Friday, February 4, 2011

february 4, 2011





tiny baby olives had her second birthday yesterday.  seems like the time has gone by so fast!  seems like this adoption is taking forever...  funny how time is like that.

we were finally able to walk in early and get fingerprinted at the USCIS near dc today.  three hours round trip because we had to drop jim off at work on the way back, but it's done and we will never have to do that again!  i hate alexandria.  well, i hate the traffic, really, not actually the place.

it was an easy morning at the fingerprint office, though.  no one was there, we walked in, sat for a few minutes, had our fingers scanned (no ink anymore!) and were done.  i don't know if we were there for even 15 minutes.  we've waited hours at that place in the past.  a nice visit for a change.

and, i have to admit, an interesting place, too.  i'd love to work there (if there was no traffic to deal with during the commute!  HA!) just to see all the people and where they are from and hear their stories.  fascinating.  i'd be a passport officer, too.  same reason.  to meet people from all over the world, get paid to do it, and not have to fly anywhere!  wonderful job.  although, not all of them think so, of course.  i'm sure a very frustrating job, too, actually.

but, i digress...  so now we wait 2 to 4 weeks for the I-800 Pre-Approval letter to arrive and then something else happens...  so many new steps.  i'm not sure what we do then, but i think we take that letter and notarize, certify, authenticate, authenticate and send it off to the agency who then finalizes our dossier, translates it and sends it off to china (CCAA).  at that point we get a log-in-date (LID) and then back to waiting.

so, one more step done.  :)

we also sent a chinese new year gift to ben through the help of a special organization that sends things to the swi for adoptive parents.  i have received photos of the gifts they included in ben's package.  they are posted above.  we'll see if we get back any photos of ben enjoying his holiday gifts...

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