Try, try, try again

It has been a while since we've updated the blog and there is a lot to share. We've made significant progress in some areas and seem to be stuck in a "Groundhog Day" time loop, or a Star Trek temporal loop for others. We'll start with the positive and go from there.

First and foremost, all of our documents are back from the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC and Consulate in New York! Now for the caveat - without really thinking about it, we sent the consulate my verification of employment letter, which originated in California. As the Consulate in New York does not have jurisdiction over California documents, they sent it back letting us know we needed to send it to the Consulate in California. We sent it to California with a new money order and supporting documents but it came back yesterday stating that the notary in California needed to notarize the actual document. She had filled out a form called an All Purpose Acknowledgement which is a separate piece of paper. The Consulate didn't like that so now we need to send it back to her to get the actual letter notarized and have it filled in properly. Details, details, details...

We also had submitted our I800A to USCIS and received it back approximately a week later with a note that it was missing a page. I called USCIS and spoke with someone who was obviously not going to be able to help me and after 20 frustrating minutes of non-sense with her, she finally mentioned that her computers were down. Even if she had the ability to help me, she wouldn't have been able to look anything up! We could have saved 20 minutes of time and frustration if she mad mentioned that up front. *sigh* Julie and I reviewed and re-reviewed the form and found that we had not sent a page that was supposed to be signed by a person if they prepared the form rather than the parents. Silly us - we figured since we prepared the form we didn't need to include a page that wasn't signed but the computer that scanned our form in didn't agree. We sent it back the next morning and hoped we were done. A week later it came back from USCIS again stating that the date on the check was wrong and we needed to send a more current one. Apparently when I filled out the check I put in 02 as the year rather than 09. Julie filled out a new check and FedExed it back off to Texas. Apparently her writing is way better than mine because I logged into our checking account this morning and saw that the check had cleared so we assume we are now "in process" at USCIS!

Next steps will be to get the Letter of Verification of Employment back to CA to be notarized (again) and then send it back to the Chinese Consulate in CA for certification. We're also waiting for the USCIS to send us a letter for our fingerprinting appointment downtown. After that is completed, we'll wait for our I-797C to come back and then we get to make a copy of it, get it notarized, state certified and off to the Chinese Consulate in NY for certification. Once these stars all align, we're ready to send our dossier (all of this paperwork) to the agency and then off to China. The end of this part of the road is in sight, but we're not there yet!

Paperwork on top of paperwork

It has been a crazy two weeks for us, as expected. :) Our grand scheme of getting the application letter notarized while I was out of town missed an important point - I was out of town so the notary couldn't stamp it if she didn't see me sign it. Julie was the one who pointed that out while I was in Raleigh. So much for that plan! LOL! Saturday morning we headed to the local bank to get the document notarized to find that the one on staff at the time has the same last name as us though no relation. We don't want to create a situation where anything might look improper, especially in China, so we hit the branch at the local Kroger to get it notarized. I think the teller thought we were a family of stalkers or something when I asked her where she lived (in the context of needing to know which county to take it to get certified). Pretty funny as she was a young single woman so was a bit taken aback. I hated to break it to her, but even though I am a hot commodity, I am off the market so she'll have to keep looking for love elsewhere. :)


After the bank I wanted to drive Julie downtown so she'd know where to go to get the documents certified by the Secretary of State. On the way we decided that Schmidt's sounded like an excellent plan for lunch so we enjoyed the buffet and Julie enjoyed her vegetarian Reuben. Dessert at Schmidt's can't be missed and the German chocolate cake, coconut creme pie and chocolate silk pie were right on the money. We had just enough time to go home, grab the gift for the birthday party Sydney was going to while we went to mass at St. Mary's. It was a lightning mass as the Father didn't have a homily prepared since one of the deacons was supposed to do it, but couldn't at the last minute. Julie, Max, Veronica and I went to Meijer in Delaware to buy some jeans for me and then went to pick up Sydney. We went home, ate and hit the sack - a busy, but fun and productive, day for sure.


Sunday we worked on getting all of our documents in order, packaged into FedEx envelopes and the getting the return envelopes ready, too. The Consulate requires we copy every page of every document we send including the county and state certifications and fill out a form with what we are asking them to do, in our case authentication that the bundle of papers is legit and proper. I've read on-line that you can send up to 10 documents in a single envelope but am sticking by the form and only doing 5 per envelope - we don't want to give them any pause or delay in processing our documents. We went to the local truck stop to get the money orders we'd need for the Chinese Consulate and sealed 2 envelopes with 10 documents. Julie will take the last two, our home study and application letter downtown for certification between picking Sydney up from school and picking Max up from school.


Julie had an excellent idea to take the kids to the local Pumpkin Patch Sunday afternoon so after PSR we got everyone ready and took off to do the hayride, pet the critters and pick out pumpkins. We had beautiful weather and had a good time. We decided that we'd get a big pumpkin for the family as normally I carve the pumpkins with the kids while Julie is at adoration, but this week it was carve them Sunday night or never. We picked the perfect pumpkin and on the way home decided that it was too nice of a day to not take the car for a spin. We got home and packed everyone into the Mondial and went for a Sunday drive. The two girls shared a seat belt so Julie was on nerves the whole time but it was a blast. We went down Hogback road which was beautiful with the trees and water on the west side. We took North Old State up into Kilbourne and kept on it until we picked up North Galena to head home. The kids love the horn and we had fun honking at horses and cows in the field and watching them jerk their heads up as we passed. We came home, washed the car - yes, it was THAT nice - and started dinner and wrapped the evening up. Max and I finished Star Trek - First Contact and then it was time for him to hit the hay. Julie and I watched The Amazing Race and called it a night - the alarm will be going off earlier than we want it to tomorrow.



Monday comes and Ron is off to Raleigh and Julie does her morning routine. Today is extra crazy for her as she drops the older two off at school, goes to the County Clerk of Courts and gets the application letter certified. Then she's off to Veronica's music class before she's back to school and picking up Sydney. The girls braved downtown and found a good spot to park and walk to the Secretary of State and get the documents certified there, too. Then she jets home, makes the needed copies for the Chinese Consulate and heads back to the school to pickup Max. They drop off the envelopes to FedEx and we're in transit for our I-800A form to USCIS and 3 envelopes to the Chinese Consulate in New York. We are told that it will take 20 days for the documents to get back from the Consulate and no real ETA on the I-800A. We are waiting for government employees to do their job now.


While in Raleigh, I get emails from FedEx that the documents have all been delivered so that is a step in the right direction. I also get an email that says Julie's birth certificate is back from the Department of State! Whoo-hoo! More envelopes to send!


