TA and Heat!

We have our TA!!! That means that we now have permission to travel to China to pick up our daughter.  The next available travel group for us will leave on August 1st.  We should have no problem getting into that travel group.  We do, however, have to get our fingerprints redone at Homeland Security.  Unfortunately, they expire on August 9th, and our consulate appointment would be on the 13th or 14th.  So we now have an appointment--but we will actually be trying to get them done earlier.  We should get our paperwork from the National Benefit Center for Immigration in the next day or two.  We will then take a road trip to Dover and see if they will do them early. 
Once we have done that, the NBC will issue a new I-797.  We can then get our consulate appointment.  Once we have that we will get our itinerary and we can buy airline tickets.  It shouldn't be this complicated, but if you know anything about us, this is not surprising. 
Lord Willing in less than 5 weeks we will be on our way to getting our daughter.
In the meantime, we are thankful for the heatwave.......because it is preparing us for the weather in Guangzhou!  It will be very hot and humid there! So we are practicing being out in the heat.....OK......we are not practicing that much.....

I now have a spare bed filled with things that need to go to China with us......I suspect that by the time we actually pack....I will have to pare it down.....

I do feel a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing.  We do not have updated info on Rebecca...so we are not exactly sure what size clothing to bring for her.  I do not know if we will get an update before we go...do we are going to have to guess.

I can hardly believe that it is finally getting closer.

Care Package #2

We were able to send Rebecca a second care package.  I am once again  using Ann at Red Thread.  We sent her the lavender suggly that Pam and Sandy made for her--we slept with it for a couple of months, hoping that it would pick up our scent--so that she could get used to it before we meet her.

We also sent her a little stuffed dog--we are hoping that it will pick up the scent of the orphanage, so that she will smell something familiar after she comes to us.

We also sent a Red Book to the orphanage.  We are hoping that they will fill it out and give it back to us.  It has a number of questions about Rebecca's life there.  Things like, who is her favorite care giver, when did she take her first step. and what does she like to eat.  We don't know if we will get it back, but we at least wanted to try.

We then bought some things from Ann--we bought a USB drive--hoping that if the orphanage has any pictures or videos of Rebecca, they will copy them and give us the USB drive.  We also bought her another very cute outfit.  We also decided to send some cookies and teas to her nannies at the orphanage.

Here are some pictures of the care package.

 

We think that she will get this package by the end of the week.  We are getting very anxious to meet her.  We know it is getting closer, but it isn't close enough!

The paper work!

We have had a lot of paperwork to complete before we are able to bring Rebecca home. 

It all started with our preliminary application to Bethany.  From there we had to get fingerprinted (and refingerprinted) quite a number of times.  It was sad ( and kind of funny) when the ladies at Delaware Police station 2 recognized us!  

Once we were approved, we had to submit our Dossier to China-basically all of our personal and financial information. We had to collect birth certificates, our marriage certificate, get our passports updated (thankfully they did not expire yet!) we had to have a social worker visit our home, interview both of us and write a 12 page homestudy, declaring us suitable to be parents.

Then our paperwork had to be authenticated, notarized, and sealed by the secretary of states (our documents had to be sent to the states of origin!). Then we had to do our immigration paperwork. as we began this process in 2006, we filled out an I-600a form.

Once we got our referral, there was more paper work.  Because our I-600 was set to expire, we had to fill out the I-800a.  This was because China is now a Hague Country.  It also meant that we would have additional paperwork, and a longer wait.  We waded through the paperwork, until we finally we given the go ahead to get our China Visas!  

We sent the applications to a corrier in Wash, DC.  They were mailed back to us last week Monday!  

On Thursday we learned that our Article 5 was ready for pick up, and that it was on it's way to the CCCWA  so we are technically on the second to last step.  In 2-4 weeks we will be issued our TA. We then will get our consulate appointment and these can buy tickets!  

We also sent a care package this week to our daughter.  She should get it early next week! 

Last Day of School

Yesterday was my last day of School until September of 2013! Weird.  It is hard to believe that after 24 years, I will have a "new" job next year, but what an exciting job that will be.  I will be a mommy to Rebecca.  I have had many good adventures at WCS and I look forward to returning there, and eventually having Rebecca gradutate from there. 

Students sleeping on my front lawn on "Donnerstag"



Advent Calendars



I will definitly miss the day to day teaching, but I know that I have other teaching responsibilities ahead of me:-)

On the Adoption front--our article 5 will be picked up next week Thursday, and then we wait 2-3 weeks for our travel approval. Once we have that, our agency will secure a consulate date, and then we can buy airline tickets!
We should also have our visas with our passports in our hands by Tuesday, June 12th.  Just a few more steps checked off our lists.