Our adoption dossier (paperwork) is in the mail to the adoption agency. Wheewww. It's been a game of hurry up and wait, with alot of redoing documents when notaries did it wrong - who knew there were so many ways to have your notary's part rejected - not printing their name, not signing their name, one notary had an expired commission, one just wrote her statement she signs wrong - and she was looking at her notary book when she typed it up. But now, as long as when our agency triple checks our paperwork for accuracy things are good, it will be on the way to China in about 10 working days. Now we wait for the call with our travel date. We pray it will be soon.

It's Cold Out

This morning while watching the news, I saw that the air temperature is 8 degrees. When it's time to walk Zach out to the bus stop, it hadn't gotten any warmer. I got Zach all bundled up- hoodie, snow pants, boots, winter coat, hat, gloves, then pulled his hood up over his hat. Then I got similarly dressed for the approximately 10 minute wait we have outside until the bus comes. When I came back in I was COLD. I told the big boys that when they go out for their bus an hour later, they MUST wear their winter coat and gloves. I would prefere a hat, but at least pull up the hoods while they are waiting for the bus. About 20 minutes after they went out to wait for their bus, Steve called me on his cell phone to tell me the bus was not there yet, could I drive them to school? (obviously it was too much work to walk up to the door to tell me this). I told them to give it a few more minutes and if the bus still wasn't here, I would drive them in. I took Sadie outside before leaving and told the boys to walk up to the car, when I put Sadie back inside I would take them to school. Now mind you, when I went out, they are not wearing gloves, no hats, no hoods up, their coats aren't even zipped. I know they're in Middle School, and too cool for the rest of us, but why is looking tough so much more important than being warm and healthy? They got about 3/4 of the way up our long driveway when I saw the bus coming up over the hill- turn around boys and run back to the road, your bus is here. Good, I really was not looking forward to driving in that cold car this morning.

Gotta Have Choices

Almost every morning, for the last month or so, Zach has a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich for breakfast. It must be crunchy peanut butter and the jelly must be strawberry. It's even better if he gets it made with a heel of bread. Most mornings I go ahead and ask Zach what he wants for breakfast: Cereal? Toast? Oatmeal? Peanut butter and jelly sandwhich? This morning while he was getting dressed I went ahead and made his sandwhich and when he was dressed I told him his peanut butter and jelly sandwhich was on the table ready for him. "But I wanna choose!" "OK, Zach, what do you want for breakfast, peanut butter and jelly?" "Yes" he says. I guess it just had to be his idea.

Adventures in Adopting

On Thursday our paperwork came back from the Dept of Immigration, approving Zach's adoption. As I said previously, as soon as that I-797 came back, I wanted to run down to the state capital to go directly to the Secretary of State to get the final paperwork authenticated, however on Thursday night we had a snow storm blow in...... Fridy morning came and the boys had a 2 hour school delay. OK, if they went to school after the delay, I was still going. If it turned into a cancellation, then I was staying home. Darn, cancelled. As I was doing the math, I was now going to have to wait until Wed to go - Monday is Martin Luther King day, Tuesday I work. That puts me at getting the paperwork sent off the the Chinese consulate on Thursday, they wouldn't receive it until Friday, and Monday is Chinese New Year so they will be closed from Friday until Tue or so. Hopefully they could get right to it when they get back to send it back to us - darned snow is ruining my plans. I just pulled pizza out of the oven for the boys' lunch, and Mike called around 11:30 and said they were closing down the plant since the weather was bad, he'd be home by noon and he would drive to the S of state office. Frantically we packed drinks, snacks and things to do for the boys and by the time Mike got home, we were ready to go. He said since we were going south, it wouldn't be long before we drove out of the snow. Off we started, first to get out I-797 notorized before we could take it to the S of state, then to get Mike a sweet tea from McDonalds for the drive....oops, I forgot to grab and extra bottle of windshield wiper fluid for the drive, and I was authenticating copies of the documents, maybe we should grab the originals just in case. Back home to get those 2 things and we are on the way now by 12:30. It's normally about a 3 1/2 hour drive, so we have plenty of time. On the drive it was Murphay's law all the way. Yes we drove out of the bad weather fairly quickly, but then the washer fluid sprayers kept freezing up, so we had to keep stopping for hot water to pour over them to thaw them out. A couple of potty breaks, Zach needed a snack, had to fill up the gas tank...... Lula (the GPS) estimates as we are getting close that it will be 4:50 by the time we reach the S of state. They close at 5. I called to let them know we had been driving for about 5 hours and we were coming, would they wait for us. The lady I spoke with simply said good luck, our office closes right at 5. Thank you, this may now turn into a wasted trip. At 5 till we were having a hard time with the directions, Lula told us too late about our turn an the streets are one way so getting back there was a problem. Mike finally got out of the car with our documents at a red light and off he RAN at full speed to the court house. He had to run 2 blocks just to get there on the slippery sidwalks and when he went through security, panting and ready to burst, he found that he went into the wrong side of the building. He was on the state capital side. Off he sprints about a block across to get to the right side. Then he had to turn to go a block down to the far corner, and downstairs to the basement. Just as he is getting there, the lady I spoke with earlier was on her way out of the office. Darn. But, as he has done through this whole process, God was watching out for us (they say he takes care of little children and fools, so I guess we are the fools, or maybe he just has a soft spot in his heart for Zach) The lady who runs that department had stayed behind just in case we made it through security in time and could get to her office. Mike got the documents all authenticated, and after thanking the lady profusely, came back to the car, triumphant. Of course he could not breath properly after breathing in all that cold air he ran through, but after sitting for a few minutes to rest, he got to revel in his role as our hero. This allowed me to send off the paperwork to the Chinese Consulate on Saturday, they should now get them Tuesday and have time to get them back to us before they take off for the New Year's holiday. We hope to have all our papers sent to the Adoption Agency for translation to Chinese by the end of the week. They have 9 days to check it over, translate it, and bind it, then it will be on it's way to China. We then should get our travel date in a few weeks, we are hoping to travel in March!!! We are so excited!!!

