February

Well, S is living with us full time as of Feb 13th! She starts at her new school tomorrow.

So here we go - full time parents.

Once she's lived with us for 6 months we can move to adopt her - so that looks like a finalization sometime in August or September!

January

Well, it seems winter is fully set in here. There's snow and cold and soon S will be living with us full time!

Right now we are waiting on a contract from the county to be finalized. Why isn't it finalized yet, after almost 2 weeks since the court date? Great question: PA hasn't passed a state budget since August. So TONS AND TONS of social service agencies don't have money to do their job. This means they can't contract out services like they would to transfer her case to our county.

Which makes life difficult for everyone: For us to be able to make any plans and for S to be able to actually get discharged from her current placement. Which is a really difficult time, she's ready to move on with her life, she's excited to live here, and wants to talk about her hopes with her peers, who just end up angry and jealous. Which leads to unhappy feelings all around.

But we do get to have our weekends with her, which makes everyone happier than no weekends at all. And the animals looooove her. Let's hope by February she's home full time and transitioning fully into the next stage of her life!

Hello 2016!

December was busy here. We had S for both Christmas and New Year's for extended weekends and both went well.

Personally, I am glad to be somewhat getting back into a school routine. Everyone's schedules were thrown off with the holidays.

On the plus side, we have S for this weekend and have a hearing next week to find out more information about when she will be coming to live with us full time.

Exciting. Terrifying. All of it.

Happy New Year, things are about to change even more!