We just got a call from Julie, our caseworker, to book our tickets!!!!!

Baby Evyn…we are coming on Christmas Day!!

Julie also told us a bit more info about our sweet girl…

Miss Evyn is 26 inches long, almost 15lbs and wears 3-6 month clothes. The special mothers at Hannah’s Hope say they have no concerns about her going to us…we can pick her up and hold her immediately. They also say she is a “content baby, very happy and active. She is sweet spirited and adorable!” How awesome is that!??

I AM SOOOOOOO IN LOVE!!!! I wish you could see how big Bryson and I are smiling right now!!

But I’ll try to quickly update anyway…

Life is moving full speed ahead! It’s crazy busy and completely wonderful! We are 99% sure we are traveling on Christmas day to pick up Evyn (pronounced “Evan”). We have our tickets on hold and should hear from our agency today or tomorrow with a green light to book them. There is one piece of paper that they were waiting on from Ethiopia, so we are praying and trusting that lone sheet of paper makes it to the right folder.

Up until we passed court on Thanksgiving day I had been careful about guarding my heart. I have been so excited about baby Evyn, but there was a big part of my heart that wasn’t full “in” until we heard that we did in fact pass court and that she was really and truly our daughter. I think it was my mama survival mode instincts. But since we got the good news on Thankgiving I’ve been a big ball of emotion and excitement . The flood gates are open! Also, up until we passed court I had not really done anything to get ready for Evyn (again, that was just me guarding my heart). I even turned down baby showers telling my friends once I passed court then we could fully celebrate! So, here I am now  completely overwhelmed with all that has to get done in the next few weeks! Like diapers, clothes, and bottles, OH MY! Thankfully, my mother-in-law is coming into town next week to help bring me some sanity as I prepare to pick up our baby girl. It is so funny that our adoption journey has felt sooooo slow and then BOOM everything is going really fast. We are so grateful and would not have it any other way! My heart is breaking for several families I follow in blog-world that have not passed court the first or second time. I can only imagine how frustrated and sad they are.

On top of all this, the conference I have been planning over the course of the past year will take place slap dab in the middle of when I am in Ethiopia. God’s timing is funny, but he is teaching me so much in these days as I download everything in my brain to my team so they can successfully complete my role at the conference without me. I am so grateful for my team and know that they will do a beautiful job without me. There is nowhere else in the world I would rather be (or en route to) on Christmas day than in Ethiopia picking up my baby girl!

I’ll blog more tomorrow when hopefully we get the green light to GO!

We got word from our agency to begin (tentatively) looking for flights! Looks like the Vogeltanz family will be flying out on Christmas day to bring home our baby girl!

More details to come. Would love your prayers as these are going to be very very busy weeks for our family. God is good!

Now that our sweet baby girl is really and truly OUR baby girl, we have decided to share the name we have chosen for our precious daughter and the meaning behind her new name…

Many times in scripture we see God give his followers a new names when they choose to follow him as a sign to all that their life has been pointed in a new direction. In the same way we have chosen to give our daughter a new name to signify her new beginning as part of our family. She is no longer an orphan, but now our daughter. Praise the Lord!

The name we have given her is:

Evyn Olivia Vogeltanz

Evyn is a name we have loved for years and is after a dear and beautiful friend of ours from college. Evyn has two meanings. Both are significant for our daughter:

God is good

+

Young  fighter

Both meanings are so true of our little girl! This adoption journey has reminded us of God’s faithfulness and goodness. He is Good! Each time we say her name we will be reminded of His forever and perfect goodness so that we would point our lives back to Him and give Him glory.

Our little one is also a “young fighter”. In the first months of her life she has had to fight through many obstacles and overcome incredible odds. We are grateful that the Lord’s strength has carried her through thus far and praise Him for this little fighter!

At it’s root, Olivia means “Peace”. We pray peace over our little girl’s life and all that God has in store for her. More significantly to us, Olivia is the name of my sister and best friend. I am so honored to give this name to my daughter and pray she would grow up to be as beautiful, kind, generous, and godly as my sister Olivia.

It is such a wonderful feeling to call her by name (no more Baby Opi!) and we can not wait until we can finally hold her in our arms SOON!

