Check, check, check, and check.

Hey everybody! Thanks for your prayers. I say that prayers and supplements helped bring about a miracle :) I am so much better! I actually have been for two days. Thank you, Jesus! (and Shaklee! :) ) Just wanted to check in with everyone and say things are great. Thanks to Shelley and Alyssa watching the boys the past two afternoons, I have pretty much all my errands run--even buying all the donations. In fact, since I still have two good friends bringing formula donations to me, I am REALLY going to have to take some of my own back to Sam's!!! I looked into taking extra/over-sized baggage to Africa, and for us, it just doesn't seem worth it. We are talking extra charges from $125-400 PER BAG!!!! Can you imagine?!? I'd rather just take our allowable limit and then make monetary donations. I don't know how some people did it (took many, many, many bags). They are WAY more amazing than me.

My list says we're on target to leave Saturday morning around 8:30 a.m. It ends up we're going to leave our car at my brother and sis-in-law's new condo and Justin will drive us to the airport. Our flight to Washington D.C. leaves at 1:15 and arrives around 4. Then, around 8 we fly out of Dulles all the way to Addis Ababa, with a refueling in Rome. It kills me that we're stopping in Rome and will only be able to look out the window, but oh well. We actually arrive Sunday evening in Ethiopia.

Two more quick pieces of news to share: one was a pretty huge scare, I guess you could say. Yesterday we got Selah's birth certificate via e-mail which is written in Amharic and English. Someone pointed out that the gender said "male." I seriously thought, "God, are you serious?!? Could this really be happening?!?" But then I realized that if something this wild and crazy happened and Selah was really a baby boy, we'd just have to trust God!!! It would be too over-the-top not to think He had His hand in it! Not that I would be totally okay with it at first (the nursery IS pink on two walls, after all :) Kristen at America World, though, has assured us today that it's a misprint and they'll get it corrected. I mean, I thought she was way too pretty to be a boy, but Owen called Karl pretty tonight, so I guess boys are pretty, too.

In other news, we got a weight update today and Selah has gained one pound bringing her to a whopping 13 pounds at 6 months. In some ways, I wish she was bigger as far as her growth and development, but I have to admit, I'm so excited that she's just a little peanut. Karl and I both love the baby stage so much, and we feel so excited that to us, who were used to 16 pound babies at 4 months and who's tiniest little guy is now 35 pounds, 13 pounds is going to feel so small...and wonderful!

At Encounter last night, Karl talked about the different names of God. We were then asked to put/draw God's name to us right now on a notecard. One of the words I put was extravagant. God is so extravagant right now in my life. I feel like what He has done in my life and in this adoption is SO OVER THE TOP, I just feel like bursting with the joy and gratitude in my heart.
Thank you, Jesus, for all your gifts to us. You truly are extravagant. I love you.

Signing off...I probably won't write until we're on our way. TWO MORE DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!