Paper Work

I will keep you updated this week on the paperwork. Currently the paperwork is in the adoption agency's hands. It will be sent this week to be translated. I will let you know as soon as I find out.

Brad

Great News

Today was the end of one of the long chapters in the Adoption process. We have now completed all of our paperwork. Dee Dee and I went down to Montgomery this morning and had every document that was notarized, apostilled. This means that every notary was authenticated by the State of Alabama. We had 81 forms to be apostilled and above is what $405 will by you in paper.

We are so excited!!!!!! By the way the first picture above is the parking lot 5 blocks away from where we needed to be. There is no public parking in Montgomery. If you have every been down to, or near the courthouse, there are a lot of spaces but they are all reserved for someone. And that someone was not us.

With all of that being said we are now sending our paperwork to the adoption agency for their review and then it should go out this week to Russia. Next it will be translated and then we will be on the short waiting list I hope for ALEX.

Moving Right Along

We are excited to say that we should have all of the paperwork finished up by the end of this week. We went to Columbiana this morning to get a certified deed to the house and then we went to the Shelby County Sherrif's Office to get them to write letters for us. We are going to send all the information back to our adoption agency and hopefully they will tell us that we are "good to go". After that we can take all of our 55 documents down to Montgomery to get apostilled. They have to sign off saying that the notary is a true notary. It is $5 per document apostilled, so more money to spend there. Nothing is free in adoption. Brad and I are hoping that everything will be finished up by the end of next week and sent on to Russia. Russia usually takes 30-90 days to get you a referral, so we hope our waiting time is more on the 30 day side.

Below, I included a picture of Conner and Caleb (Michelle and David's boys). David had a job transfer up to Muscle Shoals, AL and we don't get to see them as much as we used to. We miss you guys and come visit anytime!

Adoption News

I was so busy last night that I didn't have time to tell everyone the good news. Alabama usually takes about a month to review the home study, but I found out yesterday that they approved all the paperwork on July 29th (2 weeks early) and everything was then sent to Atlanta. Atlanta/Immigration usually takes about 3 months to approve everything, but I found out today that for Russian adoptions, you do not have to wait for Immigration to approve the paperwork before you travel for the 1st time to Russia. That means that once I get the dossier finished up (which should be by next week) that we can go ahead and send it to Russia and they usually take a couple of months to send you a referral (a child referred to you). Once they send us a referral, we will be able to travel and see him.

We are definitely on schedule to have Alex home by the end of year, so keep praying for us!!!

Sorry

Sorry guys! Dee Dee fell asleep last night before she could post. She is going to update tonight. I may be needlessly typing this but I have gotten a couple of phone calls. The good news in the short run is that our paperwork is already in Atlanta.

But received more good news today and I will let her explain it to you.

Brad

Birthday Weekend

Hello all, I hope everyone had a great weekend. Dee Dee and I are splitting up the blog tonight. She is writing one about the great news we received today. However you already know about it because you just read it. So, I am so excited and I take back what I said about the State of Alabama the other day.

Anyway we went up to Smith Lake this weekend for our good friend Suzi's daughter Elle's 1st birthday. The party was covered in pink. Lots of Pink. We had a great time, there was a cotton candy machine, snow cone machine, Bouncy house (see picture) and a mini horse. Dee Dee and I got to interact with a lot of children and watch them play around the pool. By the way some of the children were older than others. Speaking of, Brooke, Suzi's cousin brought her 3 month old Tori and Dee Dee did not put her down almost the whole time and she was even changing diapers. I was excited to see that she liked doing that, Gross.

We also got to watch the UFC fight that night in the movie theater, that is the way to watch a fight. I was fortunate enough as well that Brian was there with his bad ass ski boat. It had the tower and huge stereo system. I was able to wake board for the first time on a tower on a pro-comp board, wow, what a difference it makes. I was able to get real high on my jumps. While we were on the boat Brian introduced Dee Dee and I to Surfing. I must say Dee Dee is a natural, she got up on her first try. It took me three, and yes I know I look PALE. It is a little different not being attached to the board. It was so much fun.

I hope everyone had a great weekend and I look forward to seeing you all soon. I know we will probably miss our boy's first birthday but I look forward to his first birthday with us. It looks like it will be sooner than we thought. Also I am proud to say that watching Dee Dee around children she is going to be a natural mother, she looks so cute.

See you soon,
Brad

Hello

Hello all. It has been a while since our last post. I am so sorry. Things are a little slow right now. We are kind stuck in that fun waiting period. Currently, things are in the wonderful hands of the state of Alabama. Our State is the only State in the USA that has this checks and balances system for adoption. Basically, it means that our state does not trust the federal government to do their job and they would like to double check us first.

Any way, with that being said. We should have our paper work in to Georgia in the next week or so. Once they have it we will still be waiting, but things will be moving on our end again. It should provide us with plenty to talk about.

In the interim we have been to a lot of time with children the last few weeks and this weekend is no exception. We will be out of town at a one year old b'day party. I hope all is well with everyone and look forward to seeing you all soon. If anyone needs their car detailed or knows someone who does please send them my way, Russian travel is not cheap. I am just kidding, not really. Also to all of you men out there who listen to Jocks radio listen for my new ad's next week and let me know what you think.

Brad