More delays

Well, looks like we will be delayed in our travel for about a week.  At least we hope it is only a week!  So now that my list of last minute items has almost been completed, I am afraid I will have too much time on my hands this next week.  But if I look at it another way, I have another week to spend with my girls before we travel=)  I like that way of looking at it much better!  

One more week!

Well, we made it to my mom's house in Idaho. There is not much of interest along I-80 thru Nebraska and Wyoming. We ran into snow storms in Wyoming and about got blown away when we had to stop for gas...literally! I had to hold onto the car to stand upright. We have driven thru there before and it isn't my favorite drive=) We ended up stopping in Salt Lake City because of the storms, but the kids got to visit with their grandparents there, so it was a good stop. We made it to Idaho on Wednesday and stopped at my sister's in Boise. I needed to make a Costco run for school lunches. But now we are finally at my mom's, my oldest girls started school this morning, and I have been doing last minute stuff all day! Thankfully, I am already packed for Kazakhstan, just have to get the kids settled in here before I leave next Tuesday.

We are counting down the days now!

Preparations

Quentin and I will leave for Kazakhstan on April 14th. We have booked our tickets through Golden Rule Travel and purchased travel insurance through Travel Protectors. Our 3 girls and I will be leaving for our drive to Idaho on Sunday. I will get them settled there and enrolled in school before we leave. Quentin will be flying out of Minneapolis and I will be flying out of Boise. We will meet up in Frankfurt, Germany! Packing has become a major operation=) I need to have spring and summer clothes with some winter stuff thrown in for the girls since they will be in Idaho until July. Then I need to pack for myself for Kaz and for Idaho. I hope everything fits into the van! I am going to have to think about getting a car top carrier soon for our summer road trips so that we can pack all our luggage.

Quentin has been busy learning Russian. So far he has taught himself how to read it, and a bit about the grammar. He is working on learning common words now. I am afraid I haven't been as good about it=) I can read it and know a few words from a high school Russian class I took (I was surprised I could still remember the alphabet!) but I haven't done much to learn more. I am traveling equipped with a phrase book and flash cards. I have always been good at cramming! From my experience in Japan I know I will be able to pick up more when we get there. It is so much easier to learn when immersed.

I am practicing adding videos to this blog, so here is one of 2 of our girls being silly=)

LOI!!!!!

Our LOI (Letter of Invitation) came through last Friday, Feb. 20! We need to be in Almaty on April 16th. We will then head to Taraz to start bonding on the 17th. Our guardianship meeting is supposed to be on May 4th. Then we travel back to Almaty and leave May 6th. Hopefully we will return to Kaz within a few weeks for our court date. It is going to be so hard to leave once we have met our little girl! We are very excited and looking forward to the trip.

And Waiting.....

We were notified that our dossier had been sent to the region of Taraz, Kazakhstan on October 30, 2008. In fact, that was the eve of our move to Minneapolis! I was so excited, but I couldn't even look up Taraz on the internet because we had already cancelled our phone and internet service=) The next month was taken up with the move and getting settled in, not to mention locating a new homestudy agency so that we could get an update and finding a new physician to do our updates for our medicals. We learned that we would most likely be traveling at the end of January or early February! We made plans for Quentin's sister to come and stay with the girls while we travelled to Kazakhstan. Christmas came and we had a wonderful time in our new home with family who came to visit.

January moved kind of slow=) Then towards the end of January we were told our travel would be delayed till end of March or early April. This really messed up our plans for the girls! Quentin's sister was due to have her second baby towards the end of April. We really didn't want her to be away from her own home so close to her due date. So we decided to send our youngest (almost 2) to her and send our 2 oldest to my sister and mom in Idaho. They would go to school there. Well, then came another delay, so now we are told it will most likely be mid-April before we travel. So now all 3 girls will head to Idaho. When we return from Kazakhstan I will join the girls there and wait for our 2nd trip to Taraz. We figured the girls can then finish the school year in Idaho. They are thrilled with the plan as they get to stay at their Aunt and Uncle's house and be totally spoiled by Grandma=) Our youngest is going to have her first experience with daycare=) Thank goodness she isn't so glued to me as she used to be.

We are hoping for no more delays, even though travelling this summer would be a lot easier for us=) We just really, really want to get over there and find our little girl! It is going to be incredibly difficult leaving her there when we return. I am finding the thought of leaving my 3 girls here difficult enough. I imagine I will feel pulled in two directions=) It will be so nice when we are ALL together!

Waiting......

Well, we received word that our dossier had been submitted to the Kazakhstan Embassy on July 9th, 2008, BUT the embassy wanted updated FBI fingerprints done before they would approve it. We submitted the updated fingerprints on the 24th (It took less than 2 weeks to get them back from the FBI). On August 7th we were informed that our dossier had made it through the embassy and was on it's way to Kazakhstan!! From here we will wait hopefully 3-4 months until our dossier reaches a region. Then it could be up to 6 months from then that we travel. We are just so glad our dossier has reached Kazakhstan finallly!

In other news, we are moving! Not the ideal time, but Quentin is relocating to Minneapolis for his job. So we will be moving hopefully mid-late October. Then we need to make sure we have everything in order for the adoption that the move disrupted.

We're in!

We FedExed our dossier on Feb 27. The next day, it was accepted by our agency and sent off for translation.

From start to finish, it took us 4 months to complete our dossier. Our original goal was 3 months and to be in by the end of January. However, the holidays slowed us down a bit, so it took us 4.

Now, we wait...