The Best Christmas Presents We Could Ever Ask For!

Merry Christmas!  God has blessed us with three of the most precious gifts this Christmas.  Our agency called us last Thurs, the 16th, telling us we had been matched with a sibling group of three!!!  We are SO excited and can't believe we will have the opportunity to be parents in just a few months!  We will have a son age 6, a daughter age 8, and a daughter age 10!!  We have received preliminary medical reports and pictures of the children and are now waiting for updated information.  We wrote a letter of intent to the orphanage as the first step towards adopting them.  This reserves the kids for us and no other family can view their file.  When we receive the updated medical reports, we can then make our final decision and send our letter of acceptance.  Our prayer is that nothing has changed since the current information we have, which is about a year old now.  Once we send our acceptance letter, we will receive an official referral from Colombia.  We can share their pictures then.

Our dossier is now in Colombia and is being translated!  It was received by our agency's Colombian representative on Wednesday afternoon.  Sending the dossier to Colombia was a huge step in our adoption process so we now just have to wait for it to get through all of the channels.  As we understand it right now, here are the next steps:
- After our dossier is translated, it goes to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bogota to check all of our  
  apostiiles and stamp it.
- Then it is sent to the ICBF office in Bogota to be approved for us to adopt in Colombia.  ICBF is the 
   governing body that oversees all adptions in Colombia.
- Once ICBF approves us, our dossier will go to the kids' orphanage to make sure our information is still a
   good match with the kids.  The kids are in a foster home but associated with the same orphanage we were
   working with to adopt the boys.  It is called Ayudame.
- The next step is our official referral! 
- Once we accept, the kids will start a transition process with a social worker to prepare for their adoption. 
- We hope to travel late February to early March to get them!

We know God has a great plan for our family and everything happens for a reason.  If we had not found the boys, we would not have started working with our agency.  They have been wonderful to work with!  Also, because of the boys, we started working with Ayudame orphanage, so they had all of our paper work already.  Although our dossier has not been processed, they matched us, since they already had our home study.

We ask that you please pray with us that the adoption process will continue to go smoothly and there are no changes to the kids' medical information.  We pray that they are safe and happy this holiday season.  We know their whole world will soon change so we pray for a smooth transition as they are prepared to join our family.

Today we are a family of two and soon we will be a family of five!!  It is hard to imagine what the holiday season will be like this time next year!  Thank you for all of your prayers and support.  Your friendship is a blessing to us.  May God bless you and your family abundantly this next year!

Christmas in Colombia

Christmas celebrations in Colombia, shaped by the 90% of Colombians who are Roman Catholic, begin in early December with a ceremony in honor of the Virgin Mary. On the evening of December 7th, families light scores of candles and use them to outline streets, sidewalks, and parks so that entire cities are illuminated. December 8th brings a national holiday commemorating the Immaculate Conception during which more prayers and candles are offered to the Virgin Mary. Christmas trees are raised and decorated on December 16th with the start of the Novena, which in Colombia involves a nine-day prayer ritual with a rosary in anticipation of Christmas day. During this time of celebration of Christ's birth, groups of families and friends, often encompassing an entire village or neighborhood, will gather together each night to pray. Villancicos, better known as Christmas carols, are also sung around the nativity scene that plays a significant part of Colombia's Christmas celebrations. Most Colombians attend Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve before returning home for dinner. The Christmas meal often includes a special chicken soup called Ajiaco, homemade breads, fritters, roast port and natilla, a corn-based dessert. Presents are brought by "El Niño Jesus" to the foot of children's beds by the next morning, and after a relaxing day spent with family, the Christmas season is complete. Reference: http://www.msichicago.org/scrapbook/scrapbook_exhibits/catw2004/traditions/countries/colombia.html

Felize Navidad a Su Familia!

Our Dossier Is On Its Way!