BRRRRR

This morning when we left for church, the car thermometer said the temperature was only 4 degrees - winter seems to have arrived. As often happens with the car, as we started driving, the temp adjusted, and it began to drop, finally getting down to 4 degrees below zero. As we headed for Mike's church, first we drove west--and the temperature began to rise back to zero. Then we turned south and by the time we got to the church, it was up to 4 degrees above. Who knew, that to get warm, all we had to do was drive to the south west side of town (a whopping 3 mile trip). Who needs to go all the way to Arizona, on the southwest side of the country???

One Step Closer

Today we received our approval from the Dept of Immigration and Homeland security to adopt Zach!!! Now I have to get it notorized, approved by the Secretary of State, Chinese consulate approved, then off to our adoption agency!! Our papers should be heading to China by the end of the month!!!!

Who knew that getting documents notorized correctly could be such a hasstle? I have received documents back from the Secretary of State's office for a SECOND time, due to improper notorizatation. At this point I will hand deliver them after I get them fixed, due to the impending return of my documents from Immigration, which I want to hand deliver to save time and be able to get this stuff off to China ASAP. From what I have heard from others, and their time line, I believe my papers should be back in the next week.

Our fundraiser for Zach's adoption went well. Mike's church really stepped up and we raised a lot more money than I thought we would. His Pastor told Mike yesterday that he knows we have at least $200 more coming in from people who could not attend our dinner last Sunday. Thank goodness. We have had to put adoption expenses on credit cards and we still have a long way to go, especially with air fare for 3 to China and are expecting to have to pay his orphanage $5500 in cash when we get there, because we need to re-pay the orphanage for raising Zach. I have also heard we need to take a bunch of small gifts to give most everyone involved in the adoption over there as a "token of our esteem". I have heard we should bring candy, cosmetics, things like that. I know of a family who took an extra duffel bag with them to their adoption just filled with that stuff. Had we planned this adoption journey, we would have saved money for a year or two before moving forward, but we love Zach to death and can't let him go back to China, it would break our hearts for him not to become part of our family.

Update

The holiday season went by in a whirilwind- as always. For a change the gift piles for the boys didn't grow out of control, and that was hard since I have so much fun buying toys and with Zach, we get to buy toys again. What a great season to have kids!! Santa got to come visit, he even sent Zach his own letter after Zach's was mailed (Steven still isn't sure how this happened, since I assured him I didn't send it and I didn't send off for it - thanks Mom, that bit of mystery is good for the boy who knows everything, except to check for the Texas postmark!) The boys were on vacation until Jan 5, then back to school for them- thank goodness, who knew adding one boy to the house would make the fighting amongst the kids more than double. I went back to work that same day to my part time job at H&R Block. I am now planning Zach's "unbirthday" party at school since he has a summer birthday - June 6, for those of you who have not put it down on your calendars. We are doing his school birthday to co-incide with Chinese New Year and take the opportunity to teach his class a little about his culture. Chinese New Year is on Jan 23 this year. I have learned a lot in researching to teach his class. We are going to read a story, I will tell them a little about it, and we will make paper dragons, and have a dragon parade at the end. His snack to share will be oranges, traditional for the day. It should be a lot of fun!