Dossier will go to Vietnam tomorrow, new photos.

CHI sent an email this afternoon that everything is fine with our dossier and it will be sent to Vietnam tomorrow. They showed Kelly some new photos of Sarah while she was there and they were then emailed to us as you can see. That made our day. If the date was set correctly on the camera, the photos were just taken yesterday. You can click on the photos to enlarge them.

And I just wanted to share a nice photo I took in our yard on Easter, that is my computer wallpaper for the time being. Click the link below.

http://tinyurl.com/yr9u2q

Documents are back home for the night.

Our dossier arrived as scheduled via FedEx today and Kelly will be taking it to CHI tomorrow.

After adding the "Quote to ponder" in the right column of the blog recently, I've found some additional quotes that I'll share from time to time. Today's quote:

"I asked God, 'How much time do I have before I die?' He replied, 'Enough to make a difference.'"

-Unknown

We received news from the Assistant Stork

We received an email this evening from the courier service we used for our dossier. Our dossier has been authenticated and was sent out today. We should receive it tomorrow and we'll take it to our agency on Thursday so they can send it on to Vietnam. They will also be sending the photo album we prepared for Sarah to aquaint her with her new family. This will be given to her and she'll be told about the adoption. The dossier will need to be translated and processed by our agency's staff in Vietnam, which can take a few weeks. It will then be submitted to the Vietnamese government, after which it should be 2-4 months before we travel to Vietnam to bring Sarah home.

Good news from D.C.

I received an email from our courier and it sounds like we won't have a problem with the embassy accepting our cashier's check. It's been taking about 2 weeks for the dossiers to be processed so we are hoping to receive it back by the end of March. More waiting...

Off to DC.

I sent off our dossier this morning to be authenticated by the Vietnam Embassy. And with my usual bad luck, we get our weekly update from CHI this afternoon and coincidently they inform everyone that the embassy will now only accept money orders and will no longer accept cashier's checks. And you guessed it, I sent a cashier's check, since our agency's adoption guide stated money orders or cashier's checks and the courier service we are using sent us detailed instructions yesterday, 3/12, and also stated a money order or cashier's check could be used. I've emailed the courier service, but haven't heard back yet. We're hoping this doesn't delay this step of the process.

Update and snow humor.

Kelly is taking our dossier to the MO Secretary of State's St. Louis office today to be certified and then we'll be sending it off to the embassy in Washington, DC to be authenticated. It'll be such a relief when we finally get it sent off to Vietnam.

Last week, some members of our agency's yahoo group for Vietnam adoptions were discussing all the snow they had received. Yesterday, several of them were bummed out about some recent news concerning the Vietnam adoption situation, so I thought I'd post a couple of videos of our dogs after the 7 to 8 inches of snow we got March 11. They're not the best quality, but you'll get the idea. In the first one, Jack and Skippy are running around the deck trying to figure out where to "go". They finally disappear under the deck. In the second one, Jack doesn't leave the shoveled area, but Skippy ventures out in the depths, finds a spot to "go" under a pine tree, then comes back to the deck. Hopefully, these will bring a smile to some of those families who are feeling "hopeless" right now.

All the documents are compiled.

We got the last of our dossier documents together today, got a few remaining ones notarized, and I faxed it all to our agency to be checked over before we take them to the Secretary of State's office to be certified. I finished my online tests over the weekend and Kelly finished her's tonight, so the education part of the process is over except one remaining seminar we will attend in April. Things are coming together. Kelly has also been doing a little shopping online for Sarah's room. She bought sheets with Sarah's name on them, a nice matching lamp, a wicker table and chair set and a doll high chair and crib. I’m confident Sarah’s room will be well stocked when she arrives later this year.