It has been very busy around here, but we are so excited we have made it to the next step in all of our paperwork!  On Friday, we started the day off at the local USCIS office in Phoenix for our fingerprints.  They were sent directly to the FBI so we hope to have the approval from Homeland Securituy soon.  Then, we headed to the bank to notarize some more documents and then onto the Secretary of State's office to finish apostilling everything.  We put everything together this weekend and our dossier was FedExed overnight to Colombia yesterday!  Now Colombia will start translating everything.  We plan to spend the next week, while Dainis is on vacation, working on Spanish, learning more about Colombia, and start gathering recipes to try. We hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas week.

More on the Floods in Colombia

Relief efforts are under way for the victims of the floods and mudslides in Colombia.  This is the worst flooding Colombia has experienced in three decades, and it is estimated that damages are up to $5 billion.  Over two million people have lost their homes and are in need of food assistance, water, shelter, and health services.  Although Bogota has experienced the floods, it was not been affected by the mudslides.  All of the orphanages our agency works with are in the capital city of Bogota.  After speaking to our agency, the floods have not affected the adoption process for the orphanages we are working with.  Here is a link to a news cast taken last week regarding the latest on the situation.

http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/ns_sa/2010-12-15/875440022090.html

We're Done!

We finished our Spanish class last night.  It was a 13 week class focusing on Conversational Spanish, at a local community college.  We learned a lot and will now start working on Roseta Stone.  We hope to know as much Spanish as we can, before we go to Colombia.

Our Church's Dinner Theatre

We have a wonderful church with lots of great friends.  Each year, our church puts on a Christmas Dinner Theatre as an outreach to our community, and it is a wonderful time to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas.  We are blessed with a great support system and many of our friends' kids are the same age as the boys we hope to adopt.  We can't wait to share these special times with our own boys!

Terrible Floods Have Hit Colombia

The rainsy season in Colombia usually runs from August to mid December.  However, this has been the worst rainy season in Colombia's history. Reports say that 28 of the 32 areas of Colombia have been affected by these floods and approximately 1.6 miliion people have lost their homes.  On Sunday, the flooding caused a devastating mudslide in a Medellin, which is located in the Northwest part of Colombia.
This huge mudslide swept away about 40 homes and buried over 100 people.  Colombia has now declared a State of Emergency.  We are sad that this rainy season has affected and hurt so much of Colombia and hope the rain will subside soon.

 Here is a link to a video taken after the mudslide on Sunday:

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/multimedia/video-and-audio/detail.dot?mediaInode=a3294acc-3a92-44f9-8388-61d3139a7225

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Happy Holidays!  This is our favorite time of year!  It is finally cooling down here in Phoenix, just in time for the holiday season.  As we put up our Christmas decorations, bake cookies, and reflect on the true meaning of Christmas, we can't wait to share all of this with two new boys next year!  We are still waiting for a match of two more brothers, but we have been very busy.  We have had the opportunity to participate in Operation Christmas Child, had the joy of putting together gifts for the Salvation Army's Angel Tree, had our big fundraiser event, and are now working on Christmas cards.  We want to thank each of you for your friendship!

Everything Made It to USCIS!

Our home study and all of our forms made it safely to the USCIS office in MO, and we are so excited!  We received a form called an I-797C from the US Department of Homeland Security, as confirmation receipt and notice of action.  This is the last stop, and everything should be processed by early January.  The next step will be to go and get more fingerprints done and the USCIS will schedule that appointment for us, within the next few weeks.

The Jewelry Is In

The jewelry from Premier Designs is here, just in time for your Christmas parties or to be wrapped up for Christmas morning!  If you live locally, your purchases will be delivered to you.  If you live out of town, you should have received it.  Thanks so much to each of you for your purchases and support!  We really appreciate your help.  We would like to say a big thank you to Trisha, our our Premier Designs jeweler, who helped us make this fundraiser a success!  If you are interested in hosting your own Premier Designs show, please contact Trisha by email at trishathejewelrylady@yahoo.com or call her cell phone at 623-986-9463.  

