We are doing very well getting our paperwork done. Yesterday I got 28 documents apostilled and mailed off to the Saint Louis office. Got an email from Rebecca (our case worker) saying that she is resigning. We now have Karen who called yesterday to check up on us. Looks like all is well. Our friends from the KC area finally got their call to go on their first trip.
We still have a few documents to finish, but we are waiting on other people to send them to us first.
Our church here is giving us a shower for Justin on June 8th. I will let the girls go to that one. Should be fun.
Joel and I rearranged his room to fit a toddler bed in it. Justin and Joel will share a room. It looks really good. The kids are and I having a hard time waiting. So we are doing our best to keep busy.
Thanks for your prayers.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Update
Nothing much really going on with the adoption process. We have been very busy doing paper work. I am mainly waiting on 3 documents: KBI, Mortgage Company and Marriage Certificates. After that, I send them off to get apostilled.
It is amazing how much people want to help out. There is a CPA in our church who did our financial statement for free, and the doctors office willingly keeps updating documents for us, then there is the KU notary who knows us by name and face now. We have been very blessed. Thanks for all the help.
It is amazing how much people want to help out. There is a CPA in our church who did our financial statement for free, and the doctors office willingly keeps updating documents for us, then there is the KU notary who knows us by name and face now. We have been very blessed. Thanks for all the help.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Paper Work
This week has been a very busy week for us. I got an email from our rep in St Louis wanting us to update A LOT of documents. Mainly because they are over a year old now. Along with that we get an email from our social worker saying we need to update our homestudy, that too had expired. So we got a list from her too. As of right now we are at a stand still in paper work. We are waiting on our police report, child abuse report and marriage certificates. All of those take a few weeks.
Please keep us in your prayers. We are praying that we get a court date for July or August. My mom (Pat) is planning on staying at our house with the kids for the month. We hope to have her husband fly out towards the end of her stay to do some very much needed home repairs. On top of that my sister Lynette is having her first baby in September and really wants mom there for her.
Here is the list our STL agent sent for us to do:
1. Parent Consular Registration Letter (2 copies) – The wording on this particular document has changed since you did it a few months ago, so please re-do with the NEW template on the website.
2. Parent Post-Adoption Letter (2 copies) – Same situation as above. The NEW template with revised wording can be found on the website.
3. Marriage Certificate (3 copies) – The apostilles on your old marriage certificates have reached the one-year point.
4. State Police Report – I know you are already working on these.
5. Doctor’s letter for your kids – You’ll want to get one separate letter done for each of your kids. I attached the template here.
6. Pediatrician’s license – If all three have the same pediatrician, then 1 copy of his/her license is sufficient.
7. Employment letter for Geoff (1 copy) – This MUST include the health insurance coverage that Justin will have. If it does not, we’ll need to get a separate letter addressing that.
8. Financial Statement (1 copy) – This must be prepared by a CPA. I did not see the template on the Krasnoyarsk portion of the website, so I attached it here.
9. CPA’s license (1 copy)
10. Statement of Legal Residence (1 copy) – as you did for your original dossier
11. Mortgage Deed (1 copy) – I know you are already working on this.
12. Petition to Court (1 copy) – The region should be sending this to us.
13. Letter from your Mortgage Company (1 copy) – I know you are already working on this, as well.
Please keep us in your prayers. We are praying that we get a court date for July or August. My mom (Pat) is planning on staying at our house with the kids for the month. We hope to have her husband fly out towards the end of her stay to do some very much needed home repairs. On top of that my sister Lynette is having her first baby in September and really wants mom there for her.
Here is the list our STL agent sent for us to do:
1. Parent Consular Registration Letter (2 copies) – The wording on this particular document has changed since you did it a few months ago, so please re-do with the NEW template on the website.
2. Parent Post-Adoption Letter (2 copies) – Same situation as above. The NEW template with revised wording can be found on the website.
3. Marriage Certificate (3 copies) – The apostilles on your old marriage certificates have reached the one-year point.
4. State Police Report – I know you are already working on these.
5. Doctor’s letter for your kids – You’ll want to get one separate letter done for each of your kids. I attached the template here.
6. Pediatrician’s license – If all three have the same pediatrician, then 1 copy of his/her license is sufficient.
7. Employment letter for Geoff (1 copy) – This MUST include the health insurance coverage that Justin will have. If it does not, we’ll need to get a separate letter addressing that.
8. Financial Statement (1 copy) – This must be prepared by a CPA. I did not see the template on the Krasnoyarsk portion of the website, so I attached it here.
