Per tracking# clearances are en route

They will arrive Monday and our agency should have all our paperwork by Tues morning. "If" everything is acceptable, this part of the process should be finished and things will be out of our hands for the time being. Hopefully it won't take too long for the paperwork to get apostilled, sent off to Russia, translated, and in the court's hands. I'll still be hoping for a late October, early November court date.....we'll see.

We're just lounging around today, enjoying a nice family day. Perhaps I'll get Steve to hang up the baby's chandelier.

Still no clearances

The FBI clearances that I thought were handled and sent out yesterday still have not arrived......and, according to the tracking number, Fed Ex hasn't even received the package yet. So, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that someone didn't follow thru on what they told me, but I'm so disappointed. I just really had in my mind that our agency would be receiving our paper package by the end of the week, and now its not even looking good for Monday......sigh. Why can't others realize that a sweet little 13 month old is at the other end of this process? All these delays are adding up to weeks. Today marked 1 month home. I cannot believe we're not further along. I promise I feel I have been doing EVERYTHING I can to speed things up and its just not working. Hopefully I'll get a hold of the FBI tomorrow and the clearances will be on their way to us tomorrow.

The painting also got put on hold until next week so I'll also have to let you all know later how the Pink Lemonade turned out.

On a positive note, Dylan gets his first school award tomorrow!! He is Champion of the Week so I get to go to the little assembly and be the proud momma and watch him receive his award.

Hopefully another problem averted

The phone was ringing at 6 am this morning, an Unknown Number, so we let the machine pick it up. It was the FBI so I quickly fumble around trying to answer it quickly. The man told me I had only sent enough money for one request for each of us, not two.....immediate panic sets it as we had needed to get a money order for the FBI and I'm running thru my head just how long its going to take now to get them $36 more dollars and have them return the clearances to me. Thankfully, the nice man immediately faxed me a credit card form which I filled out right away and faxed back and he said all 4 clearances would still make it in today Fed Ex. Whew! Guess I have anough sense to do 2 fingerprint cards each, just not enough to send 2 payments for each of us. So, now we wait and see if they come tomorrow still. Fingers crossed!

So we finally get the psych license verification.....

and its dated Noverber 17, 2007....!?! I'm glad I saw this right away and I emailed the lady at the Board of Psychology who did finally answer me back about the letters, and thankfully she replyed right away, saying that she would get new letters out TODAY and overnight them at their expense as it was their mistake.....OK, so its disappointing that they were wrong, but I'm so grateful someone understood how important this all is and acted quickly to fix the problem for us. Well, I'm "hoping" its fixed and we receive the revised letters tomorrow. I also got a response to an email regarding our FBI clearances and they said they were finished as of today, but probably wouldn't make today's Fed Ex so they'll go out overnight tomorrow and I should receive those on Thurs, meaning I can get our completed dossier #2 to our agency by Friday morning.

After that, I can really concentrate on getting things together for our little girl. Tomorrow is painting day! Her room, along with Madison's room and the bathroom will get painted. Can't wait to see how the Pink Lemonade looks.

We had a great weekend at our river place. We went with my mom, and our friends Troy & Kara. I just love being out on our boat. I couldn't help but wonder how the little miss will enjoy the river...? Will she be terrified of the boat? Hopefully not and it will lull her to sleep, just as it did to her brother. I'll be sure to get her a cute life jacket, and I know she'll like playing on the beach, collecting shells with me, building sand castles together, seeing the crawfish her brother and sister catch, watching the trains go by.......I can't wait!

Me & My Mom

We're loving kindergarden

As I seem to be stuck, still needing the same two pieces of paper that I can't seem to get, I thought I'd share some pictures. Dylan is truly loving kindergarden, loves his teacher, is loving learning, and is just very excited every morning to go to school. Now, I know its only been 8 days.....but I'm so happy and proud! I helped out first time today in his classroom. Boy, hats off to his teacher! She keeps that classroom of 32 kindergardeners in check and is constantly doing fun things....LOTS of songs, books, activities, etc etc....how she engages all those kids at one time just amazes me. I know I couldn't do it! He was the first in his class to get to be KING which was exciting (just involves getting his name picked out of a tub, but still fun).

And now, off to Subway and Baskin Robbins for Dine Out night......to help raise $$$ for his school. Just might have to go for same of my favorite ice cream....Peanut Butter & Chocolate.

Now could someone PLEASE nudge the psych board to get me that verification already?? Missing the little miss as we hit 3 weeks home and she turned 13 months.