Happy Thanksgiving

We want to wish each of you a wonderful Thanksgiving and a special holiday season with family and friends.  We have so much to be thankful for this year, and God has blessed us with so much.  This is our favorite time of the year, and we can't wait to share these special holidays and family traditions with our own kids next year.

Our Forms Made It to Their First Stop

Our forms and home study made it to their first stop at a USCIS office in Lewisville, TX.  The forms wiill be logged in, and funds will be processed.  Then, it is off to their second stop at the National Benefits Center, located in Lee's Summit, Missouri.  This is the USCIS center that our I-800A forms will be processed at.  We will soon receive an appointment to do another set of fingerprints, which will be our fourth set!  Our hope is that everything will be approved by early January.  The next and last stop will be our dossier to Colombia!

The Candles Are In

  

The candles from PartyLite are here, just in time for the holidays!  If you live locally, your purchases will be delivered to you by this weekend.  If you live out of town, they should be arriving to you any day.  Thanks so much to each of you for your purchases and support!  We would like to say a big thank you to Jennifer, our PartyLite consultant, who helped us so much during this fundraiser!  If you are interested in hosting your own PartyLite show or would like to view their catalog and products on-line, please go to Jennifer's website at www.partylite.biz/sites/curriecandles

Our Paper Work Is Off to the Next Step!

We heard from Lutheran today, and are so excited!  They said our approved home study was sent today to a USCIS office in Texas, via Fed Ex.  USCIS stands for US Citizenship and Immigration Services, and it is part of Homeland Security.  A USCIS approval means that the US government approves us to adopt from Colombia!  Once all of our paper work is documented in Texas, it will go to another USCIS office in Missouri to continue processing.  The next step is to wait for an e-mail with instructions to go and get our finger prints taken again.  This will be our fourth set of fingerprints we have taken since we began our adoption process!  Once USCIS in Missouri receives our fingerprints, they can continue processing our case.  This approval will hopefully come early January, and it will be our last big document needed for our dossier.  Then the last big step is to put everything together and Fed Ex it to Colombia.  Our dossier will include our approved home study, the FBI finger print clearance for each of us, our approval from USCIS allowing us to adopt from Colombia, a certified copy of each of our birth certificates and marriage certificate, 11 additional documents, and 23 pictures of us and our house.  All of our documents have been notarized and apostilled (a notary of the notary by the AZ Secretary of State).  It has been a lot of work to get all of this put together, but we are so excited it is almost ready to go.  Thank you for all of your prayers and support!

Operation Christmas Child

We had the joy of shopping and putting together Christmas boxes again this year, through the Operation Christmas Child program.  With each activity we do, we are so excited for all the opportunities we will have in the future to share with our own kids. When we think about what the holiday season will mean next year with the new additions to our family, we can't wait!

Sign Up To Be A Follower Today

We would like to extend a big thank you to those who are reading about our journey on this blog.  If you aren't a follower yet, we would love for you to become one, so we can see who is following our adoption process.  To become a follower, just click the word "Follow" on the right margin of this page, which is right below the title "Our Agencies".  Then click "Create a New Google Account".  You can edit your name a picture at this point if you would like.  Finally, just click "Follow this blog".  It's that easy.  We will keep updating you every few days, and are excited to share everything with you.

We Have FBI Fingerprint Approval!

We received our FBI Fingerprints today and are so excited!!!  When we called last week, the person we spoke to at the FBI said that they were only proccessing finger print requests from the first of September and they didn't receive ours until September 27th.  But, they came by FedEx today!  God keeps opening one door after another for us as we go through this adoption process.  We are now one step closer to finishing our paper work.  We want to thank everyone again for all of their support of us!

Our First Latin Festival

We attended a Latin festival today called La Gran Fiesta: A Celebration of Hispanic Heritage and Culture.  We had the opportunity to see several performances.  These pictures were from the Mariachi Corazon Latino and Vista del Comino Ballet Folklorico.  We are so excited to continue learning about the Latin culture.

