The Last Days???

Buenas noches everyone, we hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Obviously, a bit of excitement was injected into our Thanksgiving with the news that Henry will probably be with us soon. In the days after this news Erin was on a mission to spruce up the nursery, and she did a fantastic job. I wish I could have helped more! She painted the room a beautiful blue and set up Henry's dresser, changing table, palm tree, curtain, and other decorations. I "assisted" in assembling the crib.

At the end of this post are some pictures of the nursery. The "before" picture below is from last fall, when the nursery used to be the guest room. Then we have three "after" pictures. The nursery is now a cozy place for our son to sleep and play! We are very happy with it.

Andy was busy getting the final documents in order to bring down to Guatemala, and that seems to be done, except for the final act of requesting a 2005 W-2 from the State of Minnesota. We know, kind of inane. Last week hopefully Henry (currently Josue, which I accidentially typed in the last post as Joise, my pathetic mistake) had a birth certificate ordered with the last name of "Pratt" on it. Then, our case may be submitted to the U.S. Embassy for a "pink slip", which sets the date of the Embassy appointment in Guatemala City that we need to be at!! The best news of all would be that this week we receive that appointment date, which would probably only give us a week's notice to travel, which will set off a frantic search for airplane and hotel tickets (and you know we've already been researching those items).

To reflect, we are so lucky and blessed that we got out of PGN when we did. We have scoured many websites and found that other couples are stuck in PGN for way longer than the month and three days that we were there. Some couples can be in PGN for 9 months or more, maybe even over a year. Usually to be stuck in PGN for that long there is something, in the opinion of the PGN attorneys, that is suspicious with the adoption that requires further investigation. Or, perhaps the most tragic result, there are some typos or technical errors in the case that constantly have to be fixed, and that delays the review time. The increased wait time due to these non-substantive minor glitches really hurt the waiting kids the most, as they are in limbo to join their forever family. Thanks to God that we flew through PGN, but we also think of those couples who weren't so lucky.

Also, I can't help but wonder how Henry is inexplicably tied to the success of the Minnesota Twins. We first were notified of Henry in mid-July, when the Twins were beginning the midst of their incredible hot streak. Our case progressed with the Twins success and is now peaking with the news of Johan Santana winning the Cy Young, and Justin Morneau the MVP. Given that Henry is growing up in our house, it is almost certain he will be a huge Twins fan, and he can always share his birth year with their magical season.

Adios for now. Let's hope that we'll have more news posted up here this week!

The Pratts