I get back home Friday night and Saturday morning spend time getting Julie's birth certificate ready to send to the Chinese Embassy, not the Consulate, because it originated in Maryland we had to get the US Department of State certification which means that the Embassy in Washing DC needs to authenticate it, not the Consulate - or so we're told. We pickup a money order for it and we're ready to send more on Monday.


Saturday is trick or treat day so we headed out to Noodles and Company for lunch so the kids can get Zombie glasses and then we go to the Genoa fire station for their annual open house and Halloween festival. They put on such a good deal for the kids with bounce houses, mazes, fire engines, letting them hold a fire hose and more. It was a good time for sure!

We have just enough time to get to St. John Neumann for mass. After mass we're off to see Julie's sister, Janet. She gave each of the kids fun toys. Afterwards we head home and watch Monsters vs. Aliens - The Mutant Pumpkins before it is time for the girls to go to bed. Max, Julie and I watch Big Bang Theory before Max hits the hay and then Julie and I get caught up on Survivor. Two weeks away really gets us behind on our shows. :)

The waiting is what gets you

This week epitomizes the roller coaster that is international adoption. We started the week with the hopes that our home study would be finalized so we could take it through the certification process. Our social worker let us know that she was still waiting for the agency to approve the draft and that this weekend the agency is having a big reunion in Virginia Thursday through Sunday. This translates to us not getting a notarized copy of our home study until next week. Bummer, because I had the last three days of the week off of work for mandatory time off as part of my company's expense reduction measures. So much for making hay while the sun shines. The upside is that we received an email from our agency Thursday evening that they approved the final draft of our home study and we are clear to submit our next paperwork batch, the I800-A to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services). With this in mind, Julie and I crafted a plan to try and maximize our efforts while I am traveling for work.
1 - We sent a pre-paid FedEx envelope to our social worker so she can drop our home study in it after she gets them notarized and certified in her home county.
2 - I prepared the cover letter for our I800-A and made photocopies of the required birth certificates and marriage license that will be included with the I800-A form.
3 - Filled out the I800-A form and have it ready to sign and drop in the already prepared FedEx envelope to the USCIS processing center.
4 - Drafted our application letter to CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) and submitted it to our agency for approval. Once approved, yep, you guessed it, it needs to be notarized and certified as well. Hopefully we'll get approval so that Julie can print it out and get it notarized and certified by the county during the week.
5 - Sent Julie's birth certificate to the US Department of State for certification since the certificate originates in Maryland. Luckily we get to skip this step for documents that originate in Ohio. We already received confirmation from FedEx that the letter was delivered and hope it'll be returned this week.
6 - Assuming we get Julie's birth certificate back from the US Department of State and our home study certified, we can send them off to the Chinese consulate in New York for certification there, too which can take up to 20 business days. Seriously, who would have thought this process would have this many steps? Sad part, we're still not in a position to say we have our dossier to China which really is the next big step. *sigh*

With this plan in place, it is possible that by the end of week Julie will be able to take the notarized home study and our CCAA application letter to the Ohio Secretary of State for state-level certification. Assuming that falls into place, we should be in a position to mail off our I800-A and documents to the Chinese consulate over the weekend and get that waiting process started. Sounds pretty tenuous, doesn't it? Hope springs eternal, I guess. :)

We'll see how the week plays out. At this point we're trying to control that which we can control and everything else we're along for the ride. Prayer helps, for sure.

Staycation - sort of

We started the weekend in a hotel at Polaris getting away from the day-today hectic pace we've been keeping with work, school, Scouts, gymnastics, La-La class and more. Since this was a rewards stay (FREE!) and my status with the hotel chain, we had access to the executive floor for breakfast. We went upstairs and ate from their semi-hot breakfast and watched the commuters going to work on a rainy Friday morning. Since nothing opens until 10AM (why so late?!) we went back down to the room and hung out for a while. I had picked up the new Dan Brown novel at Barnes and Nobel so was quickly engrossed in it while everyone else played and Julie started crocheting(sp?) a baby blanket for Lil Bubba.

The plan for the day is to hit the new Lego store in Easton and see what else we can do. We packed up the crew and headed over. We were a little surprised by the size of the store as it was smaller than what we'd pictured. Having been to the store in Orlando this was WAY smaller than we expected. The kids had a good time looking at the various displays and Veronica loved playing with a Duplo train set and misc. blocks. Max picked out a Lego racer kit and Sydney had trouble choosing what the get within a reasonable price range and finally settled on a bucket of Legos that she got to fill from their bins. Veronica found a Bob the Builder set that she liked. Having conquered the Lego store Veronica wanted to ride the escalators so we did. Max doesn't like escalators and one of his least favorite places on Earth is the Waterloo tube station in London where we had to take what seemed like 10 BIG escalators to get where we needed to go. He doesn't like the small ones at Easton, either. :)

It was getting close to lunch and we decided we would do a silly lunch and went to Cold Stone Creamery. The kids loved it - and who wouldn't - ice cream for lunch! We enjoyed sitting there and had the whole place to ourselves. Apparently this isn't a normal lunch for anyone else. After enjoying our yummy lunch both Ron and Julie were still hungry so we stopped by Skyline and took it back to the hotel. We ate our more substantial lunch and then the begging for the pool began. Hard to say no to your kids so we all changed and headed for the hotel's pool. Like Cold Stone, we had the place to ourselves and swam until the kids lips were turning blue. Veronica has gotten over her fear of the pool and literally jumped in from the steps leading in. That was an exciting start to the swimming. We had a great time playing shark, splashing and jumping in while I caught them. We called it a day in the pool before hypothermia set in and went up to the room to get cleaned up.

After the fun of the pool, we considered going to a movie but the only kids movie out didn't look that good and I don't like the book - not to mention it didn't start for a while. We checked out the pay per view movies and decided we'd watch "Up." We went downstairs and popped a bag of popcorn and grabbed some Sprite before we settled in to watch the movie. It was very good and had a nice heart warming theme throughout. After the movie we went out to grab dinner which was Noodles and Company for the kids and Indian for Julie and I. Mmmm, mmmm, good. With our curry and vindaloo quotient filled, the kids played Legos while Julie crocheted and I read.

