You wouldn't think getting things notarized would be that big of a deal. Especially when it is at the bank where you have your money...a place where you've even gotten things notarized in the past. And you would be wrong. It turns out that our bank has some kind of "policy" that prohibits them from notarizing personal documents. But isn't pretty much anything anyone would ever get notarized personal, at least to that person. Maybe it was just a woman on a power trip, but needless to say, if they didn't give us such a good interest rate, I think we would be moving our money elsewhere.
And the first place we would think about moving it is to the bank where we DID get our documents notarized. Turns out the notary there didn't think notarizing our 8 documents was a big deal. She was even excited for us and the fact that we are adopting. And we got it all taken care of Saturday morning, allowing us to have a relaxing weekend without worrying where we were going to find a nice notary.
So the bad news is that some people at our bank aren't very helpful. But the good news is that there are other nice people willing to notarize our documents. We just sent off copies of everything, all 33 pages of our dossier, to our agency for them to review. Once we get their okay, we will just need to get 2 of the documents certified at the Texas Secretary of State office in Austin, and then the whole thing will be off to Washington D.C. and then Ethiopia. We are one step closer.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
31 out of 33...almost there!
After spreading out all our paperwork on the living room floor yesterday, it looks like we are only missing 2 of the 33 papers required for our dossier! After we get those, it will be off to the bank for one more mass notary signing session. Then we will get our paperwork authenticated and sealed and sent with a courier service to DC. After that, it is sent to Ethiopia for translation and we will begin waiting for Ethiopian approval and then our referral. We have heard that once the dossier is submitted, it will be anywhere from 6 to 16 months until we are home with our children. Thanks for praying with us!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Approved!
We had just been mulling over the next installment of "Interesting Facts", but it looks like you are in luck as we have some MUCH more exciting news. Today we got the following in the mail: "It has been determined that you are able to furnish proper care to an orphan(s)." Our Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition has been approved by the US Citizenship and Imigration Services! Next step, compile the documents for our dossier and keep this train a-rollin'.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Monday Morning Excitement
Well, good news...the fingerprinting is officially over. It went pretty well. Good, not great, as some might say. Here's the story. On Friday afternoon, I (Jon) went to the assigned location to have my biometrics (just a fancy word for fingerprints) taken. The office was empty, so I had no wait. The friendly fingerprint guy filled out my paperwork, scanned my fingers on the fingerprint machine, had me fill out a comment card about how my experience had been, and I was done. Ten minutes, tops. No problems whatsoever.
Ok, fast forward to Monday morning. I'm at work, sitting at my desk, checking my email, messing with a spreadsheet...the usual Monday morning stuff. And I get a phone call from my lovely wife.
"Hey, how did your fingerprinting go this morning?"
"Baby! I passed out!"
"You what??? You passed out??? At the fingerprint place???"
"Yup."
It turns out that if you have fingerprints that are hard for the machine to read, you might be standing there for a while. After the friendly fingerprint guy has no luck, then the friendly fingerprint gal gets to try (apparently she is better at it). And if you lock your knees while standing at the fingerprint machine for an extended period of time, you will, in fact, pass out. Fortunately, the friendly fingerprint folks are quick on their feet and can catch a suddenly unconcious individual before they even hit the floor.
After a few more tries (and remembering not to lock her knees), Joy's fingerprints were successfully captured without further incident. I'm guessing that the fingerprint folks, not to mention the waiting room full of people, probably had a pretty good story to tell when they got home. Who would've expected such an exciting Monday morning?
Ok, fast forward to Monday morning. I'm at work, sitting at my desk, checking my email, messing with a spreadsheet...the usual Monday morning stuff. And I get a phone call from my lovely wife.
"Hey, how did your fingerprinting go this morning?"
"Baby! I passed out!"
"You what??? You passed out??? At the fingerprint place???"
"Yup."
It turns out that if you have fingerprints that are hard for the machine to read, you might be standing there for a while. After the friendly fingerprint guy has no luck, then the friendly fingerprint gal gets to try (apparently she is better at it). And if you lock your knees while standing at the fingerprint machine for an extended period of time, you will, in fact, pass out. Fortunately, the friendly fingerprint folks are quick on their feet and can catch a suddenly unconcious individual before they even hit the floor.
After a few more tries (and remembering not to lock her knees), Joy's fingerprints were successfully captured without further incident. I'm guessing that the fingerprint folks, not to mention the waiting room full of people, probably had a pretty good story to tell when they got home. Who would've expected such an exciting Monday morning?
