Adoption Blog

Happy New Year!

2004 is going to be an awesome year!

If you're chasing paper I hope you get DTC ASAP! If you're waiting I hope you get matched soon! And if you've returned home with new family members I pray that you are blessed beyond your wildest dreams!

Happy New Year!

Final Home Study Visit

Tomorrow morning we have our final meeting for our home study. We should have been done a long time ago but my medical records slowed us down. I hurt my back a few weeks before my physical and so the doctor had me on some med's. Then I had the flu. So when I got my blood work done, my blood count was off. My doctor said it was probably the medicine and scheduled another appointment several weeks later. And all of this was on top of the fact that we had to wait a month and a half just to get our physicals. I'm happy to say that my blood work turned out great, I no longer have the flu, and after 3 weeks of physical therapy my back is doing much better!

On a side note... I'm interested in finding more personal adoption sites (stories, blogs, etc...). If you know of any, please leave a comment or shoot me an email.

Greetings, Thanks, Hi, & Welcome!

I just wanted to take a moment and say thanks to everyone who has contacted us since we started this blog site. We've received a lot of really nice emails from people offering their advice, and congratulating us on our decision.

One thing that amazed me right from the begining was the willingness of people to offer advice and to share their personal experiences. There's a clear bond between all of the families out there. And that's awesome!

Merry Christmas

Mele Kalikimaka and a Hau'oli Makahiki Hou!

Godiva Chocolate

Naomi & I were at Hallmark this evening picking out some Birthday and New Years cards. After we left and got in our car Naomi handed me two pieces of chocolate. She said that Hallmark gives you chocolate when you shop there. So I started to eat one of the pieces when it occurred to me that she didn't keep any for herself. Naturally I was a bit puzzled. So I asked her why she didn't want one. She looked right at me, smiled and said, "Because it isn't Godiva!"

She cracks me up. The scary part is I think she was serious...

Certified, Not Apostille Please!

Ugh... and so the paper chase continues. We finally received copies of Naomi's birth certificate from Hawaii only to find that it was Apostille and not Certified. The good news is that I talked to them and they agreed to correct it at no charge and they said they'd process it the day they receive it.

Rock'n Christmas!

My favorite Christmas Tree Ornament. (I added some more pictures of our Christmas Tree!)

Financial Statement

Last night I typed up our financial statement. And again, I'll fax it over to CCAI for approval before I go through the process of having it notarized, certified and authenticated.

Adoption Petition

Last night we typed up our adoption petition. I will fax it over to CCAI today for approval before we get it notarized, certified, and authenticated.

The Smell of Christmas

One of the big disadantages of having an artificial Christmas Tree is that they don't have the Christmas Tree smell. Well, Naomi found a solution. She stopped by Yankee Candle and bought a Mistletoe Candle.

Doctor's Appointment Today

Oh boy! We've got our physicals today.

This is the last piece of the home study puzzle (other than the I-600A/I-171H, but I'll save the details on that for another post).

I wish we would have scheduled the appointment a lot sooner. Our doctor was booked up and this has really slowed us down. For those of you just getting started in the adoption process, you might want to consider setting your appointments ASAP!

We Need a Traffic Light!

What a morning. I was pulling out of my subdivision and witnessed an awful accident. One SUV was hit so hard it traveled 30+ feet right at me. I had to brace for impact. It stopped about 5 feet away from me. I jumped out of my car...

...and approached the first vehicle to check on the driver. She was okay. I ran over to the other vehicle and checked on them. The driver was okay but the passenger was in bad shape. His head was bleeding, he said his back was hurt and he couldn't move. I spoke with 911, relayed information back and forth from the injured person to the 911 operator, and then we waited for the emergency vehicles to show up.

I hate this type of stuff. I usually won't even look at an accident when I drive by. I just don't like to see injured people.

They really need to put up a traffic light at that intersection!

What a morning...

Physical - Blood Work!

Naomi and I have a 9:00am appointment to get blood work done this morning. It's prep work for our Thursday physicals.

It's all part of the paper chase...

Issues With VitalCheck.com

We ran into another snag. I ordered copies of our marriage license from Vitalcheck.com back on 10.31.03. One week later I noticed that they had charged my credit card but then credited it back. So I called them and asked them about it. They said there was no problem. In fact, they looked the order up and said it was ready to ship out and that I should expect to receive it in about a week.

Well, we didn't receive it so I called them this past Monday. The person I spoke with said they'd look into it and they'd call me back. They called me back Tuesday and said my order had been canceled many weeks ago. They informed me that since we are adopting from China, we have to get our marriage license directly from the Vital Statistics department.

If there's one thing that really disturbs me it's people, departments, agencies, businesses, etc... that can't understand the simple concept of communication. It's okay if they make a mistake on my order. It's okay if they can't fix it. It's even okay if they cost me a little time and money. But it's not okay for them to just ignore me. All they had to do was call me and tell me that my order was canceled. But they didn't. I had to call them four weeks after my order was placed only to find out that I actually didn't have an order with them anymore.

Well, I'm certainly not going to let their incompetence get me down. I went to the post office Wednesday and overnighted my new order directly to Vital Statistics of Florida.

Sometimes you just have to keep your head down, stay focused, and not let external circumstances keep you from staying the course!

We're making progress. We're making progress!!!

Pictures of our Christmas Tree

Here's some pictures of our Christmas Tree!

Christmas Tree

Naomi and I have been married for six years and this is the first time we've had a Christmas Tree. It's not like we don't like Christmas. We both love Christmas. But it just seems like we're always traveling for Christmas so we've never had a tree.

But this year is different...

Not only are we not traveling but Naomi's mom will be flying up to spend Christmas with us. So we decided to buy a tree. And it actually worked out great because when my parents found out that we were buying a tree they offered to pay for it as an early Christmas present for us. Cool, yeah?

So we went out and bought our first tree. It's an artificial tree. It looks awesome. It's 7 feet tall but it's what I'd call a medium sized tree. It's not one of those huge trees and yet it's not totally thin either.

We've been collecting ornaments over the past few years so we've got a few things on the tree. I have to admit that my favorites so far are my Jingle Bell Rock Ornaments from Restoration Hardware! They were a Christmas gift from my parents last year.

Has anyone else put their tree up yet? Is it a real tree or artificial?

I'll try to post some pictures of our tree when I get a chance.