Saturday was a nice slow start with everyone getting up around 7AM, so it was nice to sleep in. We got ready and went downstairs to the buffet for breakfast. After we ate, we came back to the room and started packing up to go home. The staycation is over. :(

We got home and I replaced the garbage disposal in the kitchen with the one I bought Thursday morning. It was easier than I figured it would be and was a great way to save some money. I was concerned that it would leak, but so far so good! After that I climbed back onto the roof to install the ground wire for the lightening arrestor on the cell antenna. I've been concerned about having it on the roof with no ground so have left it disconnected for 2 weeks. I hate getting on the roof as my fear of heights kicks in and the thought of falling 20 feet to the patio doesn't seem like much fun. Max stood in the yard ready to call if I fell, so we were covered from that respect. The hornets, wasps and yellow jackets were all out - they must love the heat from the shingles and it seemed like they were everywhere. We got that project completed just in time to get ready for church.

We went to mass at St. Mary's because Max wanted to go to the TAG (Tweens and God) youth group meeting from 5:30 to 7:00. We dropped him off for that and went to dinner at Subway and then shopping at Kroger. Sounds like fun, huh? We picked up Max and he seemed to have a great time and then it was time for bed. Julie and I struggled to stay up until 10 and were glad to sleep in our bed. The hotel was nice, but nothing feels as comfortable as home.

Sunday was busy between Julie teaching PSR, Ron working on the book - my chapter was due Weds - yes, the previous Weds not the upcoming Weds. LOL! See mom, I still procrastinate! Max's Cub Scout pack had the BB gun and archery range at Camp Lazarus booked for an afternoon session and we've been looking forward to it for a long time. We started with archery and Max took no time at all to hit the targets and scored quite a few bull's eyes! We rotated to the BB gun range where it seems like he may be left eye dominant rather than right eye like. He was having a good time and did a great job and qualified for a BB gun patch by scoring a 41 (needed 35) with 5 shots! It was cool to see Camp Lazarus in the fall and I'm sure I bored Max with my stories of "We slept in that cabin during the winter and had to feed the fireplace to keep warm" and "We used to shoot BBs in the Exchange Lodge" and "I remember one time when it was so cold that we were all playing on the frozen pond." LOL! A lot of good memories there and hopefully he'll have plenty too!

We came home and grilled out for dinner since there won't be too many more chances to do that. After dinner Julie got the kids and their stuff ready for the next day while I continued to work on the book. Julie put the girls to bed and Max read to me before heading upstairs. I wrapped up the chapter around 10:50PM and mailed it off to my editor which quickly kicked back an Out of Office message for Monday! Oh well, it was due 4 days ago and now the ball is in his court while I start the next chapter. Why do I do this stuff to myself? It is one of those things that sucks while you are doing it, but will be cool to go to a book store with the kids and show them a book I helped write. :)

Time for another busy week to start. Have a good one everybody!

Busy, busy days

Julie was able to coordinate the notary and the doctor to make it all happen so that is HUGE! She rocks! With the doctor letters completed and notarized we are gaining full steam on getting the next step of the dossier building process knocked out. The process requires that any Ohio notarized documents be certified at the county level. After county certification we need to take them to the Secretary of State for authentication before sending them on to either the US Department of State for an extra level of authentication or directly to the Chinese Consulate in New York.

Julie took the doctor letters to the Delaware County Clerk of Courts to be certified along with some of our other documents like the police background checks, financial statement and more. She and Veronica found the Clerk of Courts and they were able to knock it out pretty quickly. I spent Weds. evening sorting papers to make sure I knew what needed to go to Marion for notary certification there or directly to the Secretary of State. I have Thursday and Friday off from work so we decided we'd see what progress we could make.

Thursday morning I drove to Polaris for a church men's faith group meeting at 6AM. After the meeting I hit Lowe's to pickup a new garbage disposal for a weekend replacement and then hit the road to Marion. As I was searching for the address of the Marion county Clerk of Courts I found two addresses. I decided on one of them and after going through security and talking with the lady there, I was in the wrong one. Luckily two blocks away was the right one, so I walked in and they were able to help me very quickly. Back on the road to Columbus, I decided to swing by the Delaware County Probate Court to get a marriage certificate with a raised seal. I had noticed that the one I grabbed must have been one of our copies because it was missing the imprint. I walked in and they helped me too very quickly. I had it in my mind that this whole day would be akin to a trip to the BMV - take a number and wait. That was not the case at all. The ladies at the Probate Court didn't think I'd be able to get the marriage license certified as it didn't have the judge's signature, but figured I'd try since I would be downtown anyways. The marriage license, my birth certificate and Julie's name change documents didn't need to be notarized since they were already certified copies.

With a full complement of raised seal and certified notarized letters, I headed for the Secretary of State. I walked into the Rhoades tower only to find that the office I needed had moved 2 blocks away. Common theme of the day, huh? I checked in at the desk and was again helped very quickly. This time the process was a bit longer as I had 13 documents that needed authenticated but all was smooth, including the marriage license the ladies in Delaware had been concerned about. As she gave me the documents I started to review them and found an error that the Secretary of State had made. She gave me a new certification, I paid and was on my way! I can't tell you how glad I am that we found that error, especially after reading about how long (20 days for mail in authentication) it is once the dossier gets to the Chinese Consulate. We would have lost 40 days - 20 for the original error and another 20 for the re-submission. Yikes!

I picked up a package from the post office and made my way home. Julie and I sorted the papers to make sure we have it all lined up. We reviewed the forms and we really, really need our completed home study. Our social worker submitted it to the Asia coordinator for review so hopefully we'll hear back soon. Once we get it, we'll need to take it back to the Secretary of State for authentication and then we're ready to start sending docs via FedEx to the Consulate and Department of State. I *think* we can do this in parallel to our submission of an I-800A form to USCIS so we can get authorization to bring an adopted child into the country from US Immigration. Confused yet? ;)

We took off in the afternoon for a weekend getaway in a hotel in Columbus that we're using my travel points to get 2 nights free. We did this last year and the kids really enjoyed it so sprung it as a surprise for them today. We ate dinner at Olive Garden and then did some quick shopping at Barnes and Noble. Now we're back in the hotel room watching "Survivor." I know we all can use the days away. Work has been crazy - some of the craziness normal and some self-induced with the book and some difficult customers. A few unplugged days from work will help.

God is good to us and Adventure Island

You can tell by the title that something exciting has happened and it has! We received an e-mail from our agency Friday afternoon that the updated paperwork we faxed to them on Thursday was acceptable so now all we need to do is get it all notarized. Once that is complete we can then submit it all for certification and begin that step in the adoption process. Pretty exciting stuff for us and nice to go into the weekend knowing it is good.

On that happy note, Max has hist first big school project where he has to make a large land form and show various aspects like a peninsula, lake, desert, etc. We knew this would take some time to complete so we started on it Thursday night with gluing cardboard boxes and egg cartons to a foam board to make the "mountains" and volcano. Julie had picked up modeling clay/stuff for us so we covered the mountains and made the island Friday to let it dry overnight. It was exciting to see it start to take shape.

