So people read my blog. Other people. Like, people I don't know. I guess I knew that. But now I KNOW that. Maybe I should make an effort to be more articulate and spell correctly. Check for typos... :)
Adoption. For those of you who haven't travelled this road, or been down it lately, and to China in particular, there is a bundle of Mystery Paper Work known as an I-800 A correct homestudy, that we are trying to create. We already have a homestudy, but it accidentally fell into a beaurocratic void when the US and China became Hague treaty nations and suddenly new, undefined requirements were necessary for homestudies, and nobody knew exactly what they were. Our homestudy was sent off to the USCIS like...a week....before everybody got the word on what was required for the I-800 A. And it wasn't what was in our homestudy. That was back in June.
It took three months for us to get the word we knew was coming, that our homestudy had to be amended to meet Hague standards. And now we're frantically trying to get it up to par, as the new improved version has to be back with the USCIS within 45 days or we start over. (we have about 20 days to go...)
Emails and phone calls are going back and forth between me, our homestudy social worker, a Hague accredited social worker, and the USCIS adjudicator who has our case file, to tweak the homestudy into the magically correct format with exactly absolutely perfect wording so that we will pass inspection and move on to step two, sending documents to China. I know that this is all happening to protect the child we are adopting, and I keep thinking of her over there in China, waiting. She waits in foster care, we wait in the beaurocratic loop.
She is getting dancing lessons. She asked for chocolate and other sweets. She likes getting email from her sisters here in CA. We are lucky we are able to communicate with her like this...it is extremely rare to have any contact with a child being adopted from China. But we also hear the plea to come get her soon. She has been waiting so long. She wants parents. She wants a family.
We will be patient, but urgently so if that is possible. We have to get this stuff done, and get that little girl home.
I am, in the meantime, gutting and putting a bathroom back together. The chain of events that let to that was typical for our family.
We live in the woods. There are wood rats. They, when they can, make homes under our house. I periodically have to go out and block entrances, and remove rats (not pleasant for either rat or human). As I was inspecting the area under the house for rats a few weeks ago, someone flushed the toilet upstairs. And Lo, large amounts of water came cascading down, two feet from my head. Upstairs, in the bathroom in question, there was no sign of a leak. Upon pulling the toilet, we found that all leaking was going UNDER THE FLOOR TILE and had ruined the subflooring. ARGH. So pulled out all the tile and subflooring. Pulled out the beautiful wainscoting, and had to scrap that as it got damaged during removal. Put new stuff in. Retiled. Bought a new vanity, too, but that's another story. And am now wallpapering the bathroom. So...from woodrats to wallpapering. I am busy. And...after three weeks of under house silence, I am hearing woodrats again, so will make another journey under the house to figure out how they're getting in, and what I have to do to get rid of them this time.
This is fall break time for our school kids. But the 15 year old is doing driver ed this week, so not much of a vacation for her. I'm supposed to be fitting costumes for a huge renaissance era musical production/dinner, but have been trying get the bathroom operable before having people in my house for fitting. I was supposed to take a CLEP test today, but NO TIME, so maybe next week.
The sun is shining. I planted some nice perennials in my garden yesterday and did some weeding. I'm going to take a walk this afternoon and enjoy the fall weather. And life is pretty good!
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Animals I Have Known
That was the title of a book I read when I was a kid. I don't remember what it was about. Animals, I presume. The title stuck with me longer than the content, probably because it was a little odd.
There are animal lovers, and there are animal likers. I'm an animal liker.
I don't need to have them sitting in my lap. But I really, really like watching them. Animal interactions, animal behavior in the wild, animal behavior when wild ones encounter ME...that's all very entertaining and interesting.
And I talk to animals. Which is probably kind of strange. If I see a dog sitting in the back of somebody's pickup truck in a parking lot, I will say "Hi." Yesterday when I went out in my front yard, there was a deer standing about twenty feet from the front door. The deer looked up, and didn't move. I said "You'd better run. You can see I have predator eyes!" And the deer ran.
