October Up-date

Well it has been a long time since we updated the blog, so I will try to fill you in on the events that have taken place. We did get our finger prints taken by Homeland Security which as pretty cool. It is all on the computer and is then immediately in DC.  On September 27, 2011 we received our I-797 which is the pre-approval to making Scottie a US citizen. The next step is to send our dossier to China, so we have been working on the final papers that need to be included in the dossier.  At the beginning of October, we received an email informing us that the Chinese Embassy would no longer be authenticating any documents that we older than 6 months. This was scary because we had been collecting documents that needed to be authenticated so that we could send them all off as one big batch. Some of our documents were exactly 6 months old so we gathered them together and headed to the FedEx store (these docs can’t be sent regular mail). I am pleased to say that the first batch did get authenticated and now we are waiting on the next batch to return. I believe that we will have only one more batch of documents that need to be authenticated now and they have resent dates. Anyway what my long store means is that hopefully we will be ready to send our dossier to Holt for approval and translation by the beginning of November. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

We do not have a match yet but believe it will happen shortly after our dossier is logged-in in China. We are still hoping for a little girl between the ages of 4 and 6 and the wait is starting to get to me.  I have been doing some therapy shopping lately, mostly looking because we don’t know what size she will be. I have purchased a few items in size 4, but they could end up begin to small. We figure that anything that we buy that is too small we can donate to the orphanage. I was told that most kids are about one size smaller than their age, so 4 is in the middle. I also crochet her a hat. You can never have too many hats in Alaska.

While this has all been going on behind the scenes, Zane and Quade have finished up the cross country and the football seasons respectively. Quade decided that he is now going to play indoor soccer and had his first day yesterday. His team is the Shelter Island Chickens. They won 6 to 4 and had a great time. I had never been to an indoor soccer game before and learned many interesting rules. There is no out of bounds except for if the ball goes to high in the air or hits the basketball hoop. The bottom rows of the bleachers are pulled out for the audience but the ball can be played off of your legs (we moved ours when the ball was coming). I loved the part where the ball was played of the school binder and jacket that was lying on the floor or got caught under the curtain. Anyway it was a lot of fun and Zane has decided that he wants to play as well. I think Fred is planning on signing him up on Monday. Zane will be in the next age bracket but I bet he will know someone on his team and if not, he will soon. 

Fred has been working on his fish for Public Market and they are really looking great. Hopefully he will post some pictures soon. He has also been working on the chicken coop which is now finished and the chickens moved in yesterday. These are not your ordinary Rhode Island Red chickens, these are babied pet Rhode Island Red chickens, but still lays an egg a day each. You can pet them and hold them and they will follow you around the yard. We even had to interview to get them. Anyway they are very sweet and Fred is already having a ball with them.

Well I believe the next post should be around the end of October / beginning of November and I hope I will be saying that our dossier is on its way. So again keep your fingers crossed, pray, whatever it is you do that everything falls in to place and we can be traveling to China by spring.