T’is the season for: Christmas music (this begins on Nov. 1 for me), decorating, long underwear, cozy mittens, Ugg boots, hockey games, planning for gift giving, and DRY SKIN.

Yesterday, Scott and I had our appointment at the local USCIS office for our FBI fingerprinting. It’s located down on University Ave. in St. Paul-not one of our most prideful areas of the Twin Cities- in a bit of a seedy strip mall- think licensing center but not as nice as suburban ones.  I pulled up next to Scott and got out of my car (a Honda- highly targeted by thieves), backpack in hand- loaded with my laptop, cell phone & ipad- as even carefree me wasn’t about to leave that load in the car for any length of time in that neck of the woods.

Scott began yelling at me from the front seat of his car, “ANN! ANN! You can’t bring that in there! It says right there: ‘No cell phones, no video cameras or other recording devices…”  I said, “I don’t have a video camera and it’s all turned off. I don’t want to leave this in my car.”  He was like, “this is a big deal- if we get kicked out and have to come back another time that would be a big bummer.  There’s a camera on your laptop, too.”  And he was very adamant.  I had a “who are you?!” moment.  So, I acted like the submissive wife that I always am and went and put my backpack in the car.  Then, I met him inside the doorway and we started up again.  Scott: “Do you have your cell phone in your pocket? You CANNOT bring that in here.  This is a big deal…this is Homeland Security. They do not mess around.”  (at this point I’m thinking too much Vince Flynn for him) Meanwhile, people are walking in front of us to the head of the line… Me: “Wow. The things you choose to get fired up over strikes me funny.” And, off I went again- back to the car- to put my turned off cell phone in the stockpile for whomever might steal my car.  I got back inside, smiled at Scott, and he said, “sorry, it’s the rule follower in me coming out.”  Up to the front of the line we went.  Spoke with the nice man who took our driver’s licenses and he kindly said, “if you have a cell phone in your pocket just make sure it’s turned off.”  Again, just a little smile at my rule follower- too soon to have a good chuckle.  Had he not been so worked up at me 2 minutes earlier, he may have smiled, too.

Anyway… took us about 5 minutes to get to the fingerprinting ladies. Mine was older and not having a good day, in my opinion.  She immediately felt my hands, scoffed a bit, and said, “Your hands are way too dry. Here- I’m squirting this water on them, rub it in.” Then, we started on the machine… she was having some trouble getting it to read some of my fingers- so, another LOUD sigh and comment about my dry skin (which didn’t even look bad from outward appearance- no skin peeling or whiteness to them)..so, I cheerfully said, “Yep! Tis the season!”  No response. Just a comment that I needed to loosen up and I was too rigid so she couldn’t roll my hand the right way.  I wonder if her demeanor played a part in my rigidness? I was really trying hard to be helpful.  Meanwhile- Mitch Rapp is behind me sailing right along with his silky smooth hands chit chattin away with his nice girl.

So- we move along in the adoption process.  Another step completed. Now we do some more waiting. Waiting to hear back from the USCIS saying we’ve been approved by our government (will take approx 2 weeks) and waiting to hear from Haiti where our dossier has either landed or is en route!

Hope you all are enjoying this most wonderful time of the year!  btw- I got clearance from the top brass to declassify Operation Fingerprints.

On a very exciting note- our Senior Pastor and our Youth Pastor are heading to Haiti a week from Monday on a scouting mission for World Wide Village and they are going to visit the boys at the orphanage sometime that week! They will be bringing some gifts down for all the kids- something for now and some things to hide until Christmas. A fun thing he will deliver specifically to Davensly (did I tell you we found out this is the correct spelling of his name?) is an ABC’s photo book I made for him.  It’s real fun- an A to Z look at things about our family and living in MN. Pray for their visit to go great! Thanks.  Until next time…