Well, I am not tech savvy enough to connect my phone wirelessly to my computer and pull pictures off so I have no pictures of the girls today. Right now I have to email them to myself, save to my computer and then then upload - is there a better way?? If so, some of you savvy people need to let me know!
Olivia and I didn't make it to church today b/c Olivia wasn't feeling well and wasn't really herself. We could tell she didn't feel great. I don't think anything severe - just a little out of the norm so we kept her home. I felt especially bad b/c Danny was teaching our Connect Class today. He always gets a little nervous about that so I would have liked to have been there to support him.
We had a good week of progress this week with the adoption. On Thursday, I noticed the USCIS had deposited our check we sent with our I-800a - which means they received our paperwork. YAY! That is step 1:). I'm hoping that on Tuesday I will receive our USCIS receipt and then a week later receive our fingerprint appointment. Please be praying that God softens the heart of the officer that is assigned our case and of the workers in the building where we are going to have our fingerprints. This is all b/c the day after we receive our appointments - we are going to "walk-in" to get our fingerprints and just pray that they let us do it. We will then call our officer and as if he will approve same day!! That is a lot of "if" statements :). IF all of that works out - and I can get an email copy of our approval immediately - we will have it notarized and then I will attempt to pull off a trifecta event with the approval going to 3 different people without ever coming back to me - that way we don't lose even a day! IF all of that works out - then we could send our dossier to China by February 6th - a Friday. That would give them a full week to work on translation before the entire government of China shuts down for the Chinese New Year! They do not re-open until Monday, March 2nd. In Julie's perfect world - we would have our LID (log-in-date) before the shut-down. But God would have to move mountains for sure for it to happen.
We also have not yet received our pre-approval :(. When the CCCWA re-opened with it's new system - it had some glitches. They have corrected most of them but the issues that still remain are uploading passport pictures. So, even though we have her file locked - our "pre-approval application" is technically not complete b/c they can't upload our pictures. Oh well - trusting God to work all that out. Can't wait until we get that pre-approval.
We also applied for mom's and Olivia's passports! :) That is exciting but I'm also a nervous wreck about this b/c we had to send originals off and for Olivia those were the only originals we had! I'm also not 100% sure we sent the correct documents b/c the lady that was helping us wasn't 100% sure either. Guess its not everyday she deals with a family like ours. We will work to re-adopt Olivia and AnaLei once AnaLei is home. A re-adoption will give them each a US birth certificate which will make life much easier on both of them (school, jobs, etc). We have wanted to get Olivia a passport for some time now and this adoption finally made us do it. I just hope it's a passport we get in the mail and not a notice of "insufficient documentation". In most states - you can just go to the local court clerk or vital records department - fill out some paperwork and get a birth certificate. But not in MS :(. In MS - you have to have a lawyer and it costs so much more b/c of that :(. A $200 process will run us most likely over $1000. Just one of those things I guess.
Elle is growing so much! She really is showing the most adorable personality. She adores Olivia - Olivia just isn't adoring her quite as much just yet :). I think that is typical of a younger and older sister. Elle is 17 months old now and learning so much. She imitates very well and mostly her sister- good and bad :).
Life is good - God is great and we are just trying to run to where he has led us. Please pray for us on this journey and thanks for caring enough to read and follow along with us.
Much Love,
Julie
No comments:
Post a Comment