We got our "Golden Ticket!!"

On Saturday, I checked the mail and there it was! Our USCIS approval! I felt like doing a toe touch right there in the street, but refrained as I would have probably only injured myself :-)
I ran inside and told Lee. He said "let me see it!!" He looked through it and then said (in all seriousness), "why is it not yellow? Didn't you say it would be our golden ticket?"
:-) I guess I didn't explain my picture analogy very well.

We went out to eat Saturday night to celebrate! We had a gift card to eat at Shapley's and were so excited. For those of you not from the Jackson area- Shapley's is a very nice restaurant. We have never been there before so it was a treat.
I love attending nice restaurants with Lee. We are both open and honest with our lack of etiquette skills. We are that couple that pulls it off by smiling and acting like we know what we are doing, but inside we are completely second guessing every move :) We know we aren't alone. We have a sweet friend who knows her etiquette and has been educating us and others over the past year. Love you Alicia!

A little dialogue from our dinner:

Lee: "So, I'm not suppose to do this huh (propping both elbows on the table when we first got there)?"

Abby: "no! Get those elbows down."

(a few minutes later)

Lee: "Abby, your elbows are on the table."
Abby: "crap!"

Abby: (looking at two pieces of lettuce on the floor near lees chair)
"Lee, you dropped food on the floor."

Lee: "Abby, seriously. I did NOT do that! It must have already been here!"
He still denies it :)

Lee: "man, I really think Im going to have to sop my bread even though I know I'm not suppose to."

Abby: "please refrain :-)"

He refrained. For those of you concerned.

We had lots of funny conversation throughout the whole dinner!

Afterwards, we went to Barnes and Noble. Lee took me there because he knows I love to browse around. We bought Malachi his first gift from us :) its a children's book about adoption. I have been eyeballing it for months. I knew exactly where it was located and decided that tonight was the night to get it!
Lee and I smiled as we walked out! There was something very real and exciting about buying Chi a gift.

An attempt to explain EXACTLY where we are in the process now:
We have completed all of the paperwork necessary to submit our Dossier to Ethiopia. The dossier is basically our file that will eventually get matched with Malachi's file (upon referral). Once the Dossier is submitted - we are OFFICIALLY on the waiting list for our agency. The countdown to Malachi will begin that day :-))
We hope to get our Dossier submitted to our agency THIS week. There are unfortunately a few steps we have to do before we can submit (mainly notarizations, copies, etc).
We will keep you posted!

Dossier paperwork! A beautiful sight :) only missing our family pics!