This human/deer conversation was based on the fact that herbivores/prey have eyes located on the sides of their heads (the better to catch a glimpse of who's hunting you while you're quietly eating) and carnivores/predators have eyes in the front of their heads (the better to keep your prey in sight while you're chasing it). So that deer knew what was good for her. Even though she was eating my flowers, I wouldn't have hunted her down. But I have been known to throw things at deer when they're caught eating a particularly prized plant. I once hit a deer square in the forehead with a bottle of shampoo. It was all I had at hand. I was as suprised as she was. I'm usually not a very good shot, and it was a long throw.
I don't like hunting. I suppose if we were starving I could learn to shoot things and eat them. I can kill a rattlesnake, but it has taken quite a long time to do it without a lot of squeamishness. And I'll only do it if it's where it could hurt my kids or my dogs. I usually find out about them when the dogs have them cornered and they're already all riled up. I still feel badly when I have to do it. I have looked into getting one of those snake sticks, with a loop at the end of a pole...but once you catch it you have to let it go again....where? And where do you keep it while you're taking it where you want to let it go? A snake carrier? There's a rattlesnake removal service in a neighboring county...they'll come and rescue the snake and/or the homeowner. I think their clients are mostly terrified flatlanders who've just moved up into the hills.
And...my final thoughts. There was a recent editorial in the paper from a resident of a gated community nearby. Fairly wealthy people from the San Francisco Bay Area frequently relocate in our rural, wilderness-y county. Some of them can't quite bring themselves to let go of their love of surburbia, and so they live in communities like Lake Wildwood or Lake of the Pines, where they can continue in their tight little neighborhoods with lots of rules about fences and vehicles and what color they can paint their houses. And they have a hard time with the notion that Just Over the Fence...there is wildness. Deer and wild turkeys congregate in their front yards and sample the goodies. And, of course, raccoons and opppossums raid the garbage. But, occasionally, scary animals like bears and mountain lions will put in an appearance, and then everyone falls apart. The animals are always there. The live and hunt right in there among the nice neighborhoods with their beautiful homes. But they're pretty good at staying hidden (they have predator eyes, after all) so we don't get to see them very often. The poor lady who wrote her newspaper article was upset that a bear has been seen in Lake Wildwood. She wants to be able to walk her dog at night without fear. She is calling a meeting of the Lake Wildwood-ites to Do Something about the scary animals. Like....what? Worry about something real, like the scary people.
There are animal lovers, and there are animal likers. I'm an animal liker.
I don't need to have them sitting in my lap. But I really, really like watching them. Animal interactions, animal behavior in the wild, animal behavior when wild ones encounter ME...that's all very entertaining and interesting.
And I talk to animals. Which is probably kind of strange. If I see a dog sitting in the back of somebody's pickup truck in a parking lot, I will say "Hi." Yesterday when I went out in my front yard, there was a deer standing about twenty feet from the front door. The deer looked up, and didn't move. I said "You'd better run. You can see I have predator eyes!" And the deer ran.
This human/deer conversation was based on the fact that herbivores/prey have eyes located on the sides of their heads (the better to catch a glimpse of who's hunting you while you're quietly eating) and carnivores/predators have eyes in the front of their heads (the better to keep your prey in sight while you're chasing it). So that deer knew what was good for her. Even though she was eating my flowers, I wouldn't have hunted her down. But I have been known to throw things at deer when they're caught eating a particularly prized plant. I once hit a deer square in the forehead with a bottle of shampoo. It was all I had at hand. I was as suprised as she was. I'm usually not a very good shot, and it was a long throw.