9. CPA’s license (1 copy)
10. Statement of Legal Residence (1 copy) – as you did for your original dossier
11. Mortgage Deed (1 copy) – I know you are already working on this.
12. Petition to Court (1 copy) – The region should be sending this to us.
13. Letter from your Mortgage Company (1 copy) – I know you are already working on this, as well.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
What now
Now that we are back into the swing of things at home (or should I say on my own since my mom left yesterday), we have lots to do. I already miss my mom though. She kept my dishes and laundry clean. Plus, managed to get the kids to keep their rooms clean.
What is next? Paper work, we need to update several documents:
Financial report
Police report
mortgage report
Proof of residents
Employment letter
Wage report
The Police report will take the longest since we need to get fingerprinted and all. We will expect that to take 2-3 weeks to get back. If all goes very well, we hope to travel back to Russia in July. In Krasnoyarsk City they only do adoption court hearings on Tuesdays, and only 5 of them in a day. There are 16 adoption agencies in the city. That is why it takes so long to get a court date.
Please pray that we are able to get our paper work finished and get a court date for July. I have a sister due to have a baby in September and she wants my mom to be there and I really need to have her here for the month we will be gone to Russia. Till next time....
What is next? Paper work, we need to update several documents:
Financial report
Police report
mortgage report
Proof of residents
Employment letter
Wage report
The Police report will take the longest since we need to get fingerprinted and all. We will expect that to take 2-3 weeks to get back. If all goes very well, we hope to travel back to Russia in July. In Krasnoyarsk City they only do adoption court hearings on Tuesdays, and only 5 of them in a day. There are 16 adoption agencies in the city. That is why it takes so long to get a court date.
Please pray that we are able to get our paper work finished and get a court date for July. I have a sister due to have a baby in September and she wants my mom to be there and I really need to have her here for the month we will be gone to Russia. Till next time....
Name
We decided on naming our new son Justin. The kids were very happy about that. Below I have attached a couple of pictures of Moscow taken on our last day there.
Recap
We arrived in Moscow around noon. Checked into our hotel and then left to go sightseeing. We were able to visit the Red Square and several other sights. I cannot begin to name all the sights. I will have to get Geoff to list them. During this time we also figured out how to do the metro. It was a challenge since we didn't have an interpreter and everything was written in Russian. After sightseeing we headed back to the hotel for a nap. I was very exhausted at this point. Woke up around 8:00 went out to dinner at McDonald's. By the way, it is not like ours. It was the worst cheeseburger I have ever had. The french fries were the same though. Then back to the hotel. We were able to pay to use internet, so we got online and were able to use Skypt(internet phone system) to talk to the kids at home. By the time we got off the computer it was 1:30 am. So we tried to get some sleep before our really long flight the next day.
On the way to the airport we met another family that was on their first trip to adopt. It was really neat because I recognized her from the blog her family keeps. Upon arriving at the airport we meet another couple that adopted 3 children (twin girls 11 months and a boy 2 1/2). We were able to hold the girls while they ate luch. All of us ended up on the same flight to Atlanta. It was a very long 11 hour flight. We got to hold one of the twin girls some (I believe it was Jessica). So that each parent got to eat with out a child on their laps. Bye the way, all their kids did very well on the flight. I was very impressed. Made me relax a little for our next trip home.
Our arrival in Atlanta was an adventure. I didn't remember all the bag searching and customs we had to go through. It was very nerve racking. The best part about it was, everyone spoke English and all the signs were in English.
We were scheduled to leave for KC at 8:15. Needless to say we didn't leave till 9:45. We were so happy to be home and out of a plane.
On the way to the airport we met another family that was on their first trip to adopt. It was really neat because I recognized her from the blog her family keeps. Upon arriving at the airport we meet another couple that adopted 3 children (twin girls 11 months and a boy 2 1/2). We were able to hold the girls while they ate luch. All of us ended up on the same flight to Atlanta. It was a very long 11 hour flight. We got to hold one of the twin girls some (I believe it was Jessica). So that each parent got to eat with out a child on their laps. Bye the way, all their kids did very well on the flight. I was very impressed. Made me relax a little for our next trip home.
Our arrival in Atlanta was an adventure. I didn't remember all the bag searching and customs we had to go through. It was very nerve racking. The best part about it was, everyone spoke English and all the signs were in English.
We were scheduled to leave for KC at 8:15. Needless to say we didn't leave till 9:45. We were so happy to be home and out of a plane.
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