What now?

I sent in my application on Friday, and got an e-mail that someone would contact me within 72 hours. I don't know if that's business hours or regular hours.... I'll try to call tomorrow, but I can't always guarantee I'll have access to a phone during work.

We're going to an information meeting on Sunday. Since we already know many of the people in the local chapter of the organization from our fundraising efforts last year (as volunteers), it's really just a formality that we're attending. We want to meet the other families who will be hosting, and of course we want to see the families that hosted last year that we already met several times. I don't know if any of last year's host children are home yet, so I'm also hoping to see some of them!

I guess the information meeting will give us more of a timeline to follow. I know that we have to get started on our homestudy and fingerprinting requirements, since that will be about a 2-month process. We will not be matched with a child until the homestudy is at least started, no matches are official until the homestudy is complete. Last year, the first few families were matched at the end of May and some were still waiting to be matched mid-June. The children arrived the last few days of June last year, which means it's possible that we'll have a month (or less) to prepare for the exact child. Since we're going for the minimalist approach, a month should be enough time to find a few outfits (maybe 4 daytime outfits, 2 bathing suits, a pair of jeans, and maybe a skirt) and a few books. I have plenty of kids books in Spanish already in my collection, but they might not be age-appropriate. Luckily, I have many friends who have books for different age-levels in Spanish. I'm also asking a friend if I can borrow his PlayStation for the summer (he's 29, no kids). And I've been collecting dolls for many years, so they are just laying around my house waiting for a little girl to play with them.

We started to make playdates for the summer, too. We have friends with girls around the same as as The Invisible Kid (TIK), so we're trying to see what things we can do that are low cost but high fun. There are some local farms with lots of animals, a small waterpark, and two of those arcade places that have rides and stuff. Lucky Boy is most excited to try the bumper boats with TIK, because there's no way I'm getting into one of those things!

The popcorn arrived today. I'm hoping to get around to ebay listing this weekend, but I said that last weekend, too.