Saturday morning Max and I drove to Meijer and picked up the paint we needed as well as a bunch of misc other things for projects around the house. We came home and began painting with tempra paints.

We let the paint dry through the day and talked about what else we'd add and what else we'd name things. Max wanted to name the island "Adventure Island" and features things like the "Cliffs of Death", "Keel Haul Island" a sea cave with an eel and an erupting volcano. Saturday evening we went to mass as usual and were looking forward to our Fall Festival and an outdoor mass. When we got there the meadow where we'd have the outdoor mass was too wet, so we celebrated indoors. We stayed for the Fall Festival and the kids enjoyed eating hots dogs, burgers and chips. The previous week was Sister Julie's 80th birthday and the church had taken a special collection for her to send her to Colorado for a retreat her order does every year. They presented Sister Julie with the gift and then made her promise to use it on herself because anyone who knows here, knows she'd give it all away and miss out on her retreat. We then had cake and let the kids play outside for a while before we called it a night.

Julie and I didn't eat at the festival as they didn't have anything veggie friendly so we swung through super-nutritious Taco Bell (do I know how to show a girl a good time or what?!). As usual, we double-checked the food before we left and found meat on Julie's nachos so waited while they made her a new one (on the timer of course - we were not going to pull ahead and let them off). We got the second set and at first glance all was well and we pulled away. As we got onto the road, Julie found meat, so I turned around and took it in asking for a replacement. They always get you in the drive through, don't they? They apologized and we were on our way. I think Julie was concerned that I'd make a scene - not sure where she got that idea from. ;)

All of the paint was dry on Sunday so we added our lake, river, delta, waterfalls and lava. We also added the labels we made for the features and used a pirate font called Windlass to make it look cool. We think it looks pretty nice so hopefully we'll get full credit for it. Even if we don't it was fun to spend time working with Max and helping him turn his ideas into reality.

Max also turned into a fearsome fly slayer this weekend and has killed 4 at last count with his Nerf gun. Who'd have thought a Nerf gun would be good against flies? You learn something new every day.

Good news is the word of the day!

Without boring everyone to tears with the tedious details, we just got an email tonight from our agency that we do not need more supporting doctor letters and that we can apply with the ones we have (with minor tweaks). We have sent our doctor's office a fax tonight asking them to review the changes we've requested and fax it back to us. We'll then turn around and fax it back to the agency and if they OK it, we'll be able to setup a time to get them signed and notarized.

After that we'll begin with a new and more complicated certification and authentication process but at least it is well defined and we know (we think) what we need to do to be successful with that step.

Let's not worry about that part for now and rather rejoice that we are cleared! Must be a good day for good news as a the mother of one of my friends had surgery for cancer today and god good news on that front too. They got all of the tumor and think she'll heal nicely so great news there, too! The last bit of good news is that my cousin who is going through a divorce had things go her way and she has custody of the children. All of the praying paid off! ;)

Nothing nice to say...

You know that saying "If you do not have anything nice to say, do not say anything at all."? Well, it is pretty fitting right now with everything that is going on during our attempt to bring our little boy home. It seems that nobody sees it as much of an urgency as we do. Trust me, we understand that we are not the only people in the world and others need things done for them too; but, we really need someone to work with us for once. My mom put it the best..."one step forward, three steps back" and that is exactly what it is at this time. Things have just gotten progressively more complicated since Ron last posted. I will let him go into more detail if he wants. (If I say too much more, I may break the above rule.) Otherwise, just know things are pretty much at a standstill for us now. We know that things will be done in God's time and to trust Him that things are going as He has planned. I do not believe He would have put Lil' Bubba in our hearts if He did not intend to bring him home to us. It is just so hard!!!! "Patience is a virtue" is another saying that comes into play these days. Can you believe that Ron actually had the opportunity to preach to me about patience the other day? Anybody who knows us, knows that it is usually the other way around. Please keep our baby boy (and all of our family) in your prayers as this adventure to Lil' Bubba continues. Please pray that he has loving caregivers, enough food for healthy growth, and the fight in him to hang on until we can get him home.

More dissappointment

This week was a crazy one between Cub Scouts, work, school and the home study. I decided to be a bit more proactive on helping the paperwork process along so called the doctor's office Monday AM to make sure they had faxed the request to the neurosurgeon for my medical history and they had. I turned around and called the neurosurgeon's office to make sure they received it and that everything was in order. They had received it and were going to process the request Tuesday morning. Not exactly what we were hoping for, but we can live with that.

Tuesday mid-morning comes and I call the neurosurgeon's office to see if they had processed the request and the lady there told me that they had just sent it about an hour before I called - good news, right?! I call the doctor's office to verify they received the fax only to be told that they have been picking faxes off of the machine all day and no sign of it. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I call the neurosurgeon's office and confirm they sent it, how many pages and the number they sent it to. I then call the doctor's office and relay the information. The ever-cheery lady at the office snipes at me telling me that she's double-checked and there is no fax. She haughtily asks me for the neurosurgeon's office phone number so she can call them directly - "Because, you know, sometimes it is just easier doctor's office to doctor's office" - this is a direct quote from our lovely friend. I patiently wait on hold and when she comes back on the phone a few minutes later, she tells me that she just found that fax and didn't realize that when I told her that they had sent it about an hour before I called, that I meant they had sent it about an hour before I called. Excellent listening skills in action. See our previous entry on why I don't like the medical profession - this only goes to validate those feelings. The good news is that she has it and will give it to the nurse to complete. I ask that it be done by Friday so we can fax it to our agency, have them review it and make sure all is perfect for China's needs. She sighs, takes notes and comments on what a crazy process this is - lady, you have no idea - this is the simple stuff.

Feeling that we made good progress now I decide to call the doctor's office Weds. AM and ask if they had a chance to review it and if there were any questions. Our angel of congeniality snaps at me that "We are very busy right now and that it'll be done Friday just like you asked us to." Wow, feeling the love from the doctor's office right now. Weds night we drop the kids off with my mom and dad while Julie and I have our last meeting with our social worker in Upper Sandusky. We review more paperwork and seem like we are well on our way.

Thursday we give the doctor's office a break and don't call them. I wonder how they are doing all day while I am in Cleveland meeting with a customer and driving 4 hours back and forth.

