Immigration Provisional Approval Received!! Preparing to travel...

Well friends.. we received some news during our time in Minnesota that was earlier than expected! I got a phone call from one of our dear babysitter/stalker of my mail that we received our provisional approval by mail. I had checked with immigration on 4/8 and they had yet to receive our file at that time. Our provisional approval was filed on 4/11, so they must have received it quickly following my email.

This was very exciting, because it actually has us leaving for Colombia BEFORE we had actually planned. With Fana's consent, we were able to bump up our travel plans from 5/7 to 5/1. Ted's hospital graciously allowed him to change it schedule... and that was very much a God thing. He wouldn't have been able to do that if we would have gotten news any later than we did. It was very much a "send Shane an urgent email before he publishes the schedule!!" (that is usually 3 months in advance) kind of thing. We got lucky. Praise God!!

We were also excited to receive back Ben's original adoption documents that came back separately from his new passport. Per our tracking, Lucas' passport is in transit and we hope to receive today or tomorrow.

At this time, we were able to purchase very reasonable airfare for the first 4 Sibleys traveling. I will likely have to add some costs later, as it is unusual for people to come home on their actual flight.. but it has happened twice! We can hope.

So at this time, Ted, Lucas, Ben, and I are departing on 5/1. Ted will return home on 5/14 and I will stay.

Auntie Breann is coming to help me on 5/21 and will be staying until 6/4 when the 3rd wave of reinforcements arrive (my Mom and stepdad Randy). Randy will stay for a week and head home. Mom will remain with me to fly us home.

In the meantime, we are enjoying getting to know our little boy better over Skype!! Here he was spending some more time with Mama..



we got lucky that it actually worked out for Grandma and Grandpa to talk to him for a little bit too and read a story



We were able to talk once while in Minnesota as well as yesterday. We hope to chat with him on Monday and Tuesday of next week, because Ted and I will be in Chicago for our visa interviews for the rest of next week. We get back here on 4/26.. we run around getting this house ready and some last minute work shifts and meetings... and on 5/1 we FLY!!!

These photos were back here yesterday, where Lucas and Ben were excited to tell Sam that they were on their way soon!



Today is actually Ted's last day off before we fly where he and I won't be in Chicago.. so we are aflutter with activity. The crib is going back up this afternoon! EEK!!