I don't like hunting. I suppose if we were starving I could learn to shoot things and eat them. I can kill a rattlesnake, but it has taken quite a long time to do it without a lot of squeamishness. And I'll only do it if it's where it could hurt my kids or my dogs. I usually find out about them when the dogs have them cornered and they're already all riled up. I still feel badly when I have to do it. I have looked into getting one of those snake sticks, with a loop at the end of a pole...but once you catch it you have to let it go again....where? And where do you keep it while you're taking it where you want to let it go? A snake carrier? There's a rattlesnake removal service in a neighboring county...they'll come and rescue the snake and/or the homeowner. I think their clients are mostly terrified flatlanders who've just moved up into the hills.
And...my final thoughts. There was a recent editorial in the paper from a resident of a gated community nearby. Fairly wealthy people from the San Francisco Bay Area frequently relocate in our rural, wilderness-y county. Some of them can't quite bring themselves to let go of their love of surburbia, and so they live in communities like Lake Wildwood or Lake of the Pines, where they can continue in their tight little neighborhoods with lots of rules about fences and vehicles and what color they can paint their houses. And they have a hard time with the notion that Just Over the Fence...there is wildness. Deer and wild turkeys congregate in their front yards and sample the goodies. And, of course, raccoons and opppossums raid the garbage. But, occasionally, scary animals like bears and mountain lions will put in an appearance, and then everyone falls apart. The animals are always there. The live and hunt right in there among the nice neighborhoods with their beautiful homes. But they're pretty good at staying hidden (they have predator eyes, after all) so we don't get to see them very often. The poor lady who wrote her newspaper article was upset that a bear has been seen in Lake Wildwood. She wants to be able to walk her dog at night without fear. She is calling a meeting of the Lake Wildwood-ites to Do Something about the scary animals. Like....what? Worry about something real, like the scary people.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
whew
I am not very well organized. And I am enthusiastic about too many things. And I like to start things...big things...and have a hard time finishing them. So I am feeling overwhelmed with my amazing self. I have about 18 unfinished projects around the house. Actually...more, I'll bet. And I want to do them ALLLLLL.
My current favorite project is my yard. It is a perpetual thing. I have lived in this house for over 20 years, and I am always adding a new garden, or tearing out a garden and putting something else in its place. BUT the catch is that they're never quite finished before I change them. And there's usually a half done look to them that is not very restful or lovely.
You should understand that I live on five acres in the chapparral (oak/fir woodland), so there's a vast area of potential garden out there, but no neighbors to be offended by my unfinished work...
Last year I tore out our back lawn and started creating a perennial garden in its place. It is 2/3 done. There is a very lovely (but weedy) flower/shrub area on one side of a laboriously installed cast concrete path. On the other side of the path is....a vast weed patch, three feet tall and very stickery. Eventually, all of this will be tamed and beautiful. Or will it?
I am planning on tearing out two ornamental ponds I built in my "japanese-y garden" in the front yard, because one of them leaks. My vision is to create one LARGE ornamenetal pond (with waterfall built into the slope behind it) with a flexible liner that cannot be ripped/cracked by the deer to like to stand in the pond to drink. I'm going to wait until fall to do this...it's too hot outdoors to undertake any huge digging/concrete smashing work right now.
And I have other plans after that to landscape the large area where my dogs hang out (Putz, I think I have more than you do...nine) after that. Vision: patio/firepit, surrounded by beautiful plants, and a view of the sunset. Very dog resistant plants...dogs like to pick flowers as much as I do. But they eat them.
And....you know what all of this is about? The more I have big plans like this, the less I can pay attention to the things that I SHOULD be doing, but really don't want to do. Like: study for the college class I'm taking. Do the dishes. Fold the laundry. Mop the floor. Clean the garage. Etc. Anything to avoid the boring work. And the irony is that if I just DID those other things (a little bit at a time every day) I would have lots more time for my projects. My brain knows that, but whatever bit of me is still an 11 year old slacker doesn't listen.
I am very good at all out efforts...all-or-nothing, work-myself-into-the-ground, maniacal huge superwoman jobs. I'm not so good at 15 minute chores. I like challenges, unless they're mundane little ones. I (me, personally) must be a mundane little challenge, because I never seem to be able to master it. Gotta think small.....