Monday, July 12, 2010
Fingerprint Dates!
Just when we thought it was time for "interesting facts", we have some real news! In the mail today we got a few letters from USCIS...one stating they received our application for an orphan visa, one for Jon with a fingerprinting date, and one for Joy with a fingerprinting date. We are pretty excited because this is about 3 weeks sooner than we expected! Jon is getting fingerprinted on July 30th at 3:00 and Joy on August 2nd at 8:00 (apparently, failure to show means "your application will be considered abandoned"). Yeesh...what a bunch of sticklers.
We are really thankful to hear back so soon. Keep praying the rest of the process is just as quick!
We are really thankful to hear back so soon. Keep praying the rest of the process is just as quick!
Interesting Facts #1 - Addis Ababa
There isn't really anything new on the adoption front. We are still waiting to hear back from the USCIS about when we need to get fingerprinted. While we wait, we are continuing to get paperwork together that we will submit for our dossier once we have USCIS approval. We are also "fixin' to" (as they say here in Texas) apply for several adoption grants.
But since there isn't much to report, we thought we would start a series of posts to provide you with some "interesting" facts, primarily about Ethiopia or adoption. We will warn you that what we (or perhaps just one of us) might think is interesting you may instead find dull and boring. Consider that our disclaimer and feel free to stop reading at this point.
For those of you still reading, thanks! Today we will be enlightening you with facts about Ethiopia's capital city. Addis Ababa means "New Flower" and is the largest city in the country with 3 to 4 million people. The city was founded in 1886 by Emperor Menelik II. It is located in the foothills of Mount Entoto at an elevation of 7,874 feet. Because of its high altitude and proximity to the equator, the temperatures are very constant from month to month. The average monthly highs range from 69 to 77 degrees and lows range from 46 to 54 degrees.
Addis Ababa has several sister cities around the world, including Beijing, China; Beersheba, Israel; and San Francisco, California. Some tourist sites of interest include the the National Museum, Africa Hall, the National Palace, Menelik Mausoleum, the National Library, Trinity Cathedral, and Mercato (one of the largest outdoor markets in the world), among many other interesting attractions. Hopefully we will be able to visit some of these attractions when we are in the country. After that we should be able to offer better suggestions of places to see and whatnot. For now we will just have to base everything on what we can find on the ever-reliable world wide web.
Well, we hope that you have learned something today (and maybe even found it interesting). Be on the lookout for more "interesting" facts coming soon!
But since there isn't much to report, we thought we would start a series of posts to provide you with some "interesting" facts, primarily about Ethiopia or adoption. We will warn you that what we (or perhaps just one of us) might think is interesting you may instead find dull and boring. Consider that our disclaimer and feel free to stop reading at this point.
For those of you still reading, thanks! Today we will be enlightening you with facts about Ethiopia's capital city. Addis Ababa means "New Flower" and is the largest city in the country with 3 to 4 million people. The city was founded in 1886 by Emperor Menelik II. It is located in the foothills of Mount Entoto at an elevation of 7,874 feet. Because of its high altitude and proximity to the equator, the temperatures are very constant from month to month. The average monthly highs range from 69 to 77 degrees and lows range from 46 to 54 degrees.
Addis Ababa has several sister cities around the world, including Beijing, China; Beersheba, Israel; and San Francisco, California. Some tourist sites of interest include the the National Museum, Africa Hall, the National Palace, Menelik Mausoleum, the National Library, Trinity Cathedral, and Mercato (one of the largest outdoor markets in the world), among many other interesting attractions. Hopefully we will be able to visit some of these attractions when we are in the country. After that we should be able to offer better suggestions of places to see and whatnot. For now we will just have to base everything on what we can find on the ever-reliable world wide web.
Well, we hope that you have learned something today (and maybe even found it interesting). Be on the lookout for more "interesting" facts coming soon!
Thursday, July 1, 2010
USCIS Paperwork Sent!
Yay! We have sent in our paper work to the citizenship and immigration services department!
Friday, June 25, 2010
A Bit of News
Last week we were able to try out a different Ethiopian restaurant with some friends in Kansas City. The food was pretty similar to the one in Dallas, but the atmosphere wasn't quite the same. We still enjoyed it though. Now that we have had the food a couple of times we should probably try making some of it ourselves, don't ya think? We'll see how that goes.
We had a bit of good news today. Almost 3 weeks after our home visit, the home study report is in the mail. So, we should have everything ready to send off to USCIS sometime next week. Yay!
