Today I woke up at dark thirty and made the 3 hour drive to Austin, TX to get our I800A certified at the secretary of state. It took about 10 minutes to get it done and I was on the road again! I located a FedEx and shipped it to Cindy at My China Docs to get an expedited authentication. We shall see how that goes in a couple of days. It should arrive to her by tomorrow and hopefully on its way back to me by Thursday. Hopefully! The plan is to make my final copies of the authentication page and get our entire dossier in the mail to AWAA on Friday.
It feels so good to be in this place now. After several weeks of inactivity due to the delay at USCIS its kind of crazy to be finishing up. Now just praying that when the people at AWAA review it that it all looks good!!!
Monday, April 11, 2016
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Noonday fundraiser and a fun picture!
This morning my sweet friend, Jennifer, did a Noonday party at our house with a portion of the proceeds going towards our adoption! She SO didn't have to do that but I'm so thankful for her willingness. You can tell as she speaks about the Noonday company that she has a passion for what they do. Here are some pictures of the jewelry table. I completely forgot to take pictures of the bags that are fabulous! Trust me!
If you are interested in purchasing anything for say.....Mother's Day. Or.....Yourself....she is going to leave the party open for 2 weeks. You can shop by going to HERE.
You won't regret it!
Also here's another fun picture to leave you with......
Looks like I'll make a road trip to Austin during the day on Monday!
Friday, April 8, 2016
I800a approval!!!
I can NOT tell you how excited I am to say that we FINALLY have i800a approval! Man, that was a long time coming.
On Monday, I was almost for sure that approval would be in the mail. Like FOR SURE! I mean, come on....we got that RFE business handled super fast so I figured all they would have to do would be look at it, print that approval off, and mail it.
I was wrong.
So in my sadness I called the number on our receipt and was promptly connected with our officer. She informed me that YES, our RFE information was there but she had not had a minute to look it over.
*deflated*
So I didn't even expect it to be in the mail until at the very earliest today.
Nope.
So.....what does any normal person do? She gets her husband to call the number on the receipt so she doesn't look like the crazy one.
It's how I roll.
He calls the number, answers a few identity questions, and then gives me the thumbs up.
*thinking to myself: "What does that mean? She's nice? She's looking on the computer? What?"
Approved.
WHATTTTTT? (note to self: have Brian call everytime I need something)
So yes...we've been approved! As of April 6th.
So the plan is this.
1. Celebrate!
2. Get that letter in the mail.
3. Drive that sucker to Austin after getting it notarized for it to be certified.
4. Overnight it to Houston to our courier so she can get it rush authenticated.
5. Hopefully DTC by April 22.
We have to have our dossier to AWAA by Wed of the week we want to be DTC. I wish it was possible this coming week but it's just not. But hopefully next week?!?
To be continued.....
On Monday, I was almost for sure that approval would be in the mail. Like FOR SURE! I mean, come on....we got that RFE business handled super fast so I figured all they would have to do would be look at it, print that approval off, and mail it.
I was wrong.
So in my sadness I called the number on our receipt and was promptly connected with our officer. She informed me that YES, our RFE information was there but she had not had a minute to look it over.
*deflated*
So I didn't even expect it to be in the mail until at the very earliest today.
Nope.
So.....what does any normal person do? She gets her husband to call the number on the receipt so she doesn't look like the crazy one.
It's how I roll.
He calls the number, answers a few identity questions, and then gives me the thumbs up.
*thinking to myself: "What does that mean? She's nice? She's looking on the computer? What?"
Approved.
WHATTTTTT? (note to self: have Brian call everytime I need something)
So yes...we've been approved! As of April 6th.
So the plan is this.
1. Celebrate!
2. Get that letter in the mail.
3. Drive that sucker to Austin after getting it notarized for it to be certified.
4. Overnight it to Houston to our courier so she can get it rush authenticated.
5. Hopefully DTC by April 22.
We have to have our dossier to AWAA by Wed of the week we want to be DTC. I wish it was possible this coming week but it's just not. But hopefully next week?!?
To be continued.....
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
RFE- addendum complete
Because we are working with such amazing people for our home study our addendum has been completed and on its way today back to USCIS today. Praising God for that! So who knows how long it will take for our officer to approve us once they get it. But at least its on its way!!
Monday, March 28, 2016
RFE
Well a dreaded "Request for evidence" arrived at our house today. And I was not pleased! But after contacting our awesome social worker and her boss plus our family coordinator at AWAA we are now in the process of gathering the evidence they need. Which in our case is to fix some wording about our 18 year old in our home study via an addendum by our social worker. That will be mailed out tomorrow to USCIS and hopefully they'll receive it this week. In the midst of all the craziness we realized that at least we've been assigned an officer to our case. There have been some major delays in receiving approvals lately so I'm just thankful for anything I can be thankful for right now! Pray our approval comes sooooooon!
Monday, March 7, 2016
Fingerprints done!
Praise God! This morning Brian, Emily and I were able to walk in and get our fingerprints done a week early! They didn't really want to let us but finally they did and we were out of there in less than 30 minutes. So now what? We wait for the last piece of paper we need to finish our dossier. The approval letter! Unless they have questions and need more information it shouldn't be too long. Pray they don't have questions.....
Friday, March 4, 2016
Finally...fingerprint appointment letter!
Ok, ya'll I have been so patiently (er....maybe not) waiting for our fingerprint appointments to arrive in the mail and they finally came today! Because Emily is 18 she also has to have hers done with us. She arrives home tonight for spring break but our appointment time isn't until after she returns to Nashville. And the appointment is here in Dallas. So we are going to trrrryyyyyyy to walk in to get our fingerprints done early while she's here next week. Please pray that they allow this to happen! God is good...!!