Our Second Fundraiser Event

We had our fundraiser party last night and we want to thank everyone so much for coming!  We loved having you at our house and appreciate all of your support.  For all of our out of town friends and those who could not come, thank you also for your support and friendships.  We wish you could have been here for the party!  We send a huge thank you to each of you for your help in making this fundraiser a success and your continued prayers while we are on this adoption journey. We have extended the ordering period until Saturday, if anyone would still like to order.

Our Fundraiser

This is the last week of our fundraiser event!!  We really appreciate everyone who has sent us a donation and order!  If you are still in the process of sending your orders to us, we will be ordering all of the prducts next week.  For all of our local friends, we hope you can join us for our fundraiser party this Thursday night at our house at 6:30 PM.  Please e-mail us if we can answer any questions.  We send a big thanks to you all!

Great News!

We received the approval of our home study from the AZ court this weekend, and we are so excited!!  We have been waiting for over three weeks, so we are so glad it is finally here.  Only AZ and IL require court approvals of home studies for an adoption.  A notorized copy of our home study and the clearance document of court approval is now on its way to Lutheran.  Once they get it, they will send it, along with some forms called I-800 forms, to the US government.  The purpose of these forms is to get the US government's approval to allow us to adopt.  It will take 30 - 60 days to process.  We are one step closer to sending our documents to Colombia!

Dossier Documents Apostiled

Dainis was able to get quite a few of our documents apostiled today.  After our documents are notarized, they have to be taken to the Secretary of State in Phoenix to be apostiled.  An apostil is a notary of the notarized document.   We needed to send our birth certificates and marriage certificate to MN for apostil so hopefully that will be done soon.  It is a lot of paper work, but we are staying organized and making sure we don't miss any details.  We have a few more documents, our home study, finger print approval, and US government approval to still be apostiled and then all of our documents will be on their way to Colombia!!

Home Study Court Approval Pending

We hope to get both our approved home study from the AZ court and the approval of our FBI fingerprints this week, so we are anxiously waiting.  It has been 3 weeks since our home study was submitted to court and right at 30 days since the FBI received our finger prints.  Many thanks to each of you who have written to us after reading about our loss of Sebastian and Andres.  We appreciate each of your friendships!  We are looking forward to the future when we learn about new brothers God has  picked out for us.

Our Fundraiser Continues

Our fundraiser is going very well!  We can't thank each of you enough for both your emotional and financial support, thus far in our adoption process!  It means so much to us, and we really appreciate each of you!

A Very Difficult Day!

We now understand the roller coaster of emotions associated with adoption.  As you know, we have been waiting to hear more information about the boys from Colombia.  We found them in July and started the process then to hopefully adopt them.  After receiving the pre-approval on September 20th, we have been waiting for the boys' medical history and the official match.  Unfortunately, we got a call from our agency this morning that was not the news we were hoping for.  Our agency just heard from Colombia that the boys have been matched to another family.  The boys were under the protection of the Colombian government but also associated with the private orphanage, Ayudame.  Because the government, the public orphanage, and the private orphanage have all been involved, communication has been confusing and slow.  The huge blessing is they will have a forever family and each child deserves to have one.  We know God has a plan for us, and He has the exact kids picked out for us.  We are glad to now have an answer and just have to wait to see what the future holds for us.  We are still part of the Colombian program at Lutheran and will continue to move forward on our paper work.  They have been wonderful to work with!  It will take a few months to get everything approved by the US government.  Once everything is approved in the US, it will take two weeks to one month to translate in Colombia.  As we continue with our paper work, we will be watching the waiting child list to see if other children become available that would be another good match for our family.  We are sad as we have thought about, loved, and planned for these boys to be a part of our family since July.  However, we are glad we could have the excitement of putting things together and think about what life would be like with two boys running around.  We will now just have to wait and see what kids God has picked out for us since Sebastian and Andres aren't the ones.  As we get more and more of our paper work done, we will be ready as soon as a match comes.  Our fundraiser is still set for November 4th and the money will be a great help as we continue with the process.We greatly appreciate everyone's support and friendship as we continue on this adoption journey!