Okay blog readers…I KNOW you are out there. I see how many hits my blog gets a day. You stop me at the grocery or a church and tell me you read my blog. You send me Facebook comments and emails refering to my blog…but yet, you never make comments. It usually doesn’t hurt my feelings, but on VERY IMPORTANT post announcements like the one I made on Thanksgiving, I need a little more blog-world support. You know what I mean? (Thank you to the 2 of you out here who do chime in, I really appreciate it!) So I am giving you, my beloved blog readers, the benefit of the doubt and assuming you didn’t clearly hear what I said in the last post and give you a chance to celebrate with us one more time…

WE PASSED COURT!!!!!**

(**note: this is said in a very high pitched VERY excited voice and jumping up and down kind of way!!)

This is a big deal…REALLY BIG DEAL. Passing court means that our baby girl is REALLY ours. She is legally and officially our daughter. She’s a Vogeltanz! She is always and forever our daughter. No longer an orphan, but OUR daughter. Nash’s sister. Our 2nd child. So come on, celebrate with us! This is a very very joyful time in our family’s history.

Disclaimer: I’m only half kidding about my feelings getting hurt about the lack of comments on the blog. But I do wish people would chime in more! Maybe I need to be a better blogger or talk about more interesting things. I’ll work on my part, if you work on yours! Or more likely, I’m completely a words of affirmation person so getting comments is half the fun of blogging in the first place. There, I’ve said it and gotten it off my chest! Now I’m going to move in with life and to more important things like making my first ever Thanksgiving dinner (yes, a few days late, but better late than never!)  :)  Have a great Sunday!

Could there be a more wonderful Thanksgiving Day gift? We just got word that we have passed court and our baby girl is officially OUR baby girl!! We are so THANKFUL!!

We are SOOOOOOOOOOO HAPPY RIGHT NOW!!!! I’m bouncing off the walls!

PRAISE GOD for this amazing blessing and gift. Thank you!

YAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

Baby girl…mama and dada are coming soon!

I am sitting in India right now…which is about 3 hours ahead of Ethiopia where our papers went before court today. Wow. I can not believe our court date has already happened (probably…it is around 6pm in Addis right now, so I am guessing they are closing up for the day?)! I am so excited to hear from our caseworker, Julie, and to know if we passed or not. I do have this sense of holding my breath…not quite relaxed until I hear the news that she is really ours forever. But, being in India has definitely helped keep me from obsessing about the court date the last few days, which has been a blessing (I can be a bit obsessive about those things!).

Thank you for all the prayers and support. I am constantly blown away by my friends and family who have cheered us on through this entire journey. I will post an update as soon as I hear something!

We are praying for you Baby Opi…and can not wait to come pick you up soon….

We walked through slums and rural villages. We saw unthinkable poverty. We laughed and smiled with precious children. We loved the Dalit people. We celebrated all that God is doing in this country through the men and women serving Him with their lives. He is the true King of Kings! And all of His creation is beautiful.

**And just for fun…I am so thankful for technology and skype!

Old Delhi is amazing. It’s everything you would imagine India to be like. Pure sensory overload! I was totally engrossed with the hub bub of swriling activity around me I didn’t even know WHAT to take a picture of. It couldn’t really be captured on film anyway…the smells that nearly knock you over, the mass of people whisking by on all sides of you, the paranoia of getting pick pocketed, the never-ending stream of shops and vendors all trying to lure you into their nook to see their goods at a “very special price”, the spinning bicycle wheels of the rickshaws filling the streets, and the symphony of car horns ringing in your ears. It’s mind-bending and I loved every minute of it.

Here is one poor attempt of the lone snap shot I took, though it doesn’t even begin to capture the true chaos it will at least give you a little taste of this bustling bazaar.

This is the main road through Old Delhi, from here, as my guidebook puts it, dozens and dozens of little crowded streets jut off like clogged arteries. It’s fascinating.

The Taj Mahal did not disappoint! It was breathtaking! Seeing the Taj has been on my to-do list since I was a little girl. I had a puzzle of the 7 Wonders of the World and knew that one day I would make the trek and see the Taj with my own eyes.

Tomorrow we are off to Hydrabad to connect with some friends doing ministry there among the Dalit people. Very excited for this next phase of the journey. Missing Nash like crazy, though!

