We have travel dates, well sort of

It has been crazy around our house the past few days. Trying to finish baby proofing. We realized sadly after 2hrs to install one latch, neither of us are good with power tools. We are waiting for a handyman to install safety latches and anchor book cases next week. We need to get this done and fast as we may have less than 13days to pick up the baby. Yesterday I got a call first from Teresa, Jeremiah's mama in GA asking if we got our travel dates. My answer was no. I had just hung up and got the call we have been waiting for, sort of. It was HAI saying we needed to rush over to TECO (Taiwan consulate) and sign power of attorney for Kimi's passport. We also got out of them we may have an AIT apt. (passport office in Taiwan) possibly Jan. 23rd or 24th! YIPPEE! We have official travel meeting Thursday Jan 10th we will know for sure.

Other people in our group had to make the TECO trip, I thought we were out of the woods. There were scary stories of long lines, missing photocopies, and difficult people, we found this to be the easiest part of the adoption. We breezed in and out and found free street parking. Yes in downtown SF @ 3:30pm. The Adoption Gods are on our side.

For those of you that are not familiar a homestudy(HS) is a 3 month interrogation of each of our lives. It includes 1000's of questions, alone blindfolded in a cold room. They compare our answers to see if they match. If so, they show up at our friends houses and do the same. They look at our bank accounts @ every last latte we ever bought. They look at our medical history and DNA from before birth. They search our house with a white glove looking for lint in every corner. Finally, where most people fail they dangle a juicy steak in front of the dogs and ask them if they were ever denied chicken treats, a walk, or a trip to the park. If they make the slightest peep which they usually do we would be denied. ok, Just kidding about the lattes or we never would have passed.

Recently, the HS agency we originally used suddenly closed last Nov & transferred all people to a new agency. New agency means new papers and new fees. We had to do a 5th set of police fingerprints (saying we were not criminals) for the new agency different then the new federal prints (saying we were not terrorists) for the new HS. Are you keeping track of all this? The new agency never got our new prints (saying we are not criminals). Those prints need to be to sent with our HS to USCIS so the US can re award us the coveted (I 600A) (saying we can be Kimi's parents in the US). For now we can be Kimi's parents until Jan 27th when the I600A expires. Still following? If we don't make it to our AIT apt. in Taiwan by the 27th we can not be Kimi's parents until new I600A is awarded. Meanwhile Taiwan says we are Kimi's parents as of Dec 13th 2007. If for some reason AIT apt. lands after the 27th or we get abducted by aliens and don't make it to AIT, we could be stuck in Taiwan for a while or worse. Did you follow all that? We are on pins and needles waiting to hear of our AIT date it has to be before Jan 27th! Please pray for us!