My current favorite project is my yard. It is a perpetual thing. I have lived in this house for over 20 years, and I am always adding a new garden, or tearing out a garden and putting something else in its place. BUT the catch is that they're never quite finished before I change them. And there's usually a half done look to them that is not very restful or lovely.
You should understand that I live on five acres in the chapparral (oak/fir woodland), so there's a vast area of potential garden out there, but no neighbors to be offended by my unfinished work...
Last year I tore out our back lawn and started creating a perennial garden in its place. It is 2/3 done. There is a very lovely (but weedy) flower/shrub area on one side of a laboriously installed cast concrete path. On the other side of the path is....a vast weed patch, three feet tall and very stickery. Eventually, all of this will be tamed and beautiful. Or will it?
I am planning on tearing out two ornamental ponds I built in my "japanese-y garden" in the front yard, because one of them leaks. My vision is to create one LARGE ornamenetal pond (with waterfall built into the slope behind it) with a flexible liner that cannot be ripped/cracked by the deer to like to stand in the pond to drink. I'm going to wait until fall to do this...it's too hot outdoors to undertake any huge digging/concrete smashing work right now.
And I have other plans after that to landscape the large area where my dogs hang out (Putz, I think I have more than you do...nine) after that. Vision: patio/firepit, surrounded by beautiful plants, and a view of the sunset. Very dog resistant plants...dogs like to pick flowers as much as I do. But they eat them.
And....you know what all of this is about? The more I have big plans like this, the less I can pay attention to the things that I SHOULD be doing, but really don't want to do. Like: study for the college class I'm taking. Do the dishes. Fold the laundry. Mop the floor. Clean the garage. Etc. Anything to avoid the boring work. And the irony is that if I just DID those other things (a little bit at a time every day) I would have lots more time for my projects. My brain knows that, but whatever bit of me is still an 11 year old slacker doesn't listen.
I am very good at all out efforts...all-or-nothing, work-myself-into-the-ground, maniacal huge superwoman jobs. I'm not so good at 15 minute chores. I like challenges, unless they're mundane little ones. I (me, personally) must be a mundane little challenge, because I never seem to be able to master it. Gotta think small.....
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
changes all the time
I've been gone, vacationing, reunioning, seeing a daughter home from a mission, seeing a son off on a mission. Everything keeps moving along so quickly, and I'm likc a rock in the middle of the stream, watching it all go by around me.
USCIS is still processing our I-800 A forms for Lou Juan's adoption. We did our biometrics (computerized fingerprints, kinda fun, and the Homeland Security office is like the DMV plus uniforms and guns...) We haven't heard from Lou Juan's tutor in a month. I am a little bit concerned about that, but I know she is busy, and it's Olympics time there in China, so everyone is probably obsessing about that.
We sent John off on the plane to Brazil this morning. It was a happy/sad thing. I'm VERY happy that he chooses to serve a mission and is worthy to do so. But sad, you know...I'll miss him. But it's all good. It was hard to look him in the face this morning and know I wouldn't see him for two years. And hard again this afternoon when I found a highly amusing picture of a friend of his at Senior Ball wearing a kilt...and couldn't share the joy. And, given my experiences when my first child went on a mission, it will probably be weird and difficult for about a week, and then overall VERY good with occasional bouts of missing him for the next two years. It's really fun and amazing to follow the progress of a son or daughter on a mission, and to share that experience.
And, of course, Caitlin came home from her mission in Taiwan on July 29th. This was joyful, amazing and good. But from that day until this, we've had a nonstop whirlwind of activity. The last month of summer vacation whipped by in seconds, with travel, travel, travel, visiting, visitors, getting John ready, and now....school starts tomorrow. Caitlin goes back to BYU next week. We will be able to rest maybe a tiny bit between now and then.
Life is good. I'm tired today, and still have some last minute back to school stuff to do...yeesh.
