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!