Friday morning and I am on the road to Akron so call to see when they'll be able to send us a copy of the report so we can in turn pass it on to our agency. I was told that the lady who needs to do the report is sick and wasn't in the office Thursday and probably won't be in today either. She said that the paperwork is on her desk, but doesn't think she'll get it done until next week. She also said she'd be talking with the doctor later in the morning to see if she was going to come in and would let us know. My blood pressure increases, but there is not much we can do - actually nothing we can do. Later in the day, the doctor's office calls Julie to let her know for sure that she is still sick with strep throat and will not be coming in. She won't be in Monday either because she teaches at a local college that day so maybe Tuesday. There is an off-hand chance that she'll come into the office on Saturday to do paperwork, but we know that isn't going to happen. Un-freaking-real. These people have no sense of urgency but their perspective would be very different if it was their child sitting in a crib in China crying for love and attention and consoling themselves to sleep. Maybe then they would give a hoot - but alas, that is not the case.

This more or less blows the plans we had to get the county certifications done on Tuesday when I have the whole day off. Maybe we can make some progress, but it wasn't what we were hoping for. We keep reminding ourselves that everything happens for a reason and that we need to trust in God that it will all work out - but it is disappointing never the less.

So the wait continues for us and Lil Bubba. *sigh*

Making progress

The saga continues. Thursday we received a call from our doctor's office that in order for them to get my medical records from the neurosurgeon that I need to come in and physically sign a release form - again faxing will not do. Unfortunately, I could not make it to the office in time on Thursday so will visit them first thing Friday morning.
I went to the office Friday and sign the form that they had waiting for me. If you recall earlier I was over the weight restriction China has in place for adoptive parents and have been working on dropping some lard. While I was there I had them weigh me and I have lost enough to be under the restriction! That in and of itself was worth the trip and good news indeed. I asked them to have the doctor update my adoption form with the new weight and with the additional explanation of my hematoma we should be able to fax it to the agency, get approval and then have a signing party where we have the notary come in and verify the doctor's signature. Crazy process, I know, but it is what we have to do so why fight it?
Julie and I decided that we are going to have to take the more proactive approach as the sense of urgency from the doctor's office has been less than we hoped for. I called the neurosurgeon's office Friday and spoke to their medical records department and found that there is a different fax number that goes directly to records that our doctor should fax the release form to. We turned around and called to let them the about the new fax number so that may save some time. We'll have to become the squeaky wheel and call Monday morning to see if they have sent the release form and see where we are in that process.
The bigger goal is to be in a position to take all of our OH documents and get them certified in Marion county and a stretch goal of getting the State of OH certification done, too. I have the day off and was originally planned to use it for a visit with our social worker, but that got moved up earlier so I have a "free" day and since all of this stuff can only happen during the normal work week, we'll try to capitalize on it. I'll let you know how that plan works out - it all hinges on the doctor's office doing their part.
On the fun stuff over the weekend front, we went to my manager's house for an Italian cook-off contest between the technical team members in Columbus. We took our puttanesca recipe that I learned from a friend years ago and love to eat - it takes all day to cook and I started it Saturday at 8:30 and with the help of Julie, tended to it all day. We also took Julie's famous macaroni & cheese recipe that the kids love. We had a great time with the other families and there must have been 20 adults and 15 kids. We had chicken Marsala, secret lasagna recipes, stuffed shells, tirmisu, shrimp scampi and plenty of good vino. I took my favorite Italian beer, Pironi, and watched it get grabbed by everyone else - LOL! Glad I grabbed one when I put them in the cooler. The kids all had a great time with potato sack races, playing on a swing set, skateboarding, playing football, monkey in the middle and more. At the end of the evening we all voted on favorite dishes in 4 categories - Best Overall; Most Authentic; Best Kid's Disk; Best Dessert. As luck (and 5 people in our family) would have it we won Best Overall and Best Kid's dishes with prizes of Olive Garden and Sur La Table gift certificates! We packed up and headed home, got the kids to bed, forced ourselves to stay up longer and watch Hell's Kitchen (Gordon Ramsay will fall over from a major heart attack some day from the stress!) before we called it a night.
Sunday brought a trip to church and Julie getting prepped for a PSR open house. We were paying the price of a later than usual night this morning so I was worried about keeping Veronica when Julie left to do her Open House. We all picked out doughnuts after mass, sat in the gathering space and ate them then went to the car. Veronica couldn't have been easier to work with - a sugar high helps, I'm sure. We decided to go out for brunch afterwards and ended up at Waffle House. We definitely were over dressed for the locale but you can't go wrong with Steak and Eggs, scrambled, scattered, smothered, covered for brunch! Good thing I was weighed Friday! LOL!
We came home and enjoyed a lazy afternoon nap, followed by me winning Family game night of Pay Day, baths, dinner, etc. Overall a great weekend and hopefully we have a plan for success on the adoption front now.
We'll keep the blog posted on our progress!

Down and then up

One of the things people who know me realize is that I don't like to have my time wasted. Nobody does, but my tolerance for this is incredibly low - we all have our things to improve upon don't we? While sitting at work feeling pretty rough from a cold or whatever pestilence I have I received an email from Julie that the doctor's office called and needed to know what doctor I saw when I had a hematoma in 2005. While this is quite a reasonable request the kicker is that it has been two weeks since I saw them, explained the forms and they took ownership of getting the history completed. These are two more weeks we'll have to wait to get Lil Bubba. I know this is all part of the fun of the paper chase, but the lack of a sense of urgency just validates my disdain for doctors. Bad attitude I know, but it is what it is.
I did what any geek would do and used Google to see if I could find the name of the practice where the neurologist I saw worked. I found a likely hit, called and after they kindly searched multiple databases was told they didn't know who I was. I decided to call the hospital where they performed the angiogram and see if their medical records people could help me. I called and as a co-worker predicted was given the proverbial Heisman in the name of HIPPA regulations. I was told I needed to mail, via snail mail, a letter requesting the information I needed. A fax would not do for some reason. If a fax is good enough to stand up in court it should be good enough for the medical profession but it isn't. With my blood pressure higher than I'd like it to be I packed up from work and went home.
After dinner and venting a bit, I decided to call medical records and get their mailing address and was surprised that someone answered the phone. I explained the situation and 5 minutes later had the information I needed and will call my doctor's office tomorrow and let them know who to call to get my records. What a goat rodeo! Thank goodness for the kind soul working in medical records who saved us at least a week by supplying the name of my doctor.

On a positive note, I had my review today and did well so at least I am good at something. :) I hope I know what I am doing! LOL!

Summer is over

Well, it seems Summer is over with Labor Day behind us now and cooler evenings more frequent. We had a busy, but fun, Labor Day weekend. Saturday started with Sydney and I grabbing breakfast at Cracker Barrel for some daddy/daughter time. We had fun talking and playing "egg-na-ram-oose" while we waited for our food. We then headed to Lowe's to pickup some supplies that we needed to build a shelf in our storage building. Sydney loved that we had lumber hanging out of the passenger window on the drive home.