Seminary starts tomorrow as well, so we'll be up and running by 5 am. Looking forward to another year of new things.
USCIS is still processing our I-800 A forms for Lou Juan's adoption. We did our biometrics (computerized fingerprints, kinda fun, and the Homeland Security office is like the DMV plus uniforms and guns...) We haven't heard from Lou Juan's tutor in a month. I am a little bit concerned about that, but I know she is busy, and it's Olympics time there in China, so everyone is probably obsessing about that.
We sent John off on the plane to Brazil this morning. It was a happy/sad thing. I'm VERY happy that he chooses to serve a mission and is worthy to do so. But sad, you know...I'll miss him. But it's all good. It was hard to look him in the face this morning and know I wouldn't see him for two years. And hard again this afternoon when I found a highly amusing picture of a friend of his at Senior Ball wearing a kilt...and couldn't share the joy. And, given my experiences when my first child went on a mission, it will probably be weird and difficult for about a week, and then overall VERY good with occasional bouts of missing him for the next two years. It's really fun and amazing to follow the progress of a son or daughter on a mission, and to share that experience.
And, of course, Caitlin came home from her mission in Taiwan on July 29th. This was joyful, amazing and good. But from that day until this, we've had a nonstop whirlwind of activity. The last month of summer vacation whipped by in seconds, with travel, travel, travel, visiting, visitors, getting John ready, and now....school starts tomorrow. Caitlin goes back to BYU next week. We will be able to rest maybe a tiny bit between now and then.
Life is good. I'm tired today, and still have some last minute back to school stuff to do...yeesh.
Seminary starts tomorrow as well, so we'll be up and running by 5 am. Looking forward to another year of new things.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Another adoption update
While I was in UT doing various UT things (spending money, mostly...on clothes for our soon-to-be-missionary son, school clothes from DI (does anyone else buy all their school clothes from DI???) and lots and lots of books) the papers arrived from the USCIS telling us we have to get our biometrics (fingerprints) taken on July 30. So...small bit of progress.
We found out that we had to get child abuse clearance letters from every state we've lived in since age 18, so we're in the process of collecting those. Heard through the adoption grapevine that all of our 13 dossier documents (medical reports, employment verification, etc etc etc) have to be less than six months old when the whole dossier gets authenticated at the Chinese embassy. Which is not nice to hear, as some of those documents date back to Feb 2008, and what a pain to have to go back and get more doctors appointments, etc...but our adoption coordinator says that they only have to be less than a year old, and to go ahead and get the individual documents verified at State level and Chinese Embassy level now, rather than wait until the whole dossier is put together. So we'll start that adventure next. I hate paperwork. But getting all those official, notarized, fancily verified papers back from official sources is kind of cool. The authentication mark from the Chinese Embassy is very pretty...a hologram kind of thing, all different reflective colors.
Our friends ,the Watsons, who adopted Lou Juan's best friend Lou Ming are home from their trip to China and Lou Ming is now adjusting to being a kid in the United States. She had a tough time for a few days, missing and grieving for her caregiver from the orphange in China. Many of the workers in the orphanage (SWI is the real term...social welfare institute) are there for years, and raise the children from babies until they're adopted. They bond with them and miss them terribly when they go. The children miss their caregivers a lot. But Lou Ming is doing better. She was hoping Lou Juan would live next door, so they could be together in the US...hard to explain that Texas and California are very far apart, so probably no play dates for them. But both families have relatives in San Diego, so maybe the girls will be able to see each other occasionally on trips out there.
We heard that Lou Juan did very well on her school exams at the end of the year. She has had trouble with school before, but I think her tutor is helping her a lot, in many ways.
The Watsons carried a package for Lou Juan with them to China...and had to take it in a cooler, since I didn't know I wasn't supposed to send chocolate in July...and so Lou Juan now has a bunch more US made toys (hard to find, by the way...everything is made in China, go check it out!) and a bunch of Little Debbies, which she apparently likes a lot.
