Time to Leave Houston...Or is it???

We've been planning to leave Houston on Sunday, Oct. 7 for a long time - since before Caleb was born. So when he was born, we immediately filed paperwork to get his passport done in order to apply for his visa. We had his passport by the time he was 9 days old and were confident that this would be plenty of time to get things taken care of... We should have known better!

The 1st hiccup - We found out about a month ago that his paperwork had been sitting on someone's desk in the immigration office in Port Moresby, PNG. Nobody had done anything with it yet! Somehow someone got busy and finally started processing everything. We found out this Wednesday that the visa was complete and they just had to send a fax to Washington. We were informed to send Caleb's passport to the PNG Embassy in DC so they could put the final stamp in his passport. So, we immediately FedExed his passport to Washington, knowing that they would have to put a stamp in it and get it back to us before we leave on Sunday. (Now that's a little stressful!)

The 2nd hiccup - On Thursday we found out that the office in Moresby never actually sent the fax to DC. However, on Friday morning we found out that the fax was in and everything should be processed okay. (We called multiple times reminding them that the passport MUST be sent back to us because we were leaving the country on Sunday.) By the afternoon on Friday, the PNG Embassy in DC assured us that the visa was stamped in his passport and it was in the mailroom to be collected by FedEx. (What a relief!)

The 3rd hiccup - Getting a little nervous, we decided to track our package (even though we didn't have a tracking #). So, every couple of hours on Friday night, until about 10:30 pm, we called FedEx, and every time we were told that there was nothing in their system being shipped to our address!! We went to bed Friday night knowing that we would have to come up with Plan B when we woke up in the morning. This morning (Saturday) we called FedEx again and were told the same story - nothing was coming to our address. By this time we are very frustrated, knowing that we'll have to change our flights and miss our family vacation in New Zealand. BUT THEN.... at about 9:30 someone from FedEx called and asked if we had a package we were waiting on. I about jumped out of my skin I was so excited!!! She said that they had somehow entered the wrong address into the system, but the package was in HOUSTON!!! Hallelujah! So, we now have Caleb's passport in our hands - 24 hours before our departure time. We can all breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy our family vacation!! We have really enjoyed our time in the States, but we are ready to go home. We are thankful God worked it all out! Thank you to everyone who was praying for this situation.

The pictures below are from the last couple of weeks here in Houston.

These are some wonderful friends from the Church of Christ in Champions. We got to enjoy a church picnic last week and it was great to spend some extra time with these special ladies.

It was a blessing to have Craig's parents visit for a few days. I think they had a little bit of fun with their grandchildren. :)

I couldn't resist posting a picture of our 2 blessings from God.

My brother, John (pictured far right), is at a rehab center in Austin right now. We were blessed to see him and my Dad last week.