story short, turns out there was! Further, just for transparency's sake, we wanted to tell everyone that (of course) we will not be touching any of the adoption fund savings or donations, so we won't be delaying our adoption plans too much.

Thanks be to God, we found a fantastic house that is just right for us and (God willing!) our growing family down the road. It is bigger than our current house and in a great, peaceful neighborhood with lots of nearby amenities: a pool, library, parks, churches, etc.

It has been a whirlwind getting everything figured out for the home purchase and move, while staying on top of adoption paperwork too! June is when three of our important forms come around for renewal: medical form, fingerprints (FBI background check) and child safety form (a state form showing that we have not been convicted of child abuse in the past year). One day at a time, and thanks to our adoption agency's amazing staff, we're staying on top of everything!

Once we move (July 16) we will need to update a number of other forms that are house-specific: our family safety plan in case of an emergency, the fire inspection, our family monthly budget and overall financial picture, and so on. Our social worker will come back for a walk-through of our new house, and then we will be good to go!

So the home-buying is a bit of a detour on our adoption process, and we are itching to get moved and back in the game so to speak. But the minor detour of a few weeks as we move will put us in a fantastic position for the next years and years of our lives. We will have the bedrooms now to welcome more than one child - maybe more than one at a time - and we will be more settled and ready to (hopefully) watch our family grow.

We'll leave you with a picture of our new home :) and an invitation to come visit next time you are in Maryland or DC!