Our First Draft of Dossier Documents

We are putting together all of our dossier documents to go to Colombia, and we will be e-mailing them to Lutheran tomorrow for review.  We are still waiting to hear about the boys so hopefully we will hear more this week.  Our home study has been in AZ court for two weeks now so we hope that will also be approved this week.  As soon as it is approved, a notarized copy will go to Lutheran.  They will send it with other documents that we have completed, called I-800 forms, to the US government for approval for us to adopt.  It takes about 2 months for the documents to be processed at the US government so we are anxious to get our information to them. 

Here is a picture of all of the pictures we put together.  We are excited to get all of this paper work done.  We will keep you posted!

Still Waiting

It has now been four weeks since we received our pre-approval, which was on September 20th.  We are waiting for more information from Colombia regarding the boys' medical history.  Once we receive that we will send it to the pediatrition we picked out and the University of Minnesota.  The U of M has a great international adoption clinic.  They will review all of the medical information we have been given and then have a consultation with us on what all of the information means.  We hope we will hear something this week!

Our First Big Payment

It's time to start making payments!  We sent a check to Lutheran today for our first big payment of $5000.  This will cover all of the costs associated with the adoption process here in the United States.  Our next payment will be when we send our dossier off to Colombia.  We can't wait!  We hope to be sending it in December, which is right around the corner.

My Last Day at SWAN

Today was my last day at SWAN Rehab for this year.  I was able to work with Kay Wing, director and founder of SWAN, two hours a day for this week.  I will now work on my home exercise program for the rest of this year, and go back after the first of the year for another week of therapy.  It is hard to believe that on January 24th, it will be eight years since my stroke!

This is a picture of me with Kay at the therapy clinic this week.

Another Trip to the Travel Medicine Clinic

We went back to the travel medicine clinic today.  Today we got another Hepatitis B and typhoid vaccine.  Boy did our arms get sore!  We will go for our last Hepatitis shots in March.

The Fundraiser Packets Have Been Mailed

We sent out fundraiser packets to many of our friends around the country over the past few weeks.  We received our first order back today!  Thank you so much to everyone for your support!!  If you did not receive a fundraiser packet and want one, please let us know.  We are selling high quality jewelry from Premier Design and high quality candles from PartyLite.  50% of the sales will go towards our adoption benefit.  We will be selling these items until November 4th.  We owe a huge thank you to two of Lori's girlfriends who put this together for us!!  We have been blessed by so many wonderful friends, and we thank you all!

Thearapy Time Again

I started my last session of therapy for this year at SWAN Rehab today.  I will work all week with the director and founder of SWAN, Kay Wing, on my hand and my walk.  I will work with her for two hours every day this week.  On Friday, she will give me a home exercise program she put together for me that I will work on until I come back next year.

Our Spanish Presentation

We have our first Spanish presentation in our class tomorrow night.  We have to stand up in front of the class and talk about our families in Spanish while using a Power Point presentation of pictures!  It is time to practice!

Pictures for Our Dossier

One of the requirements for our dossier to Colombia is pictures.  So we worked on those today after church.  First, we needed six passport photos of each of us so it was off to Walmart!  Then we needed pictures of us individually and together as a couple.  This is what we needed to take:  pictures of Lori full length, from the waist up, from the shoulder up, and then from the head up.  Dainis needed to take these same four shots.  Then we needed pictures together full length and then waist up.  All were formal dress with Lori in a dress and Dainis in a suit and tie.  We will also enclose a picture of the front of the house, the back of the house, four pictures of the inside of the house, and pictures of the boys' room.  Lots of pictures!

Enjoying Nature

We had the chance to go on a little hike this afternoon to an area called Superstition Mountain.  I am so excited I can do things like this now, and we can't wait to do these things with our boys!

