Freaks R Us

Anyone who knows us well knows that our future child will be macked out for Halloween.

It's probably our favorite holiday because it appeals to our theatrical, creative, silly nature. We even work regularly on the "boo crew" in a local haunted house. We put a lot of effort into our costumes (they are almost always homemade). We truly can't wait to put all that creativity into making costumes for our child(ren)!

These photos of a few of our past getups are some of the non-gory ones; I don't want to traumatize you guys too much.

My personal favorite is when we were the entity of Wal-Mart. Frank was dressed as Wal-Mart (a devil/store manager with a smiley face "disguise") and I was a Chinese factory worker chained to him. We even had a shtick where I would beg him for benefits and he would roar at me to just keep painting the toy squirrel. Yes, we are total geeks.

(click to enlarge)

Have a safe and happy Halloween everyone!

Italy Photos Are Up

We finally narrowed them down from 1,500 to about 240 of our favorites!

http://flickr.com/photos/ruopoli

I recommend watching the slideshow on the fast or medium speed for the best quality. These were uploaded as low-resolution, so let us know if you’d like to have any high-resolution ones.

Enjoy!

(P.S. My "The Last Hoorah" blog entry has been edited to include this link, so I will eventually delete this entry.)

Almost Swimming

We HAVE the magic letter from DSS!!!
It's sitting right here on my desk looking all pretty and smug.

Yes, it's a beautiful thing and it's even more detailed than we needed. Thank you to all involved! Now it just needs to be apostilled.

In addition, we also need one more document for our dossier (aka bundle of joy): a copy of our social worker's license. (We only had her certificate in our dossier.) We can't get that until she returns from vacation Monday, but I feel much better already! Our dossier should swim on over to the Kaz Consulate around the first week of November!

(Italy photo link coming soon...)

The Last Hoorah

Buon Giornio! Ciao! Salve!

Nope, that's not Russian. It's Italian. And why am I saying hello in Italian???

Because we just returned from a vacation in Italy! That's right, ITALY!!! We first soaked up Rome, then Florence/Tuscany and finally Venice. I can still smell the marinara sauce. Oh wait, maybe that's just us after the long trip home!

It was a wonderful experience to say the least, and I could fill up the entire web-o-sphere with a blog entry about our adventures.

We took about 1,500 photos and 2.5 hours of video. You can see some of our favorite photos here:

http://flickr.com/photos/ruopoli

I recommend watching the slideshow on the fast or medium speed for the best quality. These were uploaded as low-resolution, so let us know if you’d like to have any high-resolution ones.

We decided to embrace this lifelong dream before our little one arrives because it may be awhile before we can take a trip like this again. Soon it will be Disneyworld, Carowinds and camping, which are all great too! On the practical side, this trip was also good training for becoming savvy international travelers before our bigger, scarier trip to Kazakhstan.

Sorry for the unannounced absence, but we didn't want to inadvertently invite any intruders into our home. Even though we had a house sitter, you can't be too careful. We want to send out a BIG thank you to Frank's sister, Rosie, her hubby, Fred, and son, Andrew, for housesitting for us. You guys rock!

So it's back to reality and also back to blogging. I missed it! As far as the progress with our adoption paperwork goes -- we came home to find out that we are still treading water. The 'magic letter' from DSS is still eluding our home study agency. Not the happy news we had hoped for, but I hope we can start swimming again this week. Frank even has his Speedo on.

Arrivederci, y'all.

Treading Water

Well folks, we are still treading water.

Due to a strange twist of events in the world of DSS, the site visit to our home study agency didn't happen today. So we don't have that pesky little letter yet.

Drat!

But our social worker, Teresa, assures us wholeheartedly that she will work her magic and make it happen. (This week I think.)

Teresa is one of the two women we are working with closely throughout this process. (She did our home study.) The other one is our adoption coordinator, Andrea. They have been wonderful, and work hard to help make dreams possible for so many families.

Sometimes I don't know how Andrea does it. She is often the bearer of bad or frustrating news, most of it being things that are out of her control. She rides several families' rollercoasters right along with them, and although it's incredibly rewarding, it must also be emotionally taxing. When she first called me to convey this snag I think I felt more sorry for her than us!

So cheers to you Andrea and to Teresa!
Thank you both for trying your best to make this speed bump as small as
possible, and for all you do to help build happy families!

Blog-O-Rama

For anyone interested in reading other adoption blogs (aka blog-stalking), I've added 2 new links in the right column to 2 blog compilation pages. These people have given permission to be viewed by the general public, so it's not really stalking. (If I individually listed all my favorite blogs, the list would be very long, and I'm trying to keep this site easy on the eyes!) The Kaz rules have changed a lot in the last couple of years, so our experience will be somewhat different than what is portrayed in the older blogs.

There is a growing number of other prospective adoptive parents who are following our journey. Many of them have wonderful blogs! You can find their blogs by viewing the comments they've added here in various posts, and just clicking on their profiles. Some are password-protected, but most are open to the public. (Note: We will temporarily password-protect our blog when we travel to Kaz for various reasons to be 'splained later.)

Warning: Reading adoption blogs is highly addictive. Read at your own risk! We do not assume liability for bleeding eyeballs, sleepless nights, missed deadlines, zombie-eyes, crumbling marriages, or nervous facial tics. (It's kinda like when you first discovered eBay.)

Enjoy!

Good News / Bad News

THE GOOD NEWS:
Our dossier is back from translation and ready to submit to the Consulate of Kazakhstan in New York. Yay!!!

THE BAD NEWS:
Our home study agency's license (which is a part of our dossier) will expire in mid-November. According to the new Kazakhstan law, no document in our dossier can expire at any point during our adoption process. We need a copy of the NEW license now. But the SC Dept. of Social Services (DSS) will not issue the new license until after the old one expires in mid-November. This means we will have to sit on our hands (and dossier) until then. Six weeks will tick by with nothing happening. Not only that, but once we finally submit it, our processing time will likely be slowed by the holiday season. Blech.

THE GOOD NEWS:
Our adoption coordinator and home study social worker are trying their best to find a way around this snag. They are asking DSS to write a letter vouching that the 2008 license is forthcoming. IF DSS agrees, then it should be sufficient and we can proceed. Yay!!!

THE BAD NEWS:
They can't ask DSS for the letter until Tuesday, when they have a site visit by a DSS inspector scheduled. And there is a chance DSS won't write the letter because they are ... you know ... bureaucrats. Blech.

THE GOOD NEWS:
We don't want all the other dossier documents to start expiring, so if DSS won't write the letter and everything gets delayed, our adoption agency will try to get us through the Consulate phase as quickly as possible to help make up for lost time. Yay!!!

So that's where we are. It's not soul-shaking news, but a little frustrating.

Frank and I decided last night, over chips 'n salsa and Coronas, that it's time to buckle our seat belts. We've been riding on the kiddie roller coaster up until now. We both honestly feel that the universe will conspire in our favor because we are trying to do something good. We just have to ride it out and not get our proverbial panties in a bunch. We are spiritually saying, "Que sera sera," but we would also certainly accept some string-pulling by anyone out there who has connections to DSS!

I don't think it was a coincidence that last week, during a business trip, I listened to the (randomly chosen) CD of the bestselling book The Alchemist. It's a symbolic story of a boy's journey that is full of unexpected detours and lessons. Each twist makes his journey richer and more complete, and leads him to exactly where he needs to be at exactly the right time. All he has to do is listen to his heart along the way. Very metaphorical!