WE ARE APOSTILLED!- IS THAT EVEN A WORD?

Our documents arrived from the Secretary of State today!  The whole Priority mail tracking thing did not work the way it was suppose to.  The package didn't get scanned in until it was 10 minutes from our home.  Oh well, the most important thing is it got to us!

One of the neatest parts of today was that at 8:30 this morning I messaged some fellow adoptive moms if they could pray for our paperwork.  By 9:30, our package showed up!  That is the power of prayer.  

Tomorrow we will express mail the documents to Cathy at OD so that she can then send them on to Silva for translation. 

We are so grateful to all the people who completed paperwork for us.  We are also very grateful to Cathy and Deb at the adoption agencies for helping us get to this point!

Praise the Lord!

In celebration, tonite Andrew and I had a wonderful date night: a Milwaukee River cruise and dinner out. Great food and great fun with the greatest guy in the world.  

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

I called our Secretary of State office today.  The good news is our paperwork is done (YEAH!).  The bad news is no one knows where it is (ARGGH!)  

That isn't a direct quote, but rather the implied meaning of what the woman said.  The office completed our paperwork on Fri, 8-14 and put it in the mail.  Here we are at Tues, 8-18 and our tracking number for the return package is not being found.  This means the package is somewhere between the Secretary's office and a US postal office between here and Madison.

Probably nothing to be concerned about- the package just maybe didn't get scanned like it should have.  But my mind always goes to the worst case scenario which is that the package is lost in space!

Time to start looking for more funny cartoons, I guess.  And pray!

HUMOR HELPS

As we wait for USCIS and our Secretary of State, we are trying to find the humor in things instead of fretting and worrying and getting upset.  I am amazed at how many cartoons are out there about red tape and paperwork.  Here are some of my favorites:

BIOMETRICS APPOINTMENT SCHEDULED!

Yeah- some progress with USCIS:  We have our biometrics appointment next week on 8-26!

POLITICS AND PAPERWORK

We sent our 28 dossier documents to the WI Secretary of State on 8-6.  I called on 8-14 to check on the status of that paperwork.  The woman told me because I called she would move our paperwork from the stack to be done in 10 days to the stack that will be done in 4 days.  

Our Secretary of State's office just faced a major budget cut, so their services have also been cut.  They use to offer same day service.  Since that is no longer available, we have to rely on the mail-in service.  Through some research, I found out besides the Secretary himself, there is only other full-time employee in the office.  

Knowing all that, its a really good thing that we got moved up from 10 days to 4 days.  

Now just trusting the Lord to work through this less than ideal combination of politics and paperwork!  

In another adoptive family's blog, they called this a paper pregnancy.  That is a great and funny way to describe this process.

HIDDEN TREASURES

Back in early June, another adoptive mom was at the same orphanage as Ryan to bring their beautiful little boy home.  Cathy from OD also visited the orphanage at that same time.  Those two wonderful women took the time to visit with Ryan and take photos of him for us.  Hopefully some day we will be able to share those photos, but we know we can't right now due to confidentiality reasons.  So they are hidden treasures for us at this time.

As we are in the waiting process, those photos have become even more valuable to us than when we first received them.  I just love looking through them during the day as I think about what Ryan is up to.  

I can't wait to have Ryan be part of our life here, but I am so grateful for the hidden treasures I have to look at during this time of waiting.

Maybe when we are over there to get Ryan, we will have the privilege of doing the same favor for another family.  

MORE EXPRESS MAIL

We just express mailed our 28 dossier documents to the WI Secretary of State for apostilling.  The processing time with them is 7-10 days.

One step closer, Ryan!