I haven't been able to post in the past week. Jake has been sick since Saturday. He had a fever just over 100 the first two days and then woke up with 104 on Monday morning. That absolutely scares me to death. I took him to the doctor that afternoon and not finding anything visibly wrong with him (ears, nose, throat, etc. were fine) they did blood work. It was fine, too. The doctor said that he most likely has a viral infection that will go away on it's own. The only treatment for it is Tylenol and Motrin for the fever. I don't like it one bit! I hate it so much when my baby is sick. I feel completely helpless.

I wonder sometimes if Olivia is somewhere in Vietnam crying and no one is there to hold her. I try not to think of it much though. It breaks my heart that my daughter is out there somewhere needing me and I can't get to her. Speaking of Olivia, I think I mentioned last week that the only thing we were waiting on right now was for the notarized copies of our background checks to arrive in Tulsa from the Arkansas State Police. Well, they never arrived! GRRRR!!! I spoke to the wonderfully helpful woman (Trisha) from the state police that has been helping me though and she made new ones up and sent originals to both Tulsa and us. They should have gone out in the mail yesterday so I sincerely hope they'll be to Dillon by Friday. Kelley, our angelic dossier specialist, will turn them right around and send them back to Little Rock to the Secretary of State to be certified along with the rest of our dossier documents. After that they will be sent to the Vietnam Embassy in San Francisco. All of this should take around 3 weeks. Then we'll be referral ready!!!!! I still believe we'll have a referral by the end of the summer and travel by Christmas. I'm praying with faith that she will be home with us to celebrate the birth of Jesus! Please pray with me if you will! The Lord answers the prayers of the faithful and I have to believe that it's God's will for our family to be together at long last!

Speaking of answers to prayers, my sister Cerra is doing very well after her surgery. She's walking some and has cut her pain medicine down dramatically. I'm so very proud for her!!! I know that she'll be running around in circles before we know it. No doubt chasing Jake! My brother Joe (better known as Uncle Joby at our house) was having back problems last week, but he's also doing better. The Lord is always good to my family. We are so incredibly blessed!