We had a bit of good news today. Almost 3 weeks after our home visit, the home study report is in the mail. So, we should have everything ready to send off to USCIS sometime next week. Yay!
Monday, June 7, 2010
Home Study Completed
On Saturday, our social worker from Dallas came to meet us and interview us for the home visit portion of the home study. It went great! First, she interviewed both of us together with questions about our philosophy on parenting, on discipline, and about our home life. Then she interviewed us each seperately and asked questions about our immediate family and what it was like for us growing up. It all went very smoothly, and we were finished with everything in less than 2 hours. We think she will be a great ally and resource for us through the adoption process.
One of the things that we talked about was some of the common health problems that she has seen in her experience with kids adopted from Ethiopia. She said we could pretty much expect our kids to have parasites and scabies, but attachment disorders, institutionalization effects, and fetal alcohol syndrome are not very common in kids from Ethiopia, which is great to hear. It will take about two weeks for us to receive her written report. Once we have that, we can submit our paperwork for USCIS approval to adopt. Please join us in praying that the approval process will be speedy.
We had a great weekend with being able to complete this final part of our home study as well as having our friends from Colorado come and visit us. They brought homemade Ethiopia-shaped sugar cookies and they were delicious! Fortunately she took a picture when she was making them because we had eaten most of them before we even thought about it...that is how good they were. Thanks friends!
That is a pretty good resemblance, don't you think?
One of the things that we talked about was some of the common health problems that she has seen in her experience with kids adopted from Ethiopia. She said we could pretty much expect our kids to have parasites and scabies, but attachment disorders, institutionalization effects, and fetal alcohol syndrome are not very common in kids from Ethiopia, which is great to hear. It will take about two weeks for us to receive her written report. Once we have that, we can submit our paperwork for USCIS approval to adopt. Please join us in praying that the approval process will be speedy.
We had a great weekend with being able to complete this final part of our home study as well as having our friends from Colorado come and visit us. They brought homemade Ethiopia-shaped sugar cookies and they were delicious! Fortunately she took a picture when she was making them because we had eaten most of them before we even thought about it...that is how good they were. Thanks friends!
That is a pretty good resemblance, don't you think?
Friday, June 4, 2010
Your Questions Answered
Will we travel to get our baby/babies?
Yes, we will actually make two trips to Ethiopia. The first trip will be to go to court in Ethiopia to gain legal custody. The second trip will be to take our little ones to the US Embassy for visas and then bring them home! We don't really know how long it will be between the first and second trip. Ethiopia recently changed it's laws so that two trips are now required, and no one is sure yet how long the time between will be.
Boy or girl?
We have no preference on the gender, so we have no idea! Maybe one of each?!?
How old does "baby" mean?
On our application we said that we would be happy with the age range of infant to 3 years old. It is completely possible that our kids aren't even born yet!
Have we thought about names?
We are not sure on names. Right now we are thinking we would give them a first name and maybe keep their Ethiopian name for a middle name or even pick out a different Ethiopian name. Or maybe we will stick with giving them family names like Hans or Fritz :-)
____________________________________________________
If you have any more questions, just let us know and we'll get them answered.
Now here is some fun news...our good friend Pearl in Colorado made cookies in the shape of Ethiopia and will be visiting us today with her boys to personally deliver them! We may post pictures (if we don't eat them all first).
A second piece of fun news...our home visit is tomorrow! We'll let you know how it goes.
Yes, we will actually make two trips to Ethiopia. The first trip will be to go to court in Ethiopia to gain legal custody. The second trip will be to take our little ones to the US Embassy for visas and then bring them home! We don't really know how long it will be between the first and second trip. Ethiopia recently changed it's laws so that two trips are now required, and no one is sure yet how long the time between will be.
Boy or girl?
We have no preference on the gender, so we have no idea! Maybe one of each?!?
How old does "baby" mean?
On our application we said that we would be happy with the age range of infant to 3 years old. It is completely possible that our kids aren't even born yet!
Have we thought about names?
We are not sure on names. Right now we are thinking we would give them a first name and maybe keep their Ethiopian name for a middle name or even pick out a different Ethiopian name. Or maybe we will stick with giving them family names like Hans or Fritz :-)
____________________________________________________
If you have any more questions, just let us know and we'll get them answered.
Now here is some fun news...our good friend Pearl in Colorado made cookies in the shape of Ethiopia and will be visiting us today with her boys to personally deliver them! We may post pictures (if we don't eat them all first).
A second piece of fun news...our home visit is tomorrow! We'll let you know how it goes.
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