Our Dossier Documents

We continue to work on all of our documents for our dossier.  There are 16 documents that have to be put together and notarized.  We hope to have most of these completed by next weekend.  This is when you really have to stay organized!

Sebastian's Special Day!

We are still waiting to hear from Lutheran regarding the boys medical records.  It has been 2 1/2 weeks since they requested them from Colombia so hopefully we will get them soon!!

Meanwhile, today is a very special day!!!  Today is Sebastian's 10th birthday.  We are sorry we can't celebrate with him this year.  We hope he has a good day and we are very excited that we can celebrate with him next year!

Our Second Fundraiser Begins

We kicked off fundraiser two today.  We will be selling quality candles by PartyLite and quality jewelry by Premier Designs.  Packets have gone out in the mail to friends around the country and we will have a party here at our house on November 4th.  50% of sales goes to our adoption benefit!

Our Home Study is Off to AZ Court

Our home study was sent to AZ Juvenile Court today for approval.  This approval process takes about two weeks.  Once it is approved, Lutheran will receive a notorized copy, and we will officially be done with our home study!  Only two states require court approval and AZ is one of them!

Our Psych Eval

We had our evaluation with a wonderful doctor last Thursday.  We had an interview and took a 500 question test!  She was great to work with!  She sent her report to Lutheran today so that piece of paper work is done!

Off to School

¿Hablas Español?  Do you speak Spanish?

Nosotros adoptamos dos niños y son los hermanos.  Son de Colombia.  Nosotros estamos aprendiendo Español en la universidad.  ¡Gracias por su amistad!

We are adopting two boys and they are brothers.  They are from Colombia.  We are studying Spanish at a community college.  

Our class is two nights a week along with homework and tests, but we are learning a lot.  Our final exam and last day of class will be December 13th.  Thank you for your friendship!

Our Fingerprints Made It

We received confirmation that the FBI received our finger prints and signed for them this morning.  Yeah!

Lori's Grandfather

This picture is in loving memory of Lori's Grandfather, who passed away today.  This was taken at our wedding.  He knew all about our adoption before he passed away, and we are sorry he will not have the opportunity to meet his Great-Grandsons.

Our Fingerprints are Off

We went to Fed Ex to overnight our finger prints to the FBI tonight!  It will take about 2 months to get them processed. The three big steps of approval we need to get in order to complete our dossier is our approved home study, our approval of fingerprints from the FBI, and approval from the US government to allow us to adopt.  Our home study is now in the AZ court, our finger prints are off, and we hope to submit our paper work to the US government in November.  We are clicking right along!

The Boys' Home

We do know the boys are in a children's home in Bogota called Ayudame. Ayudame was established in 1977, and during its 33 years, it has placed 1,870 children in loving and adoptive families.  The organization currently provides care to 50 children and 10 expectant parents. It is a child focused organization that LSSMN has partnered with for the duration of our 26 years in Colombia.  Ayudame means "Help Me". 

A Very Busy Day

Dainis took a day of vacation and we had a very busy adoption day!  We went to the police department to take our third set of fingerprints.  These prints will go to the FBI and will hopefully be procrssed in 30-60 days.  Then we went to the travel medicine clinic again to get the typhoid and yellow fever vaccinations for Dainis.  We then went to do a psychological evalution, which included an interview and a test.  We ended the day at the pediatrition's office we chose to learn more about them.  It was a busy but great day.

I'ts A Great Day!

We received our pre-approval from Colombia today, and we are so excited!!!!  We can now continue with the adoption process and start working on our dossier, which are all of the documents that will go to Colombia.  We are so excited and hope that the process will continue to go smoothly so we will be able to adopt the boys.  We will look forward to receiving more information on the boys over the next few weeks.  It is being translated to English now.

The boys' names are Sebastian and Andres.  Sebastian will be 10 on October 6th and Andres turned 8 in April.  We put it as an entry when we first started looking at the boys but this is what their description said.

