DNA at Lab!!

I woke up this morning around 6:00a.m. to get ready for my day. By 7:30 I had emailed the Lab in N.C. to tell them that our sample was on it's way. By 8:00 I had called Baltimore to try and straighten our visa situation out.
At 8:15 we received an email back from Pat at the Lab. Yes, I am on a first name basis with her. She is so nice:0) They had not received the sample yet and seeing as it was only taken on Friday, it would prob. be a few more days before they received it.

By 9:00 I had given up trying to deal with the immigration office and did what I should have done last week. I called our Senator. Within 15 minutes they called back to say that Baltimore had forwarded our information to the National Visa Center. They would follow up with the NVC later and call us back. In the meantime, we received an email from Pat at the Lab telling us that Liam's DNA sample arrived. Yes, you read it right. Something actually happened ahead of when we thought it would!!!!! It should take a few days to test and then the results will be sent back to the Embassy. The awesome thing is that Pat will give us the tracking number so I can follow along and see when it gets back to the Embassy. We then got a call from our Senator's office that the NVC has gotten the information from Baltimore and had forwarded it on to the Embassy. All of this before noon. What a morning. Have I confused you yet??

I then spent the afternoon getting our paperwork together and filled out. Not an easy task when you no longer have an agency to walk you through it. I am still not done after 3 hours and will probably stay up tonight to finish when I have no little ones under foot. The kids and I gave the dogs a bath. Bailey loved it. Abbie, not so much. We had to give up. She is so old now and just was not having it. Gareth did lots around the house today. We really accomplished a lot. We have been ready for our little man to come home forever now, but we still have little things to do to get ready. Most of them couldn't be done until now. Hopefully,we will do that over the next few days so when that email comes, we will be READY!!!!!!

DNA TEST COMPLETE!!!

We received the email after 5:00 tonight. This was a shock because this morning, we were told that it probably wouldn't be done until Tuesday at the earliest. i got a bit frustrated and once again mentioned flying down to handle things on our own. Our new lawyer said that she got on the phone to relay the message to the facilitator and this afternoon, it ended up getting done. I will be playing hard ball from now on. Now, we can track it to the Lab in North Carolina. From there it goes back to the Embassy and within 24-48 hours, if all goes well, we should have our travel date.

That being said, I spent most of the afternoon trying to sort our "Visa situation" out. I was on the phone with the National Visa Center to try and have them forward our information to the Embassy once more. Needless to say, after speaking to 3 different individuals, I was close to banging my head against the wall. I am amazed at how I can get 3 different answers and 3 different solutions from 3 different people all looking at the same records. I have now contacted two different Senators to see if either of them can help me ASAP. Monday will have to be my follow up day. I pray that this gets resolved and quickly. I would like one step in our process to go the way it should. I hope that is PINK!!!! We could have our travel date as early as Friday if the DNA doesn't get lost to or from the embassy. ( I say that only half joking) and if we can get this visa information resolved.

Enough adoption info. for now. Just please keep us and the situation in your prayers.

The kids went to a vacation bible school this week at the church where Callum went to preschool. They had a blast. Every day they collect an offering that goes to missions. This year, the collection was going to the Asthma research foundation.(very close to my heart) in memory of a beautiful little 10 year old girl named Claudia. She went to this church and a nearby school. She passed away due to her asthma a few months ago. The kids compete girls vs. boys. I am so proud of Alex. She was saving for a new Build a Bear, and instead of keeping her money, she gave all of her $22.42 to the collection. She said she wanted the girls to win. Of course, they did and jointly they raised over $550.00 for the foundation. What a blessing kids are.
The girls then got to throw tons of whipped cream all over the pastor. It was great to watch.

Tonight, they did their presentations. Alex did great singing. She doesn't mind being on stage at all. She must take after her mom:0) Callum on the other hand stood as still as a statue for the first half. The second half decided that he wanted to get a reaction so he preceded to stick his fingers in his nose, and them attempted to take his shirt off. All the while cracking up and watching people laugh. He was totally living it up to the crowd. I have not laughed that hard in ages. Gareth and I had tears coming from our eyes. He was a total clown.
The weekend will be fairly quiet. Gareth's grandmother has a birthday so we will have the kids call and sing to her. She is in her 90's and such a sweet women. Happy Birthday Nanny Jenkins!!!!!

