Leaving on a jet plane

We have to go on trip.  Because our adoption process has had some unexpected delays, paperwork is expiring.  We updated the home study the beginning of October.  For that we had to fly a licensed social worker to our home (from another city in our country, not from America.  But still not cheap).  Now the US government approval has expired and to get the approval extended you have to get fingerprinted, again.  We’re a bit baffled because our fingerprints haven’t changed since we did this a year and a half ago, but apparently we could have become criminals within that time.  It’s the background checks that have to be run again and fingerprints are needed to do that.  Now if we were in America, we would drive somewhere within the town we’re living in and get this done, a total of a couple hours perhaps.  But we live in East Asia and we have to fly to another city to go to the US consulate for these fingerprints.  Because of flight times and travel within that city to get to the consulate there’s no way for this to be done in one day.  So we spend the night in a hotel and have two very long days. 

There are a few bonuses to this trip…We’re traveling from temperatures in the mid 40s to a high of 78 tomorrow.  We’re traveling from a city with sparse locally run western food to a city with Starbucks, Burger King and a Mexican restaurant, and we will even have time to visit them!  And we may just find a few fun Christmas presents, because there’s always better shopping in places like that.

 
This means that Bella will have two days without us.  I’m guessing it’ll be rather rough on her since she’s pretty attached to me right now.  But our dear friends have agreed to take care of her and I know they’ll do an excellent job.  Please pray for her little confused heart and safe travels for us.