Thanks for visiting our blog!  We hope that you enjoy learning about our family.  If you heard about our story and are looking for a way to help us bring Eden home, go to the website ( http://chn.ge/babyEden ) and sign your name to our petition.  Our application for Humanitarian Parole will be reviewed shortly and we need all of the support that we can get.  We hope that you have a happy holiday, spent with the people you love.

Due to the change.org petition (If you haven’t, go and sign it now!) for Eden we’ve had a lot of requests for information from our blog, and I know it’s a bit time consuming to search back through all of our posts to find stuff from the early days with Eden.  I’ve attached links to a few of our favorite blog posts and the main events of the story from over the last couple of years.  You’re of course welcome to just wander through the blog as well, but these are the highlights!

• The first time we mentioned Eden http://benandmeghan.net/2009/09/cant-go-wrong-with-mac-and-cheese/
• The day that Eden came home http://benandmeghan.net/2009/10/shes-home/
• Eden’s first visa http://benandmeghan.net/2009/11/were-coming-home/
• Eden’s first Christmas with us http://benandmeghan.net/2010/01/our-very-merry-christmas/
• After Andy was born http://benandmeghan.net/2010/02/back-in-the-wolfe-den/
• Eden’s first Gotcha Day http://benandmeghan.net/2010/10/gotcha-day/
• Eden turns 2 http://benandmeghan.net/2010/12/eden-is-2-years-old/
• Back to Kenya http://benandmeghan.net/2011/04/back-in-kenya/
• Eden’s second Gotcha Day http://benandmeghan.net/2011/10/happy-gotcha-day/
• Visa denial #1 http://benandmeghan.net/2011/10/backupplanfaile/
• Separating http://benandmeghan.net/2011/11/heart-broken/
• The most recent travel order http://benandmeghan.net/2011/11/travel-order-3-granted/

We are almost ready to submit our application for Humanitarian Parole for Eden.  This would allow her to come back to the US as soon as possible and stay for about 6 months.  We’re trying to get the word out to as many people as possible about our case.  My Dad created a petition that you can sign to help support bringing Eden home.  Please check out the website (http://www.change.org/petitions/us-citizenship
-and-immigration-service-uscis-expedited-humanitarian-parole-for-baby-eden-bring-her-home-by-christmas) and sign the petition for Eden.

We will keep you updated on our progress and let you know as soon as we hear the decision from USCIS!

I’m a little behind on getting the posts up these days.  Sorry!

Andy is now 21 months old.  It’s hard to believe that he is almost 2!  He is talking a lot more now that he has a chance to speak without Eden talking over him.  He is putting several words together and does a good job telling us when he needs something.

Andy has discovered Thomas and has fallen in love with trains.  We borrowed some Thomas DVDs for the trip to Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving and he loved watching them.  He still likes cars and trucks and drives his little cars all around the house.  He is beginning to identify different kinds of vehicles like firetrucks, dump trucks, etc. which is very funny.

He has done a great job adjusting to Sunday school.  I was a bit nervous about dropping him off, but he has been fine every time.  He plays with the vehicles in class and goes in without any problems.  Andy is also attending a ‘Mom’s Day Out’ childcare once a week at Covenant.

Andy really misses Ben and Eden and talks about them a lot.  He’s pretty good about skyping with them although he doesn’t always like to stay in front of the camera.  He also talks about his friends in Kenya, and occasionally uses his Swahili words.  Our first day back in the US, I took Andy to Meijer while Ben had a meeting at work.  I had to go to the bathroom and parked Andy in the cart outside of my stall.  An African American woman walked into the bathroom and Andy immediately yelled, “Jambo!” to her.

I gave away the punchline of this post in the title, but oh well! Its too good to keep you all in suspense! The high court justice today said that he has no objections to giving us the same travel order that we recently got from the lower court. He also said that the Children’s Office in NBO and the embassy should have accepted the lower court order, but that they tend to not trust the lower courts because they think some monkey business happens there.

Our favorite DCO was asked by the justice to come to court and give his thoughts on the matter. He arrived and gave no objections. Outside Were and I were trying to convince him to help us while our other favorite DCO was on leave. He was hesitant to do that. Lets hope we’re past the point of needing any more DCOs…

Meghan will be applying to USCIS for a Humanitarian Visa for Eden. Now that we have the high court travel order, the only reason they will might not approve that is if they still think we will keep Eden in the US forever. We’ve tried to prove otherwise every way from Sunday, but even that might not be enough.

There is a very slim chance we can get the actual adoption pushed through before Christmas. If we can get the heard by our agency’s committee this week, get a very speedy high court visit, and then get seen by the national adoption committee the first week of December, then the adoption is finalized and we can go wherever we please without a need for a Kenyan travel order. (Unfortunately we will still be locked out of the US unless they give her a b2 temp visa or i130 immigration visa, so we might go to Canada, eh?)

I foresee very little work getting done by me in the next few weeks. 🙁 Meghan used to handle most of the adoption things, but now its all on me with her and Andy back in the US!