Thanks for all the travel stories below. Chime in if you haven’t already. I will pick a winner next week and mail a handmade item from India when I return home!

UPDATE: And the winner of the Travel Story contest is Joe + Deanna Cozart! (chosen by random.org).

Thanks for all the stories that were shared. I enjoyed reading all of them! This was kind of fun, so I will host another contest soon!

Here I am in India. Free wi-fi (in our very sketchy “hotel”, completely jet lagged, and bored since I can’t seem to sleep. So, I want to hear from you, my readers! (That is, if anyone is out there?)

So in honor of being overseas, I want to know your best international travel memory or story. Share your (short) story/memory in the comments section below. Funny, meaningful, powerful, bizarre, silly, somewhere you visited, something you ate, whatever it is (as long as it is appropriate/g-rated)! For the winner of the best story I will mail you a little handmade gift I pick up in India this week. How’s that for fun!? I’m a picky shopper, so I promise the prize will be something I think is cool & that I would buy for myself.

Bring on the stories! I’m excited to see who chimes in!

Street children around the world are some of the most beautiful people to take photos of. Simply precious. I love all their expressions…wish you could hear their laughter!

24 hour layover in Paris on our way to India. It was a toss-up between the Eiffle Tower or the Nutella Crepes. It was a long day, but fun.

Nutella + Banana crepe. Perfectly Paris.

Greetings from India. Man this place is crazy…but we do have internet in our room so that makes me happy (even if I do have to clorox the bathroom and sanitize everything in the room!) But I wanted to write and say…only 1 more week until our court date!

Just 7 days!

So excited! Baby Opi…we are praying for you little one. Can’t wait until you are officially a Vogeltanz!

Only 9 days until our NOVEMBER 24th Court Date. I do not know if I will get to post again before then so please put it on your calendar to join us in praying for this important day for our family. We are fully trusting and believing in God’s sovereignty for our lives and the design of our family. We long to have this little on in our arms and trust that all will go as the Lord wills on November 24th. Thank you for being part of our adoption journey. We are so very THANKFUL!

**PS: Baby Opi turns 5 months old tomorrow! Happy birthday sweet girl…

Bryson and I have been blessed to see many corners of the world and meet amazing people along the way. Fancy places, dirty places, rich places, poor places, and poorer than poor kind of places. It doesn’t matter where really, we just love to travel. Globe trotting is our most favorite hobby that we share. We have found that carving out time and budget to make these excursions happen is vital  because these adventures are fuel for our marriage. Travel to us means focused one on one time where we are able to invest in each other and cultivate our relationship outside of the normal routine. Plus we treasure the memories we make on these low-budget crazy adventures! And so…away we go!

This time our frequent flyer miles are taking us to exotic and chaotic India. This trip has been on the calendar for over a year so when our referral happened much sooner than we expected we prayed and sought wise counsel about whether or not we should still go on this trip (knowing we would have to leave again in a month or so for Ethiopia). We decided to go for it, knowing it will be one of our last backpacking adventures for awhile. (except for picking our Baby Opi soon! But that is a whole different kind of travel adventure!!)

The hardest part about traveling is being away from our son. It makes me cry to think about it so, instead let’s change the subject and talk about a few things I am looking forward to about our trip to India:

• the challenge of cramming everything I need for well over a week into 1 backpack.
• that we will spend Thanksgiving over a bowl of curry instead of turkey.
• that we will be busy busy busy so I won’t go stir crazy waiting to hear about our Court Date results!
• meeting and loving on some of the beautiful Dalit people who are considered “untouchable” by their countrymen, but so very loved by Jesus.
• new sights…smells…foods…landscape…the crowds…the unknown!

Deep breath…and away we go!

"My Family, My Journey...a memory book"

Nash and I took a little detour through downtown Athens this morning and popped in to my most favorite store, Helix. I had a gift card that was burning a hole in my pocket so we went to find something special. I found the most adorable Baby Memory book specifically for adopting families. I first heard about this Baby Memory Book from Molly’s blog (another family adopting through our agency, AGCI) and I just happened to find it in the store today. It is a really sweet book, great illustrations, and highlights all of the right moments and milestones that a family goes through when they adopt. I highly recommend it and look forward to filling in the blank pages…especially this one: 

Only 13 days until our COURT DATE! Praying we will get to fill in this page of the book soon and start a whole new chapter of life with Sweet Baby Opi.

