That would be our I-171 approval in the picture. Just a simple sheet of paper that says we are “able to furnish proper care to an orphan or orphans as defined by Section 101 (b)(1)(F) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.” Our form has been forwarded to the American embassy in Bogota.

So our caseworker emailed this last missing piece to the ICBF review board. We should have the travel invitation and official referral from Colombia tomorrow, hopefully. Wouldn’t it be great to actually receive it by the weekend. That is what we’re hoping for.

What’s next then, you ask? All we have left to do is book our plane tickets and get our travel visas from the Colombian consulate in San Francisco. This could require an in-person request–meaning day trip to SFO. Hopefully not, though. It just depends on the day and the person behind the desk. :)

It’s real, it’s really really real! And, thus, the excitement begins.

Dozens of hours and hundreds of dollars in paperwork later, our Dossier is off to Colombia. Well, it’s actually on it’s way to Florida where our government application will be translated. So it should arrive in Bogota in a week or so. These pictures are in front of the Utah Capitol Building. We went down on Friday morning to get some documents authenticated. We were planning on turning the documents in and getting them in the mail next week since we’re still waiting for immigration approval. Instead, we found out in the car on our way there that if we expedited the process, our caseworker, Raul, would send our dossier to Colombia w/o the approval. Normally, they would wait and send it all together because the wait is so far off for families. Ours is a ’special’ case though so we’re off and running. Needless to say, Friday turned out to be a little more hectic, and a lot more expensive, than we were planning. But it was worth it…and now we’re officially back in the waiting phase. It’s actually kind of a relief as we gear up to meet the little ones.

Keep your fingers and crossed that we will get our travel appointment within the month. The fastest we would get approval is three weeks…so we’re hoping for four. That should give us enough time to secure our travel visas and plane reservation to leave directly after Memorial Day! This is our hope and our prayer. :) Thanks for reading!

This Friday we have our very last assignment, we think! We get fingerprinted, once again, in Salt Lake City. From that point we only have to wait about two weeks for our I-171 (immigration approval). At that point we send our completed dossier to Colombia and WAIT. Our caseworker, Raul, walked us through the timeline yesterday. We are completely overwhelmed. If everything stays on schedule, we could have travel authorization by the beginning of May. What that means for us is that we could be on a plane as early as Memorial Weekend. It really depends on how quickly we can get our travel visas from San Franscisco. Regardless, we will be in Colombia very shortly.

We also got an update on the children this past weekend. Esmeralda broke her arm while playing~poor thing. Maria Daniela is really shy, but after about two weeks or so she warms up and is the sweetest little girl. Both Daniel and Juan Pablo are very anxious to be placed with a family. They have all four been in the institution for over a year now. Other children are going to families and they are left wondering, ‘why not us?’

Because of this, the children’s caretakers called to see if we could send our photo albums ASAP. WHAT??? I thought we didn’t have to have those done for a couple of months. Adam and I have scrapped our hearts out the past few days getting their albums ready. Tomorrow we will overnight them to FLorida, and our caseworker will forward them on to the orphanage.

My heart sings when I think of the children finding out about a family who wants to take care of them. Hopefully, the albums will give them a little relief and something to look forward too. We are in the process of taking pictures of the albums. I’ll post our scrap session as soon as we get it together. Yes, you will see Adam scrapping…that also makes my heart sing!!!

Just a picture of our favorite and fabulous ‘traveling notary’ Wendy schmoozing with Dr. Welter. We had to get two doctor’s notes per each of us notarized and then apostilled by the state. It’s crazy stuff I tell you. One simple physical and letter took us two and a half weeks to complete…to no fault of our doctor. The Specialty Hospital had a notary, but her commission expired. Dr. Welter, the sweetheart that he is, took the letters to his bank to accomplish the task for us but their notary was not there. Finally, we realized that our quasi-friend Wendy was a notary. What a blessing. She met us on her lunch with a stamp and a smile. If we had to hire someone to come in, it would’ve cost us $20 plus travel time. We also have to get our psych evals notarized and Wendy said she could help with that also. Thank you, Wendy!!!

Alright, kids…this is just one example of how much we want to bring you home. I can’t wait to tell you the whole story someday. We love you very much.

I HATE FedEx Kinkos! I think I can really say that I HATE FedEx Kinkos–not every FedEx Kinkos, just Logan FedEx Kinkos!!! As the above picture indicates, we have many things to mail every week. We snapped this pic on one of our mailing excursions. Now, it’s not the actual shipping that I hate. I find it quite enjoyable checking my ‘adoption to-do list’ off each time I send a package. This week, alone, we sent something to Nevada, Virginia and Washington Secretaries of State, National Passport Center, and the FBI. I checked lots of my list. Wahoo! 

It’s the “ever so slow, ineffecient, obtuse, and cranky service employees” that I can’t stand. Most of you know I am very good at waiting my turn. I even gave them the benefit of the doubt not once, not twice, but three times before passing judgment. This time Adam and I both had had it. I think we actually rolled our eyes at each other and laughed right in front of the lady (a few times).

Come on FedEx counter checkers! Could you be a little kinder, a little faster, and a little more interested in the service of your clients. If we didn’t have to have an account with you for various adoption mailings…I would sooooooo go to UPS. That’s right, you heard me, UPS, UPS, UPS! The Logan UPS store is fabulous at customer service. Too bad neither store will ever see this post.

I am taking the advice of my brilliant friend Jaime Lynne Lea…we are snapping as many pictures of the adoption process as we can think of. She reminded me the other day that this is?like our pregnancy phase of the journey. Why shouldn’t I take pictures? If I was pregnant we would take them all the?time.?Plus our kids will love to see them and hear stories one day.

Tonight, I was puting our adoption binder together. I love that we are documenting all of this. I may be able to circumvent many afflictions of a pregnant mama like swollen feet,? heartburn, and more weight gain (heaven knows I don’t need this). However, no pregnant mom has to order, fill out, and organize so much paperwork. It’s insane. I knew beforehand how much it would entail, but with international adoptions there are so many extra steps.

Anyone know what the term apostille means? How about the difference between the INS, BCIS, and USCIS? Yeah, I thought so. We even know more about notarizing than we ever wanted to.

As the binder gets thicker and thicker, I realize that bringing home our children gets closer and closer. I now have something tactile to show for it. I LOVE MY BINDER! Instead of rubbing my tummy, I can rub my binder. Weird, huh? Not natural, but very cool!