2 more pieces of paper to check off my list

Yesterday I received our doctor's license verifications. I am impressed, that was a VERY quick turn-around! I gave them my Fed Ex acct# to send them back to me and I'm thinking they understood the urgency, Its so nice when something actually goes smoothly. So, now I wait for the pschologist's verification and our FBI clearances. I'm going to attempt to talk to a person Monday to see if I can find out anything about the clearances. I'm also hoping our USCIS clearances have gotten to the embassy. We received our updated clearances about 10 days ago, but Moscow is saying they don't have them....?? My agency is working on helping me solve this problem. Soooooo many things to go wrong its mind boggling.

PINK LEMONADE......that will be the color of her room. I'm hoping to start on that next week so we can put in the furniture. Madison's room will also be getting a makeover so I'll have to post pictures of that when its done. She's kinda anti-pink at the moment so her pink flip-flop bedding isn't cutting it. I got a Roxy bedding set and her room will be SNOW LODGE blue. It was fun picking out paint yesterday. The crib is ready at JCPenney to be picked up and the dresser is still in the box. I'm also thinking about getting the cutest little shabby chic candelier instead of a ceiling fan. I'm thinking a Home Depot run this weekend is in order to get her closet ready so I can start hanging up all the clothes I'm buying. You see, her closet right now has no rods......before it just had shelves which I'm now taking down so we to install some rods. Its a tiny closet too so I need to see what I can do to maximize the space.

Dylan continues to LOVE Kindergarden. Today he was actually sad that there was no school. That just makes me so happy.

Last night we went to sushi with my mom and her boyfriend.....we GORGED ourselves on all-you-can eat. It was sooooo good, but I was so stuffed! It was some of the BEST sushi I've ever had.....yummy. We took Dylan and walked in with our McD's Happy Meal for him :o)

Such small hands.....

She is so going to have us wrapped around her little fingers!

A few more check marks on my to-do list.....mailed off licenses to Sacramento for verification, and Steve re-took the monstrous psych test. So, we wait to receive the verifications, wait for the psychologist to complete his report, and wait for our FBI clearances. Hopefully all will be done very very soon.

2 week mark today

And we still have a few obstacles to overcome to complete our dossier#2. Steve did get his medical reports done today, but the doctor wasn't able to get him a copy of his license......said the copy machine was down in the other office where his license is. They said they'd have a copy ready to be picked up in a day or two. You better believe I'll be on the phone with them in the morning making sure I can pick it up tomorrow. I was planning on getting the license verifications started tomorrow and now I still don't have that one.

I'm making progress on the baby's room. I've got the closet 90% cleared out and we have a friend who wants the furniture so I hope they pick it up this week. Maybe next week we can actually get some paint on the walls! The dresser arrived, but its still sitting in the box, unopened. I should make sure its the right color at least. That roon has kinda been the catch-all room so its been a bit challenging to find new homes for everything. I think one more new garage cabinet is in order and should do it.

Today Dylan started kindergarden!! While its a little sad seeing him grow up soooo fast, I know he's ready and will really enjoy it. I will admit I enjoyed my alone time that I've missed all summer since preschool has been out. I better enjoy it now because hopefully in a few months there will be NO MORE alone time!!!

Whew....Psych test done

567 true/false questions......very interesting. T/F You would enjoy repairing a door latch...? huh? T/F You often have difficulty swallowing......? Now I'm pretty curious as to what the results of that test will say. He said he'd have them done by Monday at the lastest, maybe by Friday so thats good news. Now the medical appts tomorrow and Thurs and I need to figure out how exactly I verify the doctors' licenses. I'm sure its pretty easy. Hope Steve's doctor doesn't give us a hard time about the form. They're a bit difficult.

Dylan's lip is back to normal and his front teeth seem to still be surviving. Tomorrow we're off to Soak City. I'm not too fond of over-crowded water parks, but I know he'll have fun and we're going with one of his bestest friends Brookey. On the way back I hope to pick up the needed letters and license from our CPA, my aunt. I know we're trying to get the wording acceptable for her CPA firm....kinda tricky to satisfy both the CPA firm and Russia, as my aunt is not a real estate appraisor and they want her to value our home.

Overall, I'm feeling pretty good, feel like the paperwork is moving along nicely. Oh, I did get our updated I600 back, all approved after we had to update our fingerprints. I was a little worried because when Steve did his, the lady said his pinky was a match to a robbery and I think his index finger had something on it too! Thankfully, something must have shown that it wasn't correct and the lady cleared them both....whew. So its good until Dec. 2009....please let us have her home by then.