A New Picture...Taken TODAY

There is a family adopting from Dana's orphanage and they are there right now picking up their kids. The orphanage has very strict rules about allowing adoptive parents to only take pictures of the kids they're adopting. However, if one of the other kids gets in the shot by "accident" they apparently don't get too upset about it. Today the Parker family got a shot of Dana (holding the hand of a nurse) as she walked past their son. Even though it only shows her back, I think it's adorable! Her hair has grown long enough to put in little pigtails! Too cute! Thanks so much for the picture, Molly! :)

The Truth is contagious...Spread it!!

Project Hopeful made this awesome video...check it out!

Moving Along

We finished our home study last week and I have to say, it was super easy! Our social worker, Angela, was one of the nicest people I have ever met. She was really easy to talk to and very encouraging. All in all, it was a breeze. She emailed me yesterday to let me know that she plans to be finished writing the report by the end of next week. Once I get the finalized home study, I will send it, along with our I-600A (Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition), to USCIS. USCIS is U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, previously known as INS before the Deparment of Homeland Security took over. Once they process everything and get our fingerprints they will send us the "golden ticket", our I-171H, which will be sent to Dana's country as part of our dossier.

Speaking of our dossier, I recently started working on it and I think I'm making pretty good progress. So far I have our marriage certificates, mortgage letter, employment letter, and home ownership letter. The other day I heard that those last three documents can sometimes be problematic, so I feel so lucky that it only took me one day to get each of them. In addition, I've got the ball rolling on our medical statements, doctors' licences, social worker license, and agency license. I haven't started on anything that requires a passport number because we had to renew ours and haven't received the new ones yet. This morning we had our fingerprints done for our state police clearance. It took about 15 minutes, including travel time. Sometimes living in a small town is a very good thing! I'm going to try and make it downtown this afternoon to drop them off at State Police Headquarters. It's gray, gloomy and COLD and just starting raining, so I really don't feel like going out but I'd like to get them delivered so I don't have to worry about it next week.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving!