Krissy writes:
A very close friend of mine yesterday put it that way. I was talking with her about the adoption process, and she asked me where we are on the timeline. There are 26 steps, and we just completed step number 8. She exclaimed, "Well, that means you're through your first trimester!!" Couldn't have put it better myself! We've been at this since January when we chose Small World as our agency, applied in February, had our homestudy done in April, and then have since been collecting all the needed documents for our dossier, which we just sent off yesterday!! YAY!
Here's a list of stuff that we had to collect (doesn't seem like a lot, but in the grand scheme of things, making all the appointments and applying for things with the government agencies takes a LOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGGG time.
1. Application letter
2. Copies of passports
3. Birth certificates
4. Marriage certificate
5. Autobiographies
6. Pictures of us and family members and our home
7. Certificate of Residence
8. Economic status form
9. 2008 Tax Return statement
10. Physicals
11. Criminal Record Inquiries
12. Copy of Homestudy
13. Copy of the approval from from the USCIS (immigration services)
And had to get them all notarized. We got my physical form from the doctor yesterday, and sent it all off!! Yay. It's just so relieving to be done with that step. Now it's just a matter of keeping all of these applications/documents updated over the next couple of years while we wait for our child. From this point, our agency says it will be about 2-3 years of waiting (good time to try to save up the money it will take us to complete the adoption). Long time... :( But we are hopeful, and are resting assured that it will ALL be worth it when we can wrap our arms around the beautiful child God has picked out for us.
Here are some pictures and events that have happened in the meantime.
We attended the commencement at Dallas Christian College in May (don't know if I posted any pictures about that). Congrats, Gary.
For our fourth anniversary this summer, July 23, we went to Galveston for two nights and two days. Spent some time on the beach, went to Schlitterbahn, had a fancy dinner at Willies and an amazing lunch at Luigi's on the Strand. It was a wonderful weekend.
We had the opportunity to go to Venezuela in September to visit some missionary friends. We had a wonderful time, and look forward to possibly making it back in the future.
Here's our little guy. Not that dogs grow much bigger, but I just couldn't post after such a long time without putting something about Moses on here. When we went to Venezuela, Gary's parents watched him for us. He is such a precious dog, and both Gary and I are so extremely thankful for him.
A couple of weekends ago, we went to the Houston Zoo. Just decided to go, out of the blue. (That does NOT happen very often around here - I am a PLANNER!) But it was such a great day. We got there at around 1 in the afternoon, and all the animals were out, it was overcast (sprinkled a little on us, but nothing that drenched us). Just a perfect day to spend together, just the two of us - and a couple of cute fuzzy animals. Here's a picture of a giraffe. He was trying so hard to get to the trees and bushes that were outside of their cage. So funny. I'm always fascinated with the monkeys.
Last weekend, I flew up to Omaha, Nebraska for a much-needed family reunion. It was so wonderful to see everyone there, and great to spend time laughing our heads off with each other. Here's a picture of a long-lost cousin, Jess, and her mother, Cay. Cay and her husband Dennis adopted Jess from my aunt Suzy (far right) back in 1978. In this picture: Cay, Jess, Annie, Grandma, Suzy. Everyone is astounded at how similar Annie and Jess look. They were born only months apart, but they're both just as pretty as the other one. When I first saw her, I really had to do a double-take. My mom brought baby pictures of Annie to show to Jess and Cay. They were also astounded at how much their baby pictures looked alike.
Here's Grandma (4'10") cuttin' a rug with my cousin Ryan (6 feet something). Just had to get a shot of this.
Here's my cousin Katie with her husband Chris and their newborn girl, Ella. Precious family. I had a marvelous time holding the 3-week-old baby.
Here's the three girl cousins, Katie, me, and Annie, holding the babies, Ella, Mollie, and Luke.
And here's cute little Mollie with her "goggie" she recently named Moses. She was getting ready for bed in preparation for the long ride back home to Texas with her Bubba and Nana.
