Adoption Update

On Wednesday of this week, Mark and I spent the day in Indianapolis to take care of some of our adoption paperwork. Our first stop was the Secretary of State's office to have our dossier sealed. We were so excited that this took just 30 minutes. After that, we explored Indy's downtown for a little bit. We found some wonderful shops on Mass. Ave. -- a global gifts store, a fabulous, old-school toy store, and a great little chocolate shop.

As lunch time approached, we made our way to Abyssinia (see my post below about our trip to this great Ethiopian restaurant for lunch.) From here, we traveled to our agency on the northeast side of Indy. One of the staff for intercountry adoption reviewed our dossier. The good news is that our paperwork all looks good. We only had two small things that needed to be corrected. The bad news was that our primary notary incorrectly dated all of the paperwork she helped us with. The good news is that this won't hold us up at all ... we are still waiting to receive our copy of the home study to submit with our I600. We will see Jennifer on Sunday and she will re-notarize all of our paperwork, no problem.

We are hoping to receive our home study copy before we leave for Pennsylvania. We'd like to get it in the mail to the government and get the I600 process started while we're visiting my family. This could take anywhere from one to two months to complete. We're still hopeful that our dossier will be on its way to Ethiopia early next year! Our friends Chris and Sarah are currently in Ethiopia with their son. Their embassy date is in early January. And this week, two more of the Lafayette families received their referrals, both for boys! AND, to top that off, another of the Lafayette families passed their court date will be soon be traveling to pick up their daughter. It's been an exciting week around here!

Read on below for more fun updates from me and Mark ....