Ready for a laugh???

There has been talk on one of our adoption boards about contacting the Embassy to make sure that they have all of your updated paperwork. If they don't, you won't find out until you are "pink".( Get your travel dates) Anyway, I commented that we contacted them months ago and although we didn't get a straight answer, they didn't mention anything about not having all of our paperwork.

Earlier in the week, I decided better safe than sorry. I emailed again and this afternoon received and email that told us that they had yet to be sent our updated Visa information to bring him home. Just a little back ground, Your original visa paperwork is good for 18 months. We had to update ours last fall since it was expiring. The updated Visa never made it to the Embassy. Now, this would normally be a quick fix right? I have a copy, I can email it down. WRONG. I had to contact the National Visa Center, they have to spend the next 2-3 days researching it, and then hopefully, they will send it down. At least we found out now instead of later. I just pray that they get it to them quickly and it doesn't hold anything up. I kept saying that I wasn't going to let my guard down yet. There is still too much that can go wrong:0) The good thing is, we know that God didn't bring us this far to not let us finish. We will get this resolved and hopefully it will be quick!!!!!

FINALLY ORANGE!!!!

We sent the slip off to the lab first thing this morning. Within 10 minutes, we had the receipt and information that it had been faxed to the US Embassy. Now, we wait for him to be brought in to the Embassy, the sample to be sent to the lab, and the lab to send it back to the Embassy. That should all be able to happen in 5-7 days, but you know us, don't hold your breath:0)

When the Embassy gets the results, we should have our travel date within 48 hours!!!!!
Let's pray that he gets in quickly for the test and that the sample doesn't get lost in the mail coming or going:0)

Want to guess what today's title is????

How about NO NEW NEWS AGAIN! I know better than start getting excited. I started to let my guard down a little. We were supposed to have dna authorization today and haven't heard anything at all. It is now 10:15 and I am off to read a book. Oh well, maybe tomorrow.

I am a little bummed. Someone that got their b.c. the same day as us will have their travel dates tomorrow. There has to be a reason that we keep getting delayed. Please continue to pray for us. I thought it would be easier at this stage, but it isn't!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GARETH!!!!

Gareth is 32 today!!!! I don't think that he will mind me posting his age. He seemed ok with it this year:0)
We got up this morning and gave him his cards. It is hard to get him gifts with father's day being so close. He ended up pretty much having a combined gift of a grill. He has been wanting one for a few years now. We have already used it 4 times this week.

Tonight, he is off to a baseball game with his guy friends. He has no idea that he is going. We went earlier and got his car from work and cleaned and vacummed it for him. I took it back to his work and put a change of clothes in there for him. His last client of the day is a "new" client that is made up, so he doesn't know he is getting off an hour early. His boss was in on it so we are ok there:0) Anyway, his next to last client is a friend and after his appointment, he is going to whisk him off to the game. Once he gets there, there will be about 10 guys waiting and they were able to get a suite for the occasion. I truly think that we pulled it off as a surpise, so thank you to John and Ken for helping me. If he had a clue, he certainly didn't let on.

I am taking the kids to the pool and Alex didn't understand why Gareth wasn't coming. I had to explain that it is daddy's birthday and we want him to do something that he wants to do. Not that he doesn't like the pool, but I wanted to plan a night out where he can relax and have a good time with friends. Hopefully he will do just that.

Orange Monday. ?????

WE got an email late in the night saying that we will be orange on Monday. They didn't get us in yesterday and the Embassy won't take the paperwork on a Friday. This is why I don't get my hopes up. Oh well. We also found out that the lawyer working on our case is no longer working on our case. They assigned someone else to us. I hope it is because we are straight forward now, not because I annoyed him by emailing every other day. We weren't given a reason why we have the switch. I am a little disappointed. I don't know this new person at all. Hopefully they will be as good as him.

Alex has been in a production camp all week. She has her show tonight. I will keep you posted. She is very excited!!!!