Tomorrow, we will see our daughter, Caitlin, for the first time in 18 months. She's been serving a mission in Taiwan. We're very excited!
We found out that we had to get child abuse clearance letters from every state we've lived in since age 18, so we're in the process of collecting those. Heard through the adoption grapevine that all of our 13 dossier documents (medical reports, employment verification, etc etc etc) have to be less than six months old when the whole dossier gets authenticated at the Chinese embassy. Which is not nice to hear, as some of those documents date back to Feb 2008, and what a pain to have to go back and get more doctors appointments, etc...but our adoption coordinator says that they only have to be less than a year old, and to go ahead and get the individual documents verified at State level and Chinese Embassy level now, rather than wait until the whole dossier is put together. So we'll start that adventure next. I hate paperwork. But getting all those official, notarized, fancily verified papers back from official sources is kind of cool. The authentication mark from the Chinese Embassy is very pretty...a hologram kind of thing, all different reflective colors.
Our friends ,the Watsons, who adopted Lou Juan's best friend Lou Ming are home from their trip to China and Lou Ming is now adjusting to being a kid in the United States. She had a tough time for a few days, missing and grieving for her caregiver from the orphange in China. Many of the workers in the orphanage (SWI is the real term...social welfare institute) are there for years, and raise the children from babies until they're adopted. They bond with them and miss them terribly when they go. The children miss their caregivers a lot. But Lou Ming is doing better. She was hoping Lou Juan would live next door, so they could be together in the US...hard to explain that Texas and California are very far apart, so probably no play dates for them. But both families have relatives in San Diego, so maybe the girls will be able to see each other occasionally on trips out there.
We heard that Lou Juan did very well on her school exams at the end of the year. She has had trouble with school before, but I think her tutor is helping her a lot, in many ways.
The Watsons carried a package for Lou Juan with them to China...and had to take it in a cooler, since I didn't know I wasn't supposed to send chocolate in July...and so Lou Juan now has a bunch more US made toys (hard to find, by the way...everything is made in China, go check it out!) and a bunch of Little Debbies, which she apparently likes a lot.
Tomorrow, we will see our daughter, Caitlin, for the first time in 18 months. She's been serving a mission in Taiwan. We're very excited!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
SMOKIN'!!!!
I'm not. But I always loved that line (word? very SHORT line) from The Mask. Which some of my children are too good to watch, and others, as bad as I am, occasionally enjoy. I especially like the dance sequences...is that really Jim Carey dancing?
Anyway, I digress....a lot.
It is really smoky here in the foothills of Northern California. One of our ward members believes that when the CA Supreme Court confirmed the legality of Gay Marriage (a few weeks ago), we were given a gigantic warning in the form of a dry lightning storm that started a thousand fires up and down the state.
I'm not in position to confirm or deny that this was divine retribution, but we definitely had/have a lot of fires. All of a sudden, all at the same time. And they're not stopping. Nothing is going on right in my neighborhood, but we had two fires within twenty miles of us right after the big Lightning Storm, and now that those are contained, more or less, we have three more within fifty miles. The firefighters have decided to just let one fire (the Government Fire in Blue Canyon) just burn on, since it's not threatening any structures. It has consumed thousands of acres.
We have been just BURIED in smoke for almost three weeks. It's bad enough that we've been advised not to go outdoors unless we have to. And it's summer vacation! This could go on all the way up til the beginning of the rainy season in October.... Looking outdoors, you can't see more than 50 yards, and everything is a yellow/gray haze.
We're accustomed to wildfires here. Fires are our regional natural disaster of choice...no earthquakes or floods or anything. But usually the truly awful fire season doesn't hit in our area until August or Septemeber, when we can count on a few scares each year, and a real bad fire close to home every ten years or so. We've never had to evacuate, but we've come close. Life is an exciting adventure. I guess I prefer fires to say.....street crime, or.....living in a subdivision.
