Things are looking bright!

I took these photos of flowers in our backyard. I think I will frame them, they look neat to me. Things are moving along now, we got our I-171-H last Thursday and mailed it to the Chinese consoult office in Houston to get it authenticated by Friday. Houston got it back to us by this Friday, so it only took 7 days which is not bad at all. Lori and I went through the check off sheet again to make sure that we had everthing, then we went to Mail Boxes Ect. to photocopy everything. Then after the marathon photocopying session we checked everything against the checklist again. I recommend doing this if you fixate on things like I do, it will help you sleep wile your dossier is going through critical review at your adoption agency. Then we shipped it off to CCAI via Fed-Ex for the white glove check aka critical reveiw. Our dossier arrived at the adoption agency on Monday at 10:23 AM. I can't tell you what a relief it is to get to this point. There's a definite sense of calm that comes with the completation of your dossier. With that said here's what happened this Monday night(the same day that the agency received our completed dossier).
I was sitting on my couch trying to figure out when we might be LID and my loving wife said oh, so now we are going to be doing this for awhile. Meaning, I see now that we have got our dossier done you have just changed obsessions without even a days rest inbetween. I love that woman, but I'm starting to think that she knows me way to well. The ink wasn't even dry on the photocopies of our dossier yet and I had moved on to DTC AND LID. By the way, according to my calculations, I know we will be LID sometime in July and that's such a good feeling. Now I'm going to try and relax because we are in for a LONG wait.
Below is a video some one posted on MSN China adoption group. It is shot inside Yangxi SWI, by an adoptive father. Although this may be hard to look at, I thought I would share it here. If any of you have heard that there are fewer orphan children in China and that is why the wait is getting longer, according to this video I don't think that is the problem there are still many babys and kids that need good families and homes. This is one orphanage and is not necessarily the way that they all look. If our daughter comes from this orphanage, I now have a look inside that I might not have gotten otherwise. I would want to know where she lived the first part of her life, so if your daughter comes from or came from this orphanage this is where she spent her days. Tonight as I lay in my soft bed I will think of the babys in Yangxi SWI and the rest of China. Norah we will be there soon......



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some dossier photos

Dossier photos

ITS HERE! ITS HERE! Our I171-H IS HERE!

Well, the nice lady (Jennifer) at Marion Berry's office did the trick. Last thursday (6-8-06) our I-171-H came in the mail. They had told us it would not be up for review until 6-12-06. So when we got it in the mail we took Jennifer some cookies and a card to thank her for her help. We also conned her into letting us take a picture with her.
The day the I 171H came in I was not expecting it. I got home from work and was pleasantly suprised. I call my wife at work and told her the good news. Then I was OFF AND RUNNING. I took the form up to her work and made a copy, got the copy notarized, then ran it over to the Secretary of State where I had it certified. Then to the post office to get an express envelope (the chinese consulate will only ship your stuff back with USPS), back home to get my G1 form that I had forgotten, THEN to Mail boxes ect. to fed-ex all the forms to Texas for authentication at the Chinese consulate. I tracked it with the number that Fed-Ex gives you and it arrived at the Houston Chinese counsulate on the very next day at 10:05 in the morning. I am expecting to get the documents back any day now. With this new change of events I now am hoping to be DTC by the end of this mounth. We'll have to see.
Glen

This is a lesson in patience that I don't have time for!!

Well, I need to give an update on the progress of our I-171-H. I called and called and left message after message on the answering machine at the Memphis USCIS office. None of my calls were returned. I gave them my cell number every time so I know that they didn't call because I always have my cell phone with me. I contacted the head of homeland security for the state of Arkansas thinking that because they have now listed the USCIS under homeland security they could help. The head guy was nice enough and looked into it all day and kept calling me back saying they were working on finding out what happend to our I-171-H. Then at the end of the day his secretary called me and told me that they didn't have any jurisdiction over the USCIS office because they were a state agency and the USCIS was a federal agency. After that I waited another week, checking the mail with the anticipation of a kid at Christmas only to find lumps of coal in the form of junk mail and bills. We did however get last months phone bill that showed there were over 20 calls to Memphis. Once I saw that in print I knew I wasn't going to get an answer out of them no matter how many time I tried by calling. So then it was off to the local office of congressman Marion Barry. The lady at the office knew of the situation at Memphis having had to deal with them many times in the past and we talked to her about many of our concerns, including extending the time that an I-171-H is good for. At this point our I-171-H may very well expire before we travel to China making it a very real possibility that we will have to go threw this all over again if referrals keep geting longer. She told us that she would start with an E-mail to the USCIS to see what is going on with our paper work. Within three hours she had an answer for us. They told her that they have our home study addendum scheduled to be reviewed for the 2nd time at on the 12th of June. At least we now have a date and some kind of answer. The nice lady at Mrion Barry's office told me she would e-mail the USCIS back on the 12th to see what's going on with the paperwork. Now, I am greatful to have some answer but we got the addendum to the home study back to them on the 10th of May. Therefore it appears that ittkaes 30 days review one sentance. "Have you ever been arrested" takes over 30 days! When not only the local but state and federal government have our fingerprints and signed forms saying that we have not. Looking at the calander we will be lucky to be DTC buy June and I know we wont have a LID until July.
On a happier note some aquaintances of ours from the FCC-CA are coming home tonight from China with there daugther and we are going to dinner with some people from the fcc and then on to the airport. The couple and their new daughter should arrive at 9:45 PM. In family news my lovely and talented wife applied for an opening on the O.R. heart team, I hope she gets it.