Max helped me empty the building, build the shelf, but I was on my own when it came time to fill it back up. After that project was done we raked the grass I had cut the night before. It has been so wet that it grows like bamboo it seems! We've only raked a handful of times since we moved out here, but this year we've had to rake at least 4 times.

The final project of the day was to install a cellular amplifier in the hopes of boosting cell signal to the house so I can work from home more effectively with a 3G signal. Long story that features many trips up and down the ladder, minimal cursing and fun on the roof it was installed. The sad part, no help at all since it is a uni-directional antenna and is booting the EDGE signal, not the 3G we need so I've ordered a yagi (yes, that is a real word) directional antenna so that we can aim towards the tower we want. Always something, isn't it? We wrapped up Saturday with mass and pizza so that was fun.

Sunday we went to Dublin to the Italian Gathering car show to drool over the Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Alfas, Lancias, FIATs and more. It was an awesome collection of very nice cars from all over the midwest and we enjoyed it. Sydney of course had to have her picture taken next to each Lambo - except the Lambo tractor for some reason. Yes, Lamborghini makes tractors! Max loved the Ferrari F-40, Dodge Viper and Ford GT that were parked away from the Italian cars in the "Lot of Distinction." I found a new favorite Ferrari, above and beyond our Donatella - the 2009 Ferrari California. Now to save the $279,000 it cost. LOL!

We drove home to drop Julie off so she could go with her mom and sister to visit one of her aunts in Ashland that is sick. While she avoided the fried pickles, marcellated potato chips and doughnuts (the local yummies in Ashland) I took the kids to my parents house for a cook out.

We had a ton of fun talking with everyone and the kids always enjoy playing with their cousins. Of course a trip to Ma and Pa's isn't complete without getting as dirty as possible and the kids were successful! It was an interesting combination of food, CapriSun, popsicles, dirt and grass that seemed to be the order of the day. Ma was kind enough to give Max and I "El guapo" hair cuts which were much needed. We came home and proceeded to try and get clean before mommy caught the kids as grubby as they were. Mission accomplished! We had just wrapped up baths when Julie came home.

We made Monday the official lazy day of the weekend and proceeded to do virtually nothing all day. The kids were all cranky from the fun the day before so that was a bummer. Max and I played Ferrari mechanics changing the spark plugs on the Mondial before taking it for a test drive to see if we fixed the intermittent miss. We didn't and the good news is - we didn't make it worse either. Back to the smart guys on FerrariChat.com to see what to try next. It was fun though for Max, Sydney and me to take a few "laps" around the block before the miss came back.

So you are probably wondering what we did to move the adoption ball forward - sadly, not much. We were waiting to hear back from our agency on the formatting of Julie's medical forms and the good news is that we heard back on Tuesday with some minor changes. Ron's lab results came back and I am OK across the board. I have a slightly elevated blood sugar but nothing they were too worried about. I need to lose a few more pounds to make weight - I never wrestled in high school but remember the guys who did worrying about that - too bad I need to now, too. :(

Well, it is late and time to get some sleep before another exciting day of work. Thanks for reading!

MotoGP and Secret Princess Meetings

Max and I had a chance to go to the MotoGP motorcycle races yesterday in Indianapolis and had an awesome time! We woke up early and left to go pick up our friends Mike and Mark for a fun day at the Speedway. It was a bit chilly and felt more like late September than late August. We had fun on the drive over talking about fun boy things like Star Trek (The 2nd movie is the best but the new one could be a challenger!) other cool TV shows, fast cars and fast women (just kidding, Julie!) Max got a kick out of a "trick" we played on Mike and Mark when we pretended to have mailed their tickets to the race to them when we really had them with our tickets. This was about 1 hour away from Columbus so that made it even better.

We made great time and walked to our seats after getting some programs, ticket holders and selling our two extra seats. There was a breeze which made it chillier than we'd have liked, but nothing like the hurricane winds last year so no complaints. Our seats were 3 rows from the top, and at a motorsports event, the higher the better. This also gave us the advantage of shade and the sun was at our backs, so couldn't have been much better. We all enjoyed munching on the snacks we brought through the course of the day.

To sum up MotoGP, these guys are crazy! Check out the leaning they do through the corners and imagine doing that on some of the fastest motorcycles on the planet! Very cool stuff indeed, but we all still like watching Formula 1 better. ;)

While at the track Julie and I stayed in touch via text pages and a few camera phone emails from the track. We learned that the girls were having a secret princess meeting and that Enzo and Zeus were honored to become knights and we missed it all! I also learned this morning that they had a mission to complete at Dairy Queen, so they had a good time, too.

The drive home from Indy is always a long one as we're all tried from the fun at the Speedway and thankfully it was uneventful. Mike slept for a while and snored to Max's enjoyment and we all talked and spotted various cool cars on the way home. Both Mike and Mark were impressed with Max's traveling skills though it was no surprise to his proud Dad that he was an awesome traveler. He's been around the world with more adventures to come so a few hour drive to Indy is a walk in the park. :)

I have my physical today so hopefully that goes well though I am more nervous about this than I am for any presentation I've given or test I've taken. I don't like Drs. they always tell you stuff you don't want to hear. :(

A Wiggly Good Time

Thursday I flew home from Chicago after taking the test on Weds. It was a tough one for sure and now I get to wait 6-8 weeks for the results. Nothing like prolonging the agony, huh? The good news is that we went to see The Wiggles in the evening.

It must be said that both Julie and Ron will be sad when our kids out-grow The Wiggles. Compared to some of the other junk out there on TV, they are more or less good, clean fun. They put on such a great show, too! They all seem to have so much fun so either they really are, or are consummate professionals and can "Go on with the show" no matter how they feel. We were concerned that there would not be anything for Max at the show since he is in 3rd grade now, but as you can see from the pictures it was enjoyed by all.

On the adoption front, we received confirmation from FedEx that our letters were signed for in both Maryland and California and the check to Maryland has already posted to the bank. Hopefully early next week we'll get confirmation that they are sending them back to us in the pre-paid, pre-addressed envelope. I have my physical Monday and our social worker hopes to have the draft of our home study completed next week. These are the last two things we need before we start sending a lot of documents out to be certified so the next few weeks should be hectic, in a good way. :) It'll be nice to have the paper chase behind us though then we'll trade it for "Hurry up and wait" as things are sent to China, translated, etc.

Sydney officially is the "Sequence" champ (a board game) at our house after beating both Ron and Max this morning. Ron is still pretty sure he leads the Harry Potter board game championship due to his excellent notes system. :) Veronica, Julie and Judy all had a special day out this morning and enjoyed the Farmer's Market, Bob Evans and Costco.

