Ahhh...Fall!

The air is cooler (except in Charlotte), the leaves are changing (especially since everything has died because of the drought), and someday (probably in February) I will be able to get out my sweaters. But the thing that makes Fall the Esienbergers' favorite season is the return of television!

Survivor: China started last week and we actually had our first Survivor party in Charlotte. We went out for pizza instead of making chili, but it definitely brought back the excitement of "Survivor Night". I was sad to see Chicken go first because the boring people always seem to obtain the upper hand early on and vote out the more interesting folks. It is going to take a couple more episodes before I decide who I would want in the final four. I can tell you though, that the sooner they send Courtney packing the better. Hopefully, I will be able to get Troy to give weekly commentary because his view of the world is really hilarious.

The one show we have been holding our breath for is Heroes. How did Sylar sneak down that manhole without anyone else seeing him? Hopefully they will tell us tonight on the season premeire!

It is a sad, but true statement, that our blog will be far more interesting now that TV has returned. So, if you love TV even half as much as we do, stay tuned! Oh, and when we get adoption info, we will throw that in too!

Andrea

We found out today that what we were hoping for has fallen through. Sorry to be so vague. Please continue to pray for us. From here on out, we will not be posting anything until something develops. We are in for a long wait.

Andrea and Troy

HOPE

Some say HOPE is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.....

....others say HOPE dangles on a string , like slow spinning redemption
winding in and winding out, the shine of it has caught my eye....

....however WE say there is reason to HOPE....to HOPE big.

Details to follow soon.

Love,
The Eisenbergers

Waiting, waiting, waiting...

We found out on Tuesday that our wait to be matched with a child or children has been extended to 30 months once we get approval from Colombia's welfare service. We are still waiting on that approval which is apparently taking longer than the 2 months promised. It has been discouraging news to say the least, but we also know that God has a plan. We may not know what that plan is, but we know that it is perfect. In the mean time, we hope that you all won't get bored of waiting for news too and that you will stick with us. We can promise that once the Fall TV season starts, we will have a whole lot more to say! Til next time!

Why Colombia?

Well, if you are a regular blog reader (yeah, I'm talking to you Jimmy Vandal) you have been harrassing me to update our blog after the promise in our last post to write something that didn't have to do with NASCAR. Have you ever been lied to since the end of Back to the Future promised a quick sequel?...So here is a post on something that was immensly educational for us, so hopefully it is a fraction of that for you. Well, blog readers....start your proverbial engines.

To answer the "Why Colombia?" question, and starting the timeline after we decided to adopt in the first place, we had to pick between domestic vs. international.

We chose international adoption, to be honest, because we were tired of uncertainty. Domestic adoption problems are MUCH more rare than is conveyed by the mass media, but domestic adoption still has its unique issues. That being said, @ the end of the international adoption road was a child (or two...) for us, and after a few years of doubting if we will ever be parents, that was all we needed to know.

Once we decided on international, the big question became where. We quickly learned that a very big world gets reduced to a much smaller one, once you consider 1) countries that allow for international adoption.....and 2) the various rules that they employ.

A quick glance around the world reduced our search quite quickly....

Canada - Closed to non-resident adoption.

Nepal - We were too young.










Ethiopia - We haven't been married long enough.


Nebraska
With no regard to Andrea or Troy's heritage.....not a country. Didn't know that? Yeah...me neither. I told you in this first paragraph how educational this would be.




We ended up with a list that included Guatemala, Colombia, and South Korea. Guatemala and Colombia were close geographically, but not in price range, with Guatelmala costing much more. The last decision was one of South Korea v. Colombia, and in the end we went with the country we could visit the most throughout our child's life.

So there you go...part process of elimination, part chasing after what we knew in our hearts we needed to do, and the rest just hope and trust.

Congratulations JP Montoya~!

Well, the next entry was supposed to be titled "Why Colombia?" ...which will follow shortly and detail how we came to choose Colombia over Nepal, Russia, and Nebraska as the country we chose to adopt from.

However, I wanted to kick off our semi-regular feature "Famous Colombians" after the results from this past sport weekend.

Juan Pablo (That's JP for most NASCAR fans) Montoya lead his 1st lap EVER in Nascar, and went on to win his first Nascar race ever. JP is one of the top rookies this year, and used his Formula One experience to "nudge" his way past many other drivers to capture his first checkered flag at the road course this weekend. The Eisenberger household still bleeds #20 orange, but we do have a special love for the country where our children will come from. Way to go JP....win another title Tony....Matt Kenseth sucks....yeah, enough Nascar chat right? Thanks for checking out our blog.

More info here....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Pablo_Montoya.

Hooray for Colombia,
Troy and Andrea

The other Eisenberger, Sylvia, 16 months