Fingerprints ... check

Now we wait for our approval. 

Today was a fun full day. We went to our appointment first thing in the morning. Traffic - no problem. Weather - cold, but no problem. Our appointment went smoothly. We were one of the first people there so we didn't have to wait. The woman who took my prints was pleasant. I found out the probable reason why my prints are hard to capture is because I am on the computer all day and have worn them out. After our appointment we stopped at the MOA. Picked up a few things at the Kitchen store and then I spent a little time at Archivers (my favorite place to spend time) Then we went back to St. Paul and ate at our favorite Thai restaurant.  Stopped at the outlet center in Medford on our way home for some snow pants for me and some camping pants for Jim. (He looks so hot!) Returned home and Jim made us a lamb dinner. It was really good, just wish I had been hungrier. Then I tackled putting the crib together. We are having a little visitor stay over tomorrow night, New Years Eve! Finally, a reason to put that thing up. I must admit ... I enjoyed it.  :)

Referrals

The CCAA has completed referrals for all of March 2006! Congratulations to those families! It took all of 2009, as was expected. (March, we were told, held a lot of waiting families) The next batch of referrals have been received. It covers through April 3. Which is ... one day. (April 1 & 2 is the weekend) WTH. All I can say is, "Really?" Somethings got to give. I don't know how this snails pace can keep up. We can only hope that they (CCAA) wanted to get in one more day before the end of the year??? And another batch will go out in January? Whoooo knows.

What we do know is that there are 10 months ahead of us yet. (Our LID is February 2007.) And the CCAA took one year to refer March 2006. If the CCAA can refer two months a year from now on ... that bring us to 5 years wait ahead of us. YIKES! If they can scoot it up to referring three months a year, better! That would bring us to just over a three year wait yet. That may be asking for a lot though. Even though China has been referring out fewer and fewer children every year ... there are more and more people dropping out every year as well. To either adopt elsewhere or have just changed their minds. So ... even though that is sad for them, it may make up enough of a difference for us. ?  Time will tell. Why is China referring out fewer and fewer children right now? From what I have read ... domestic adoption is up. And in some regions orphanages are paying families to foster children in their homes so the orphanages aren't as full. There are still a lot of orphanages that have not been adopting out their children ... and the CCAA is working with them yet on changing that. Like I said, time will tell.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Progress!

Our fingerprint appointment has been scheduled for us! It is December 30th. We are making some progress here!

The Craziness Continues .....

Well ... it is December and we STILL don't have a fingerprint appointment. We are expecting to be notified of when that will be any day now. Hopefully it will be soon. This whole 'renewing our paperwork' is confusing. Not only for us ... but for our everyone involved as well. When we mailed them our forms for renewal ... our home study agency took care of everything they needed to do and then sent it all off to the Bloomington USCIS. Like they were instructed to do. But someone there decided, no ... and mailed it back to us with instructions to send it down to the USCIS in Texas. Why? I guess they all get routed there first and then logged in and THEN they mail them back to the USCIS regional offices. Why? I'm not sure. So we did this. In the meantime, I talked with our home study agency. The USCIS in Bloomington was wrong. If this was a NEW request, then yes. But ours is a RENEWAL. So Bloomington should have just accepted it and moved on with it. AAAAAAAAH! Since then, we have received a letter from the Texas USCIS stating that they received it and that it is logged in. So even though our expiration date has passed .... it has been logged in with a November date. So we should be good. Should be. Hopefully. 

Tonight ... Jim and I are heading over to Sioux Falls. My big brother and his family are going to be there. We got a hotel room and will be relaxing in a hot tub before bed tonight! I-CAN'T-WAIT! I need a little get-away.