Funny how you never know until you know!

Oh my. There are so many subgroups in America - so defined by MANY and various interests. Who knew there was a Chinese Adoptees Cultural Center in Lee's Summit?? We had been advised to be involved in a Chinese cultural group for Mei Mei when she comes. But personally, I cringed a little at the thought of some group possibly (probably) being 30 miles away at 8am Saturday mornings. Really. I pictured Olathe or Gladstone.

Allie's Chinese language professor, Valda Hsu, (who happens to be a long-time friend from church) invited the head of the Lee's Summit group to speak to their class at Longview. That's how we found out about it. (Well, there was one other co-incident that also led to this group, but I'll let Doug tell you about that!) Sigh. This is all. SO. GOOD.

So. Valda Hsu invited our family to a Chinese Culture Celebration that was yesterday. There were ~15-20 families with adopted Chinese children there. The children performed Christmas songs in Chinese, performed yoyo tricks (not American yoyos, but the hourglass-shaped object they flip around on a string held by 2 sticks.), and since they also offer language classes, the American parents and siblings demonstrated their abilities with speaking and reading Chinese. Then, Valda held a caligraphy and paper-folding session for all the kiddos. The theme was the upcoming Chinese New Year (the year of the Rabbit!) in February.

Then we went down to Pleasant Hill to Pumpkins and Pines Farm (which was a blast and we recommend it!) to tromp all over looking for our Christmas tree, keeping Nick from peeing on every other one. (jk) We imagined how next year, we'd have Mei Mei with us looking for a tree!

Gotta go help - we're setting up the train under the tree and watching Goose freak out! She makes a sound like she's growling at it. Very funny.

Thanks for visiting!

Nov 2010

I know Carolyn has written most of this - but here is my point of view - D

Nov 1 – Carolyn took the medical records to the MO sec of state office in downtown KC for certification (to say the notary is a notary and their commission has not expired)
Nov 10 – our fingerprint appointment is scheduled for the USCIS (Citizenship and Immigration) – we mix up 11/10/10 and 11/11/10 and miss it.
Nov 11 – we drive to the Homeland Security office for fingerprints – office closed – Veteran’s Day
Nov 12 – back to Homeland Security (this is a 45 mi drive one way – by KCI) – get fingerprinted – hopefully this is not blown – app fee was huge
Nov – we watch a webcast from Holt on travel to China. They make a case for using the Lotus travel agency.
Nov – we decide to simplify Christmas this year for our immediate family because of the upcoming expense of going to China – we each draw 2 names – limit $25 per. This seriously cramps my style as gifts is one of my languages – but I agree to play by the rules. But this includes secret Santa between now and Christmas day.
Nov – my secret Santa delivers some mints – I'm liking this.
Nov 28 – we return from Indy to find USCIS approval in the mail – yeah!!!
Nov 29 – Carolyn takes the USCIS approval for notarization at the bank and certification at MO sec of state. Makes copies – the entire dossier is complete…
Nov 30 – Carolyn ships the dossier to the Chinese consulate in Chicago for authentication (that the secretaries of state are the secretaries of state). Should be back mid Dec.

"Just do the next thing"

One of my heroes, Elizabeth Elliott, was quoted as saying "Just do the next thing." Sounds trite, but really, give it a try next time you're paralyzed by the overwhelming nature of something you need to do. It works!

So, the "next thing" is to mail our COMPLETED (:-)) dossier to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago. Most of us didn't even know there was a consulate in Chicago. It's a branch of the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. It seems that there is enough business to take care of here in the U.S. that the Chinese have 4 Consulates in addition to the Embassy. Each consulate deals with business within a group of states. So, Missouri's consulate is in Chicago - and they have to Authenticate our completed dossier.

I've heard this takes about 2 weeks until we get it returned to us, authenticated.

Each of these steps cost a surprising amount of money. Meaning, you look forward to doing the next thing, then discover in the dossier instructions that you gotta take another good look at the budget and figure out where this next chunk-o-change is going to come from.

Nevertheless, this little human life is priceless. We can't wait to meet her!

Please keep praying about the weird situation with the Koreas. China is allied with North Korea.