Max and I are going to Indianapolis tomorrow for the MotoGP race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We went last year and had a good time even though the remnants of Hurricane Ike were hitting the track and tearing up our roof and storage building back home. It should be better weather this year so let's hope the weather guys are right!

Incremental progress

We are excited to be taking the next big step in the dossier building process as we move from document collection to certification. To make our dossier complete for submission to China we need to have every notarized document "certified" and in Ohio, it has to be done at the county level. This means that anything notarized in Ohio must be sent back to the county clerk of courts where the notary is registered for a letter of certification to be issued. After that, we send it to the Secretary of State for state level certification. We also need to send Julie's birth certificate to Maryland and my Verification of Employment back to California. After that, it goes to the US Department of State for Federal level certification. Good times, huh?

We just sent the Maryland and California documents out and are going to check with Ashland County on the right process for their certification. We've been diligent about the rest of our Ohio documents and using the branch manager at the local Chase branch to notarize our documents so we can send a pile of them to Marion county for certification there. It is exciting to be taking the next step in the process and hope to be done with the paper chase in Sept. What a process!

Ron is on his way to Chicago to take a test only 13 people world wide have passed over the last 2 years so that should be a fun challenge. ;)

The kids all survived their first day of school and Veronica survived her first day in a long time without another play mate. It's quite a change for a 2.5 year old to go from 2 siblings to none for a few hours of the day!

Back to work for Ron. Only a few hours to get stuff done before it'll be time to head to the airport.

Back to school already?

Well, here we are at the end of another summer. Where did it go? The two older kiddos begin school on Monday. I am going to miss them; but, I am excited for them too. At the beginning of each summer, I ask the children to come up with some things that they want to be sure to do over their break. A couple of things Max came up with were making slime and camping out. We were able to do both of those. The kids loved playing with the slime. We eventually moved that activity outdoors. :) We camped out last weekend in our backyard. We only made it one night though. Boy was everyone cranky the next day! We, also, discovered that Ron is not quite as young as he once was. (Love you, Honey!) He did not have nearly as many aches and pains the summer he spent at Philmont guiding campers and camping out every night. One of the things that Sydney wanted to do this summer was bake cakes for each of the kids and let them decorate them however they wanted. It may be last minute; but, we did that yesterday. We ended up making just one simple cake and dividing it into thirds. I gave them a tub of whipped topping and they got out a ton of sprinkles. They went to town! Max gave his a name..."Gotta Have Sprinkles". That is his cake in the picture below. Their cakes are just covered with sprinkles. I finally had to say enough. One can get a sugar high just looking at them. Veronica discovered that she can lick her elbow when there is whipped topping on it! Gotta love our babies! They had a blast doing this and it was fun to watch them. I think Sydney enjoyed tasting her cake as much as she did decorating it.






On the adoption front, I had my physical on Monday and have the bruise to prove it. I always bruise when I have blood drawn. The nurse even apologized when she saw it a few days later. We are just waiting for the doctor to finish his part of the paperwork and then we will have to take a notary with us to have the paperwork signed and notarized. Ron has his physical scheduled for August 31. We had our third visit with our social worker, Therese, on Tuesday. She came to our house this time and met our children. The children did a wonderful job talking with her. Sydney even drew a picture for her while I was being "interviewed". Veronica was taking a nap when Therese first arrived; but, surprisingly, Veronica warmed up to her before she left. You see, Veronica is not an after nap kind of girl. We were afraid that she would be cranky the whole time. However, she, along with the other two, enjoyed showing Therese around the house. We believe that all went well. Therese is going to put our home study together soon, hopefully. Then, it will be a lot of hurry up and wait as we try to get our paperwork finalized, sent to AWAA (our agency) and then off to China. We are trying to hurry Lil' Bubba!

Good night, Lil Bubba....

It is almost 8PM in China and we are just starting the day you've already finished. Know that we are thinking of you and working to come get you. It all takes time to do and we're doing everything we can on our end to keep it rolling. Sweet dreams, Lil Bubba.

Things are gearing back up after a brief lull in the action. We should get my notarized copies of my VOE today via FedEx and we met with Therese last night. She does such a good job, we couldn't be happier! She "interviewed" us for almost 2 hours but it didn't feel like an interview, more like a conversation. She also said she'd complete our application to the Waiting Child program so that is one more of many "things to get done."

The kids stayed with Ma and Pa last night and had a great time when their cousins came down to play. Everyone slept well last night even after the ice cream and popsicles. ;)

Time to get ready for another day of work for Ron and Julie and the kids are going to the library.

Dirt rocks!

We went to the Mid Ohio Sports Car Course yesterday to watch the Indycar race. It was a hot, humid day and one of the first ones we've had in a while this summer. We sat in a section called Thunder Valley under some nice trees to shade us from the sun. This is also a good family friendly area and we had some birthday cake from the people next to us celebrating at the track. The kids all had a great time and found that the dirt at Mid-Ohio is a lot of fun.

Max also enjoyed getting to see his dream car, a Dodge Viper in the parking lot. The one he wants will have a white racing stripe down the middle but this one will work for now.

Mid-Ohio puts on a great event and the kids all got to control a missle launcher on a National Guard Humvee. Better not make them mad now that they know how to control this!

We now have a new race fan, too. Veronica loves Tony Kanaan now and every time his car went by she shouted "TONY!" When she didn't see his car, she'd shrug her shoulders and look at us and say "Tony?!" It was super cute. You can see Tony's car in the upper right of the picture - it is green and white so blends in with the leaves.

Everyone had a good time but was whipped at the end of the day. We stopped at a local church's youth group corn stand and picked up some sweet corn for dinner. Mmmm, mmmm, good.

On a more serious note, we are praying for the people on the east coast of China who are being hammered by the typhoon. We've seen quite a few referrals from Fujian province and see that they are evacuating almost 1 million people.

We will be meeting with Therese tomorrow so hope to get our home study visit scheduled and knocked out.

Our weekend

Not much happening on the adoption front other than some emails back and forth with the HR department about getting my VOE notarized in California. They have one and she should be sending the notarized letters this upcoming week.

Ron was in Detroit Thursday and Friday for work and was fortunate enough to get home at a decent time so we could have dinner as a family before mowing the yard.

We are planning on going to Mid-Ohio tomorrow to see the Indycar race. We hope Lil Bubba likes going to the races as much as we do. :)

We've been following the tribulations of another family that is being forced to leave their recently adopted Chinese daughter in China due to some TB concerns. We pray that the policy decisions that make situations like this happen will be resolved by the time we travel to get Lil Bubba. There is so much that can go wrong we need to remember to be flexible and understand that it will all happen when it happens.

