Memorial Day 2011

We got married on Memorial Day weekend so are always excited when we can use the three day weekend to celebrate.  This year we were able to take a short vacation to Ocean City, Maryland, which is about 3 hours away.  We visited a zoo, the ocean and a state park.  We had a great time just relaxing and being together.  We can't wait to take our next trip! Here are some photos.

Visiting the Salisbury Zoo in Salisbury, MD

Sydney's first sight of the sea.

Having fun at dinner

Sydney walks in sand for the first time.

Touching the sand.

Running from the waves.

One of the best parts of going to the seaside: digging in the sand!

Sydney and Daddy running in the waves.

Wild horses of Assateague Island

Enjoying some ice cream.

She ate the whole thing (almost)!

WOOHOO!

Our dossier is on it's way to Taiwan as I write!  We should be logged into court by next week.  Hopefully we will get a good update on Oliver soon.  Our last two updates were only pictures.
I will be posting pictures of our Memorial Day weekend soon.  I have been too busy and haven't had time to sit down and go through the pictures we took, much less post them.   Check back soon!

Are we there yet? Yep!

I spoke with our agency in CA yesterday and learned all of our paperwork has been sent to the TECO's (two different offices).  FINALLY!! So if everything goes as planned, everything should be back to the agency and ready go to Taiwan in two weeks or so.  Of course, many things have not gone as planned during this process, but now things now seem to be back on track, and we are still hoping for some things to go right :).  If the Taiwan court processes continue to go at the rate I am seeing right now, we may travel in August, although the agency is telling me 6 months.  Sydney's court process took 3 months, so I am guessing probably three months or less.  I know the agency is saying six months so we don't expect only a few months and then it turns to be much more.  Even so, I will prepare myself for three months or more.  I have to.  You just never know.   But we are at the tail end of all this and will soon be waiting for our first and final decrees.  YAY!

Adventures with cats and other stuff...

Kitty surfing?  I am glad our cats are so tolerant.

One of the 7 new lion cubs born recently at the National Zoo.

Visiting one our beautiful Maryland State Parks.

And Finally....

New pictures of Oliver.  Our paperwork is almost ready to go to TECO.  Not too much longer and we will be meeting him.

Wishing everyone a safe and happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Update on Paperwork

I am finally getting some real answers from our agency in California.  They JUST sent out our homestudy to be translated and found paperwork that had not been notarized by the Secretary of State in California.  They are waiting for it to come back.  I think we are probably looking at a couple of more weeks before our paperwork goes to Taiwan (if we are lucky).  Who knows how backlogged the translator is with files to translate, or how long it will take to get the paperwork back from SoS and TECO?  UGH!  I am very frustrated that they have been sitting on this paperwork.  They have had our homestudy for 2 months and just sent it on Wednesday!  I am not happy with they way they have handled our paperwork AT ALL.  We just keep hoping that our court process is short and Oliver is home by the end of the summer.   The good news is that our USCIS file has been sent to AIT in Taiwan and we have not had any issues in that department :).    Am I being repetitive?  I wish I had something new to share.  Hopefully I will soon.
As far as that one other document is concerned, we had a new one drafted, took it to Annapolis Friday afternoon and had it certified by the county and state in about 40 minutes.  It is on it's way back to California now.  Not sure why we couldn't have done all the paperwork ourselves and I did mention this to the agency.  But it's a moot point since they didn't send in the paperwork to the California Secretary of State anyway.  OK-enough complaining.  Our next post will be GOOD news!! :D

Approvals and setbacks

We received our I-171H from USCIS yesterday!  (That is our approval to move forward with our international adoption.)  We filed in February, had our fingerprinting in April and received the approval in May.  Not too bad.  In other news, our paperwork is being held up by one document.   The problem is that it was notarized by a Navy Legalman and the county is not certifying it because he is not registered with the county. I requested the paperwork be sent back to me so I can take care of it.  I think this will be a relatively easy thing to clear up and I should be able to get it done next week, have it back to California by the weekend and our dossier to TECO by next week.  No one at the agency seems to want to go the extra mile to get it fixed.  The fact that they had a switch in case managers is not helping our paperwork get processed as quickly as we would have hoped either.   Man, all these little things really seem to add up and are frustrating.  Let's hope that our court process in Taiwan will go much smoother and faster and Oliver won't have to wait much longer.  No updates yet.  It has been over a month :(  Maybe next week.