Where Is October Going?

Back in September we stayed pretty close to home, knowing that October would bring a lot of traveling and would be over quicker than we could imagine. Surprisingly, just that has happened! We have had lots of fun in the past several weeks catching up with family, celebrating my dad's birthday, going to the fair and visiting the river. But now October is somehow over halfway gone! Today's cooler temperatures were a shocking reminder that winter isn't too far off. Thankfully, there is some pretty weather with perfect temperatures up ahead and hopefully the real cold will stay away for a while!

Last week Stephen was on fall break and he stayed very busy! He worked with a dentist friend in Morrisville both Tuesday and Thursday, so he spent a lot of time on the road in addition to working hard. After his long day on Tuesday, we had a foster care interest meeting with Social Services and there was a nice turnout! Three couples were there from our church, as well as around eight other couples/parents. Probably half are older than us with older kids (14 and under), and the rest are like us without any kids. We will likely see many of them in the spring for our 30 hours of MAPP training with the county.

Our application was accepted last week, but we learned at the meeting that it is only a preliminary application. It sounds like now we won't have much to do regarding the foster care process until after the first of the new year, but then it will ramp up pretty quickly. We will be contacted in January to schedule meetings with the social workers so that they can get to know us and begin our interviews, as well as scope out our house to make sure there isn't anything big that would disqualify us from the start (like a pool without a fence, etc.). Then, our training will begin in February with ten straight Saturday mornings of classes from 9am-12pm. During that time we will have our official home study, get fingerprinted at the sheriff's department, each have a physical, as well as complete our actual application that will be submitted to the state (which we have been told will be somewhere around 20-30 pages depending on information we have to submit!). Since we don't have kids and this is our first marriage, quite a few questions will not be applicable to us.

So, we will have the next month, Thanksgiving and Christmas without much extra work, and then we'll get down to business! After that, once we are approved we have no idea exactly what to expect. But the Lord knows and we are excited to find out!

Have a great week!
~ Buckwheat