On the adoption front, I contacted the National Service Center for the US immigration service yesterday (USCIS...don't know what all the letters stand for....US central immigration service, maybe?) and found that our 1-800 A was received on June 16. They told me that the adjuticator (official person who will probably tell us to redo our homestuy) will contact us by letter in about two weeks. So, things are happening, if slowly.
Lou Juan's best friend from the orphanage was adopted this week. Lou Ming's family will be back home in Texas in a few days. I'm excited to hear how things are going, and about their China experience. They already have an adopted daughter from China, and they took her with them. She's six now, and they were a bit anxious about how the trip would affect her, emotionally. Some kids are excited about going back to see their homeland. Others NEVER want to go back. We sent a package off to Lou Juan with Lou Ming's family...candy and stuff. The most important gift was a disposable camera. We hope that she'll take pictures of her friends, her teachers, her room...anything important to her. She's lived ten years there, and the pictures may be the only part of her old life that comes home with her.
Anyway, I digress....a lot.
It is really smoky here in the foothills of Northern California. One of our ward members believes that when the CA Supreme Court confirmed the legality of Gay Marriage (a few weeks ago), we were given a gigantic warning in the form of a dry lightning storm that started a thousand fires up and down the state.
I'm not in position to confirm or deny that this was divine retribution, but we definitely had/have a lot of fires. All of a sudden, all at the same time. And they're not stopping. Nothing is going on right in my neighborhood, but we had two fires within twenty miles of us right after the big Lightning Storm, and now that those are contained, more or less, we have three more within fifty miles. The firefighters have decided to just let one fire (the Government Fire in Blue Canyon) just burn on, since it's not threatening any structures. It has consumed thousands of acres.
We have been just BURIED in smoke for almost three weeks. It's bad enough that we've been advised not to go outdoors unless we have to. And it's summer vacation! This could go on all the way up til the beginning of the rainy season in October.... Looking outdoors, you can't see more than 50 yards, and everything is a yellow/gray haze.
We're accustomed to wildfires here. Fires are our regional natural disaster of choice...no earthquakes or floods or anything. But usually the truly awful fire season doesn't hit in our area until August or Septemeber, when we can count on a few scares each year, and a real bad fire close to home every ten years or so. We've never had to evacuate, but we've come close. Life is an exciting adventure. I guess I prefer fires to say.....street crime, or.....living in a subdivision.
On the adoption front, I contacted the National Service Center for the US immigration service yesterday (USCIS...don't know what all the letters stand for....US central immigration service, maybe?) and found that our 1-800 A was received on June 16. They told me that the adjuticator (official person who will probably tell us to redo our homestuy) will contact us by letter in about two weeks. So, things are happening, if slowly.
Lou Juan's best friend from the orphanage was adopted this week. Lou Ming's family will be back home in Texas in a few days. I'm excited to hear how things are going, and about their China experience. They already have an adopted daughter from China, and they took her with them. She's six now, and they were a bit anxious about how the trip would affect her, emotionally. Some kids are excited about going back to see their homeland. Others NEVER want to go back. We sent a package off to Lou Juan with Lou Ming's family...candy and stuff. The most important gift was a disposable camera. We hope that she'll take pictures of her friends, her teachers, her room...anything important to her. She's lived ten years there, and the pictures may be the only part of her old life that comes home with her.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
This blog thing....and why
Hey look! I'm blogging! I feel rather self-conscious....a rather shy person sending my wordwaves out to whoever.
Just for the record, I'm starting this blog to keep a record of a new venture in our lives. Our family is adopting a new daughter, and the ups and downs and ins and outs of the process may be of interest to her someday.
We're already a large-ish family,with some kids grown and some still at home. We have (I have) always wanted to adopt. And now, our youngest biological child is a teenager and my husband is also excited about adopting. He says the house is too quiet with only three teenagers around!