Two sweet brothers are waiting for a family! They have a strong desire

to be in a warm, loving, supportive home. The boys are good students.

They have tender, loving hearts and relate well to their peers. They

younger brother likes to play soccer and the older brother enjoys

playing board games. They both enjoy cars and Legos.

The Travel Medicine Clinic

I went with my parents to a travel medicine clinic today.  My parents plan to come and visit while we are in Colombia and meet the boys so we decided to all get vaccinations.  We have to have 3 Heapatitis B shots, 2 Hapatitis A shots, a yellow fever, and a typhoid vaccine.  We got the A, B, and yellow fever today.  We have learned a lot by talking to the nurse on all of the things we should consider before we leave, in order to be safe.  One thing she suggested is that we get evacuation insurance.  If something happens, I can be air lifted to a good hospital that is equipped to help me.  We will be there up to 8 weeks when we go to get the boys so having me in another country for 2 months is a concern for everyone.  We are glad to know the options we have in case we need help.

Home Study Approval by LSS

Our rough draft for our home study was sent to Lutheran today, and we are so excited!  We can't continue to the next step until we receive our pre-approval.  It has now been 7 weeks since we submitted our initial letter.  Soon though our home study draft will be sent to AZ Juvenile Court.  We will be one step closer, and all of our paper work is going smoothly.  Meanwhile, we are busy taking our Spanish classes and working on Roseta Stone.  The older you get the harder it is to remember everything!  Adios!

A Pool Fence

We can now check off another big construction project...a pool fence!  It is part of AZ state law for us to have a pool fence since we are adopting.

Our Home Study is Almost Done

Our social worker from ICF plans to finish writing our home study draft this weekend, which we are very excited about!  She will send the draft to LSS for approval.  Meanwhile, our home study will now be sent to AZ Juvenile Court to be approved by the state.  Only two states require this state approval and one of them is AZ!  We do know that a case has been opened at the court for our adoption, and they know our home study is coming.  Our fingerprints should be cleared by September 26th and then we just will wait till the AZ Court approves it.  Once the court approves it, our home study is officially done!

Still Wating

Lutheran Social Services received our application today so we are getting closer to the next step, which is home study approval.  We continue to wait to hear back from Colombia.  It has been five weeks now.

Our Second Meeting with ICF

We had another meeting with our social worker from International Child Foundation today.  We are now done with the home study, and the rough draft will be sent to Lutheran soon.

Our Paperwork for Colombia Has Now Begun

We received all of the paperwork and application from Lutheran today.  After our home study is done and approved, we can start putting together our dossier and application to Colombia.  The dossier is all of the documents that are put together for the Colombian government.  Part of the dossier is to go to the US government and get their permision for us to adopt.  Here come more fingrerprints!  Once it is put together and sent, it will be translated.  Then again, we wait! For now though, we will sit tight and hope we get our pre-approval.

Our First Meeting with ICF

INTERNATIONAL
CHILD FOUNDATION, Inc.Hague Accredited, Licensed & Non-Profit Adoption & Home Study Services

We had the first meeting with our case worker today at our house, and it went great.  We showed her the house, and she spent a few hours talking to us both about our childhood, our values, and our ideas on parenting.  We will have our next meeting soon, and we will do seperate individual interviews.  The next step will be to write our home study and present it to Lutheran for approval.  In AZ, your study then has to go through court to be completely approved.

Waiting

It has been two weeks since we sent our pre-approval letter to Colombia.  We hope to hear something soon.

The Boys' Room

We set up the boys' room in a cowboy theme and are very excited!  The Longhorns in the room were from Lori's time in the Longhorn Band at the University of Texas.  Dainis made both a clock and the bunk bed drawers.  The room is filled with special things in our lives and filled with a lot of love.!  Now, we will continue to wait to complete the next step.  When we look at everything, God has blessed us with so much!



 



Our Dog Lucky is ready to go!