This is a silly survey that has been floating around blog-world and well, i guess it’s my turn! 

1. Where is your cell phone: I never know. it drives my husband + friends crazy. 
2. Your hair? In need of a haircut ASAP.
3. Your mother? Wise.
4. Your father? My hero.
5. Your favorite food? French fries.
6. Your dream last night? I have no idea
7. Your favorite drink? Cherry Coke Zero
8. Your dream/goal? For my life to always point back to Christ. 
9 What room are you in? Bedroom. 
10. Your hobby? Pottery when i have time to be in my studio + Traveling with my husband to crazy places around the world.  
11. Your fear? Dissapointing people. Currently working through this! 
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? I don’t think that far ahead.
13. Where were you last night? Enjoying a much needed sabbath at home. 
14. Something you aren’t? a long term planner
15. Muffins? Chocolate with chocolate chips…is that still considered a muffin? 
16. Wish list item? a new deck and landscaped back yard. keep wishin….
17. Where did you grow up? In Wild Wonderful West Virginia
18. Last thing you did? Put the ipod on to Fee’s new album. love it! 
19. What are you wearing? Work out clothes…it’s supposed to inspire me to work out, but it’s not working really. 
20. Your TV? Stolen off our wall a few weeks ago. seriously. 
21. Your pets? I don’t like animals in my house. I’m weird, I know. 
22. Friends? all over the place.
23. Your life? Living the dream, baby. 
24. Your mood? Overwhelmed. 
25. Missing someone? not really. 
26. Vehicle? Passat, but about to take the leap to a mini van! yikes. 
27. Something you’re not wearing? socks.
28. Your favorite store? Anthropology, but can’t afford it. 
29. Your favorite color? Brown
30. When was the last time you laughed? right now, at the fact that I am filling out this silly survey.
31. Last time you cried? last night when I watched an episode of Biggest Loser. It always makes me cry. 
32. Your best friend? My little sister Olivia. 
33. One place you go over and over? Chick-fil-a…remember, french fries are my fav! 
34. One person who emails you regularly? Bryson
35. Favorite place to eat? Pappasito’s ….Fajitas are to die for.

My kid has really talented toes and he loves to put them to work…

who needs hands to draw?

that's pretty ingenious if you ask me! But then again, I am his mom so I am slightly biased. Maybe it is just weird? Either way, I think it is hilarious!

**Congrats to the PELL FAMILY who found out they passed court today! Yay! It is so fun to journey with families in “blog-world” who are experiencing the same things Bryson and I are in this season of life. SO grateful for blogs!

Package for Opi

Our agency encouraged us to put together a little care package for Baby Opi that will be sent over to her. It is just a small package and all contents need to fit in a big zip lock bag. Our package includes a baby photo album (I found an awesome one with lots of different textures and a wooden ring by Sassy on Amazon.com. I try to avoid plastic toys, so this was a great find! I know I am weird about the plastic vs. wooden toys. It’s selfish…I just like the look of wooden toys better in my house!) The album has a picture of Opi, a picture of me and Bryson, and picture of Nash. 

Also included in the package is a soft lovey for baby Opi. Nash has one just like it that has become he dearest friend over the past year, affectionately known as “doggie”. He has been loving on Opi’s since we bought it and is getting it worn in for her. He actually refers to it as “Baby Opi”. Perhaps this toy will take on her nickname when we officially name her after our court date. 

I also stuffed in a little outfit. It will get shared by all the babies at Hannahs Hope and that makes me smile. 

Last but not least I printed a photo album for Opi’s family. It includes the 3 pictures we have of Opi plus a few picture of our family. Since I only had a few picture for the photo album, I had it bound into a little hard back book at Wal Mart photo center  and it looks really nice. 

The next big task on my to do list is the letter to Opi’s family. Each time I sit down to write it, I am at a loss for words. I am praying that God would speak through me and give me exactly the right words to communicate to her family.

Just 22 more days until Court! (I have 4 canker sores…me stressed? no way! )