An Orphan's Prayer

I read this poem on one of the blogs I follow and thought I would share it on here too.

AN ORPHAN'S PRAYER

I am waiting…somewhere far, far away…on the other side of the world.
I may not know who you are or what you look like.
But somehow, deep in my heart, I know you are out there.
That one day you will come and find me.

It's a long journey, and it takes a lot of time.
I wish it could be easier.
But I know that the ones who come for me will not count the cost.
They will only see the joy of finding me.

For now I abide in the fields of the fatherless.
Day by day wondering, "Why was I born here and not somewhere else?"
Asking, "Why couldn't my life have been different?"
It is so lonely…

Even though I am surrounded by hundreds of other children,
I know that something is missing.
I know in my heart I need a place to call home.

My arms long to be wrapped in a father's embrace…
I long to be saved by a mother's love.
Gazing out the orphanage window, I offer a prayer of hope,
"Oh God, please help them come quickly."

Even as I lay in the darkness each night somehow I feel assured.
That no matter how lost I appear I am not alone.
Holy hands guard my steps; sacred fingers wipe my tears…
Touching my lonely heart.

The one who made me,
The God who knew me before I was born,
Hears me every time I call.
He whispers His promises in my ear.
I listen with hope to His voice.

But what I worry about most is that no one wants to look for me.
The fields are vast, and there are so many scattered all over the earth.
I wonder how one little child, so lost, can be found.
Yet He calms my heart and assures me that He will find you.
That He will make sure you hear His voice clearly.
He has promised me that He will make a way through the fields.
That He will personally cut a path, and lead you right to my orphanage door.

My prayer is…
When He speaks, please don't forget to listen.
When He calls, don't be too afraid to go.
For I am waiting…somewhere far, far away.

from All God's Children's Newsletter. No author noted.
http://onechinesebrother.blogspot.com/

It is morning over there now and I just wonder what Lil' Bubba's day will bring. God willing his days will soon be filled with tickles, giggles, hugs and kisses from all of us who are just waiting to bring him to our love filled home.

Another day....

Not our most productive day, but in the grand scheme of things, incremental progress is the key. We received the medical statements from the kids' doctor so one more item off of the list!

We made some changes to the look of the blog, hopefully for the better. :)

I have to add a picture of our newest pets - they actually are our neighbors and the kids have called them TinkerBell and Oreo. We renamed them yesterday to Stir & Fry or Finger & Licking much to Julie and Sydney's dismay. hehehehehe

Anyways, not much news to share.

More stuff done!

No moss gathering here when we know Lil Bubba is waiting for us! We knocked out our autobiographies - that was a bit weird writing about yourself. We also completed the rest of the paperwork that is in our power to do so now we only have medical things to do. Julie has her physical scheduled and Ron has more work to do on dropping lard before he gets his scheduled.

We faxed and emailed everything else that we needed to over the weekend and started the week with getting our passport photos taken. We need these for the Waiting Child program as well as for our I-800 form so it was one of those things that needed to be done.

We have our next appointment with Therese scheduled for 8/11 so we're rolling along but it'll all take longer than we'd prefer. Ron is still working with the HR department at work to see if we can get my verification of employment notarized by someone in California since that is the company HQ.

We're also trying to figure out the best way to ship the documents that need to be certified out of state and wondering how much time that will add. So many details and things to do. Fortunately the good people at AWAA have given us a check list that even I can follow so that helps.

On a personal note, we had a fun evening with the kids playing outside and having some fun daddy time. Almost time to hit the sack and get ready for whatever adventures tomorrow brings us.

I just keep telling myself that each day puts us a day closer to getting Lil Bubba. Some day we'll get to drop all of the cool adoption acronyms like LOI, DTC, LID and finally CA.....not soon enough - though most will tell you patience isn't one of my virtures so guess I'll take some of Julie's! LOL!

Dossier progress

We are making progress on our dossier! We had our first meeting with our home study social worker, Therese, last Saturday (7/25) to discuss the process, documents and a lot of other stuff. She is great and we seemed to get along nicely which is good since she's writing the home study. :)

We attacked the week with everything we've got to get the dossier really rolling. Monday morning we sent out letter to our children's pediatricians for a medical statement, we sent out forms for our guardians to state that they would take Lil' Bubba if something happened and we got our fingerprints knocked out. We have to have BCI-I (Bureau of Criminal Identification & Investigation as well as FBI background checks. The place we went was able to do both at the same time so a 2-fer-1 with that visit!

We've sent copies of all of our birth certificates, marriage license, tax form, medical and auto insurance information and other OH specific documents to Therese for her file. We've also had to complete a pretty detailed financial analysis and prepare the forms for both the China dossier as well as the OH file.

Tuesday we went to the local Sheriff's office to have a letter signed and notarized (of course) that says we are not criminals and don't have any outstanding warrants, etc. While we were waiting we saw our local Sheriff and said "Hi!" We knew our time was about up when Veronica was running across the room - kids that age don't walk anywhere, they run - and she tripped earning a nice 6 inch rug burn on her forearm. As luck would have it, our paperwork was just being handed to us so we could leave. The timing was perfect!

Wednesday we got the verification of employment from Ron's work though that in and of itself introduces a new wrinkle as it'll have to be notarized in California so we're looking into that.

We had our fire department come out to inspect the house and fill out that paperwork on Thursday. I fully expected one of the new guys to drive his car over and do it for us since it doesn't sound like it'd be as much fun as fighting fires. Nope - we look out and see a fire engine backing into our driveway and 3 people come to do the inspection, including the chief! We love Porter-Kingston Fire Department! They came out 40 minutes after I called for the inspection - I was expecting days if not weeks!

We just bought a new HP scanner/printer/copier/fax/who knows what else it does machine a few weeks ago and it has paid for itself in duplex (2 sided) copies, scans and faxes for this process and we're just at the beginning! We've probably sent over 20 pages in faxes this week alone!

We went to get more paperwork notarized Saturday and dropped them in the mail to Therese so now we only have our autobiographies to do and medical physicals for Ron and Julie and we'll be done with our part of the home study! Therese let us know that the BCI&I and FBI checks came back clean so we're good on that end too!

Whew! Long post huh? Guess these are easier if we do them a bit more frequently. ;)

The journey begins

Hi - you've somehow stumbled onto our blog discussing our journey to adopt a little boy from China. I'm not really sure what we'll have on the blog and how frequently it'll be updated but here it is.

Enjoy.