Well, if any of you are reading this blog to get advice on how to go about things, here is one thing I will tell you. READ YOUR ADOPTION MANUALS THOROUGHLY!!!

You'd think that I would "get" this concept, but somehow it seems that I find out something new every time I look at our manual! Anyway - yesterday, I read a page differently than I ever had ever read it before. It's no big deal, but would've saved me a trip downtown, early in the process. Probably the first picture I ever posted was of me holding our marriage certificate. That's really cool -- now we have 2 "original" copies of the certificate from the probate judge's office in our county. Problem is...you can't submit a copy from your county office...your marriage certificate must come from the Office of Vital Statistics...same place you get your birth certificates from! SO - I took a trip over to the Health Department (when I could've accomplished this on one of my trips over there to get the plethera of birth certificates I now have) and got the "correct" marriage certificate for the international adoption purposes.

Here I am with the correct paper, now! (and mom, don't worry...I edited the picture so that our identity couldn't be stolen as a result of posting this pic ;)

Onto other areas -- Amy (soc. worker) will come to the house on Monday for our final homestudy appointment...we hope to have ALL of our paperwork completed to turn in to her. Then Tuesday, Nathan & I both have our physicals/blood draws that are necessary for both the homestudy and Russia. After that paperwork gets sent to Amy, then I *think* for all that is required of us, we'll be done w/ the homestudy process. So here's a cautious ... Yippee!!!

I know that's not a lot of updates from here...slowly but surely, though, we are getting things done. Keep praying for us...for all the paperwork to be just right, and for us to finish our part as quickly as possible!

We love you all! :)

Labels: International Adoption, Paperwork