citizens!

Yesterday at 12pm, I headed out to Trivan to pick up Ryan and we headed out to Seattle. We stopped for lunch and then got to our hotel around 3:30pm. We checked in and then walked around downtown. (our hotel was right downtown, which was really cool!) We really enjoyed going in all the high end stores and shops, as well as the super cool indoor malls that were five stories high. We had a nice dinner at Gordon Biersch. We woke up super early (6am!!) and headed out to our appointment. We didn't even have breakfast or coffee, we just wanted to make sure we got there.

We did get there ten minutes before our appointment, we didn't have to wait too long before I was called in (I got to go first!). The agent that interviewed me was nice and was pretty easy on me. He made me swear that I would tell the truth (just like court) and then proceeded to ask me all the questions we had already filled out on our application to make sure that my answers were the same. Then he asked me while he showed me the last page if I could verify that that was my signature. I looked at it and was taken aback because it was not my signature! I hesitated and said Ummm (while I started sweating buckets!) no it's not, meanwhile I am thinking maybe I was tired and signed it really funny like? Maybe my brain was playing tricks on me and I did sign it, but I don't put little circles for the i in my name, so no it couldn't have been me. I said well I guess my husband must have signed it for me. But it didn't even look like his handwriting so I wasn't even sure about that. Well he sighed and said I had to call my husband in there. So out and go and find Ryan and call him in. The agent then asks Ryan if he signed my name, (now it's Ryans turn to sweat!) and he looks and says  ummm yeah it looks like I did.  The agent then asks Ryan to read the above statement about forgery and such and it being a crime. So now we are both thinking it's over, they are going to kick us out, we've lost our chance.  But he was very kind to us and fixed it for us. phew!!!  Other than that it went pretty smooth for both of us. And we were even to get sworn in later that morning which we weren't expecting. So it is now official! We are Americans! It was pretty neat the whole swearing in ceremony, pretty special to be a part of that! There were 52 of us from 31 different countries! Quite something! The man beside me was crying which made me cry. We take our freedom for granted. I congratulated him and he was so happy and it made me very thankful to have been born in a free country and now to be living in another free country. How blessed we are!

So we are now starting the whole application process for adoption. We are eager and very excited about it! Please pray for us! I get emotional just thinking about it all. I could go on and on and on about what is going on in my head but I won't.  I have to remind myself not to worry about tomorrow and just trust God. He knows what is going to happen even though we don't.  So we've filled out our preliminary application (last year already) so now we have to make some adjustments to it and then send our formal application in. Then our application has to get approved and then the home studies
 begin. One step at a time. Steven Curtis Chapman has a song called "Take another step"  It's my theme song right now. :)