Our family now: Ray, 54, Allison 49, Sarah (off and married with 3 kids of her own), Carolee (Likewise married and similarly occupied with husband and a daughter), Caitlin 22, serving a mission in Taiwan, John, 19, about to leave on a mission to Sao Paulo, Brazil, Laura 15, and Kirsten, 13. And....waiting in Loudi City, Hunan Province, Peoples' Republic of China...Lou Juan, age ten. She knows she is going to be adopted, and (so far) is happy about that.
The paperwork for the adoption process, as well as the beaureaucratic hoop-jumping, is long, ardudous and frustrating. We received our PA (provisional acceptance as an adoptive family) from China on Feb 12, 2008. Our homestudy seemed to take forever to complete...we finally got it done in late May. Now we're going through the 1-800A process with the USCIS, which is brand new, and nobody really knows how long it will take for that to get done.
We are waiting to be told our homestudy needs to be revised (so far, all of the homestudies sent
with the 1-800A have required revision) and then will send it all off again. It is supposed to take a month to get the bad news, and then another month (we hope it's only that long) to get the paperwork approved. After that, our massive dossier of thirteen important documents gets sent to China for official approval...the coveted LOA (letter of acceptance). And then...after that...we wait for the TA (travel approval). And after that, we have three months to travel and bring Lou Juan home.
She's known she was going to be adopted for five months. She is anxious to get to the United States and have a family. We have hired a tutor to teach her English. The tutor has become a friend and liaison for us, a great blessing. We can send packages to Lou Juan, and messages through her tutor, Fiona. But mostly, we wait. We feel a degree of impatience with the process, but maybe it's good to have time to contemplate the huge thing we're doing...taking a little girl from everything she's ever known, and turning her world upside down in the hope that, ultimately, things will be better for her here.
Just for the record, I'm starting this blog to keep a record of a new venture in our lives. Our family is adopting a new daughter, and the ups and downs and ins and outs of the process may be of interest to her someday.
We're already a large-ish family,with some kids grown and some still at home. We have (I have) always wanted to adopt. And now, our youngest biological child is a teenager and my husband is also excited about adopting. He says the house is too quiet with only three teenagers around!
Our family now: Ray, 54, Allison 49, Sarah (off and married with 3 kids of her own), Carolee (Likewise married and similarly occupied with husband and a daughter), Caitlin 22, serving a mission in Taiwan, John, 19, about to leave on a mission to Sao Paulo, Brazil, Laura 15, and Kirsten, 13. And....waiting in Loudi City, Hunan Province, Peoples' Republic of China...Lou Juan, age ten. She knows she is going to be adopted, and (so far) is happy about that.
The paperwork for the adoption process, as well as the beaureaucratic hoop-jumping, is long, ardudous and frustrating. We received our PA (provisional acceptance as an adoptive family) from China on Feb 12, 2008. Our homestudy seemed to take forever to complete...we finally got it done in late May. Now we're going through the 1-800A process with the USCIS, which is brand new, and nobody really knows how long it will take for that to get done.
We are waiting to be told our homestudy needs to be revised (so far, all of the homestudies sent
with the 1-800A have required revision) and then will send it all off again. It is supposed to take a month to get the bad news, and then another month (we hope it's only that long) to get the paperwork approved. After that, our massive dossier of thirteen important documents gets sent to China for official approval...the coveted LOA (letter of acceptance). And then...after that...we wait for the TA (travel approval). And after that, we have three months to travel and bring Lou Juan home.
She's known she was going to be adopted for five months. She is anxious to get to the United States and have a family. We have hired a tutor to teach her English. The tutor has become a friend and liaison for us, a great blessing. We can send packages to Lou Juan, and messages through her tutor, Fiona. But mostly, we wait. We feel a degree of impatience with the process, but maybe it's good to have time to contemplate the huge thing we're doing...taking a little girl from everything she's ever known, and turning her world upside down in the hope that, ultimately, things will be better for her here.
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