Oh, and P.S. We got the package mailed today in case I wasn't explicit!
Oh, and P.S.S. . . . Even though we spent the morning laughing at Jenna's hilarious comments while being on Valium, and later on the "Michael Jackson" anesthetic to get her wisdom teeth removed. She slept all afternoon, and is puffier than a chipmunk in acorn heaven! Please wish her "get well soon" on her facebook!

Wahoooooooooo!

Our final document, the approval! from! Homeland! Security!, came while we were in Indianapolis, once again proving, a watched mailbox never delivers!

We had been hoping the document would come before we went to Indianapolis, because then we could take a little side trip up to Chicago, where the Chinese consulate is, to drop off the dossier in person. Chicago is only about 3 or 4 hours from Indy. Anyway, it didn't come in time. Doug's been so hard-at-work these past coupla years anyway, he was hesistant to take any more time off. So all for the best. But taking our mind off of mailbox watching was good for us.

We had a wonderful, relaxing, well-fed, game-playing time with Amy, David, Michael and Claire. Side note: we think our pup Nick is pretty awesome, but he definitely has competition with their dogs Margo and Neigh-Neigh (haha - horsey spelling). They are german shepherd and border collie. Majorly cool dogs.

But wait, I digress . . . SO our new plan for tomorrow is to get the immigration document notarized, then make our 3rd trek downtown to the Secretary of State's office to get it Certified, then back home to pack up the completed dossier to ship off to Chicago, the Chinese Consulate!! Wow wow wow! We're so close!!

Oh, and the original plan for tomorrow was to start building a room off the attics of both upstairs rooms. Seriously.

Fingerprints and dates . . . duh

We've had the immigration fingerprinting appointment for a month. We knew the government would make the appointment and we had to show up whenever they said. So Doug took half a day off, we rearranged our schedules, rendevous-ed 3 cars into Grandview, and up we drove, almost to the airport, on VETERAN'S DAY! That's where the "duh" comes in. What government facility would be open on Veteran's Day? My first thought was, "Why did they schedule us on Veteran's Day? Didn't they know they would be closed?" My second thought was, "Maybe I got the date wrong." Well, the government gets things wrong, but I'll bet they never get a holiday wrong, so sure enough, it was my mess-up. It's hard to anticipate how you're going to feel when something falls through, but the head-smack that I felt for the rest of the day surprised me. I was horrified. The USCIS Appointment Letter clearly states, (and I quote): IF YOU FAIL TO APPEAR AS SCHEDULED, YOUR APPLICATION WILL BE CONSIDERED ABANDONED. (And it's really in ALL CAPS!) Well, to save you from more whining, the bottom line is that we went at the crack-o-dawn the next morning and got it done. That was hopefully my first and last freak-out. Now we wait for another couple weeks to get our USCIS approval form.

Signing up to "Follow" without registering for Google account . . .

Notice on the upper left of the page header is a button that says "Follow". Just click on that, and that's all you have to do. You don't need to start a new account with Google or Yahoo or whatever.

If you've ever considered foreign adoption . . .

Sweeeeeeeet video

Hi - Emmi was cruising HoltInternational.com and found this video. We recognize some of these kids from the photolisting page on Holt's website. It's tooooo cute! Wish I knew the lyrics to the song they're singing - looks like they're praying . . . for "forever families". It's even possible we could be matched with one of the girls in this video. Takes my breath away!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrkO9ooYiaA&feature=player_embedded

Remembering Mom

Yesterday, November 1 marked one year from the day my Mom passed away. I had been moving slow and sad for the past couple weeks, but hadn't known why. I think that's why. Still thinking a lot about her, and wondering what she would have thought of our China adoption. We hadn't thought of doing this until after she passed away. I believe she's part of that cloud of witnesses, though, so she knows it now and I believe she's happy with us.

Time Management

When a trip downtown Kansas City is needed, make sure to plan it on a day when there's lots going on! Like, homeschool co-op in the morning of election day, with ladies' group in the evening. Check, check and check! More to the point, today I took another trip to the Secretary of State's office (13th and Holmes) to have 2 more notarized documents certified. Yay! Now all we need so that everything is in one place is the immigration form. I love checking off the boxes in my master dossier checklist.

The Secretary of State Kansas City office is a block or so from the Sprint Center, and next door to the Kansas City Detention Center. Jenna, Emmi & I linked arms and walked a block or so to the little Power & Light Bar for a soda while we waited for our paperwork. Kinda outta-the-box for these semi-ruralites, but fun!