No Immigrations

The mail lady walked right by our house and what did she bring me....NOTHING!!! Where is our immigrations paperwork! It's NO fun waiting for a piece of paper. No fun at all. So if the mail lady brings me NOTHING tomorrow we will be making a trip to the Hendricks County Court House to purchase ANOTHER marriage license. You know I really should have counted how many birth certificates and marriage licenses I have purchased in the last 3 years. TOO many!  Of course I tried calling the beautiful wonderful people at immigrations for the status of our paperwork and what did I get...a voice mail and what did I do...left a message and what did I get back...NOTHING!!!  Returning messages must not be their thing. I can relate but not when it is my JOB!!! Okay I will settle down. IT will come. Maybe just not on my timeline but on HIS!

In His Time! Worth it ALL! Love the Hess'

Wait Patiently

We received our state police clearance yesterday so now we have all our documents except our immigrations! I'm waiting patiently this week and praying that we will receive it by Thursday so that Olivia, Adie and myself can go downtown AGAIN, get the state seal on the remaining documents and then OFF they go to the Chinese Consulate!

In His Time! Worth it ALL! Love the Hess'

Fingerprints

Our Fingerprints are today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In His Time! Worth it ALL! Love the Hess'

Running Around Crazy

Monday night I got 9 out of the 13 documents for our Dossier ready to take downtown on Tuesday morning to get the state seal. Around 10:00pm Monday night I sent a friend who just adopted from China an email asking her about sending the documents to the Chinese Consulate. To her great rapid response she said in so many words...don't send directly to the consulate, use a courier. (THANKS ROBIN!!) She gave me the name that she used. After a little bit of research, I decided it was time for bed. Only this was on my mind as I laid in bed thinking about how much this is going to cost using a courier and is it really necessary. So about Midnight I decided that it was useless to be in bed with this on my mind. I turned the computer back on and researched the courier a little bit more. Putting together a "budget" of how much this was going to cost (if you know Mark, you will know that he would want to know "how much is this going to cost us" :) After putting it down on paper I realized that in April when I put together our "Adoption Budget" I budgeted $800 for Chinese Consulate however, even using a courier this HOPEFULLY will only cost around $500. So I did not feel so bad. Around 12:30 I was able to go to bed but not to sleep because then Olivia decided that she "needed" me 3 different times that night. Why that night...why not a night that I go to bed around 10:00????


On Tuesday after dropping Mahala off at school, Olivia, Adeline and myself went downtown to get the state seal on our 9 documents...only to find out that we needed a State Birth Certificates....County vs State...not sure why one is better than the other??? And that 3 of our other documents had something wrong with the notary. So out of the 9 we only got 4 with the state seal. We ran to the doctors off to fix 2 of the documents. Later that night we got the other one fixed.


Wednesday after dropping Mahala off at school, we ran downtown again. Parked the car, walked 2 blocks to get our STATE birth certificates (still don't know what is wrong with County), walked back to the government building, and got the 5 documents state sealed. As we were driving home, a LIGHT BULB came on...don't you hate that when after 2 days of CRAZY running around trying to get things done...and then common sense comes to you. I was trying to get these 9 documents done so I could send them to the consulate before they expire on October 22. (We are still waiting of our immigrations paper so that is why we were only sending 1/2 of the documents) So the light bulb as I'm driving said to me why not wait 'til October 1st and just maybe you will have your immigration paper, then you can send them all at one time and save about $100! I really wanted to scream at myself. I had RUSHED for 2 days now trying to get it all this done...and now these 9 documents with the state seal will sit in a folder until the 1st of October waiting for our immigration paper. And at that time we will return to the government building to get the remaining documents state sealed :) CRAZY...really wish the light bulb would have come on earlier!!!


So now we wait for September 16th to get our fingerprints. Hopefully they will be clear with no problems and we will get our immigrations by the 1st so that I can get that off to our courier to take to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago before the 22nd when our Marriage License expires...unless anyone is up for a shopping day trip to Chicago....do a little adoption business and then shop :)

Mahala turned 6 this week. Below is her hospital picture.

She wanted to go to the Jump 'n' Play in Avon

Adeline had a great time on the baby blow up

so did Olivia with ALL her energy :)

And instead of a cake she wanted a Frosty Float from Wendy's !!

Who needs a pool...just bring the boat inside!

Grandparents Open House at School! Mahala was SO excited to show off her school!

In His Time! Worth it ALL! Love the Hess'

Immigrations Check

After leaving my message yesterday with immigrations, calling this morning and talking to another officer...Our officer called back! Of course in my non-stable emotional state I cried as I talked to her...as we were talking I asking myself "WHY are you crying?" Sometimes I think God gave me extra tears because I cry at the oddest times...like job interview...not good :) But anyways, she said that she has our paperwork and has reviewed it. All she is waiting on is our fingerprints to be done on the 16th. After that it might take 2 weeks to get our I-171H paper (the paper we need for our dossier!) YEAH!!! A burden has been lifted of my shoulders!

Mahala's Corner: She LOVES school! She tries to have school time with Olivia when she gets home but it not working out! If you know Olivia you can only image her taking directions from big sis :) Mahala & Olivia had a Wonder Woman Birthday Party!

Olivia's Corner: She kind-of loves soccer! Last game she scored 2 times...of course I missed both times. Once for talking and not paying attention and the other getting the team snacks. She does not know...so SHHHHH :)

Adie's Corner: 3rd Child, what can I say. Mom is busy with other things that she gets into toilets, paper, crayons, you name it she probably has tried to eat it! Who needs a dog when we have Adie ?!?! 

Or Stamps!!! While I was going to a meeting at church, I was on the phone with Mark. All of a sudden Mark says "you are going to kill me. I need to go" Only to find out that Adie got ahold of the girls stamps and was sucking on the red one like a bottle...NICE.

Joys of Immigrations!!!

STILL trying to figure out our immigration paperwork. Called on Friday to hear "I will try to LOCATE your paperwork and get started on it next week". The work locate really bothers me since this is the 2nd time I have heard our officer tell me "let me try and find your paperwork". Called today to get her lovely voice mail which on there she tells me that my call is very important to her and she will call me back...HMMM...since this is the 2nd voice mail message that I have given her and no call back what are the odds that she will call me back...Not thinking so! So I will call again tomorrow! She will find that paperwork before long just so she does not have to hear my lovely voice calling her every day :) The joys of paperwork and government...don't think they go together.

We have all of our dossier ready for state seal expect for local clearance and our immigration paperwork. (Local Clearance just requires us to go get them.)

Everyone single part of this process is WORTH IT!!!!!!