We have D's Referral!!!

We had our appointment today and it went smoothly, and received our official referral for our older daughter this afternoon! :). We leave at 4:30 am (less than 5 hours) for a very bumpy 6 hour car ride to see her!!!!! Here we come D!! We are so excited to meet you!

We Made It!

We're here!! Gerry only slept about two hours on the first flight, and then another hour in the car after we landed, but he's still going strong! We have about two more hours left until we can all crash for the night. He is the best traveling buddy; so grateful for his go-with-the-flow personality.

While riding in the car on the way to our apartment, I kept thinking that it felt as if we were just here a few short months ago instead of 4 years.  Actually, our appointment to receive our official referral is on Tuesday, April 7 - the EXACT same day we had Gerry's referral appontment :)

I received a little refresher course on line drying clothes while on the plane. When a 6 year old drinks cup after cup of liquid to ward off dehydration, mixed with a sleep deprived induced slumber, and your carryons had to be checked because you lucked out and they were all weighed (and over the 8 kg weight limit), this is the end result - Tom and Jerry undies hanging from the tray table!

2 Down, 1 to Go!

2 haircuts done!! Gotta make sure we are presentable and make a good impression :)  We've been doing the home "haircuts" (if that's what you call running clippers over your head!) to save money, but we splurged this week and wow, what a difference! 

Ticket Time!

I just emailed our favorite humanitarian travel agent (Eldon at Golden Rule!) :)  Yes, in about two weeks we will be on our way to our girls!!! We received our appointment date to appear and receive their referrals.  Well, we'll receive one first, travel overnight by train to meet one of them, go back to the capital city and receive the referral for the second child and then travel by overnight train to meet her. Not sure which girlie we'll meet first - but isn't life just full of wonderful surprises!?

Submitted for Two!

Introducing Cutie #2 - "Lora"!!!

"Lora" (the public name given to her for now) has or had her 6th birthday sometime this month. I'm sure she didn't have a party, cake or presents - not sure if anyone even told her "Happy Birthday."  You see, "Lora" was transferred about 18 months ago out of the nice baby house where she's standing in the above photo. :(  But you better believe that we are celebrating her life here. 

AND, things are moving mighty quickly on our adoption front!  Our documents were SUBMITTED to our girls' government this week - just a little over a week after we mailed them overseas!! And yes, we were approved and submitted for TWO children :)  Now we just wait for our travel dates, which means we could be traveling two weeks from now or eight weeks from now. Love the way we can pin that down :)

Since we will be bringing home two children, we will need additional funding for the in-country paperwork and court process, additional travel back and forth to the capitol city and a second orphanage, room and board for an extra 1-2 weeks, and costs for a second visa, medical, and airline ticket, and blah blah blah.  Basically, we need some pennies and dollars here - every little bit adds up!  The cost breakdown is listed on the right side of the blog for those of you who like crunching numbers (here, here, I'm guilty!).

We are working with two child advocate organizations that offer a way for your donations to be tax-deductible.  That way you can help us get our girls get home plus pay less taxes - gotta love it :)

https://www.adopttogether.org/ourgirl ("Donate with AdoptTogether" donation button to the right)
http://reecesrainbow.org/87610/sponsorclark-6   - Reece's Rainbow is the organization that helped us find Gerry :)
Thank you so much to everyone who has donated already! So far, we've raised almost $13,000!

Ok, I need to get back to clearing out "stuff" from our house. How in the world did we accumulate so much stuff?!?!  And we need to start adding "girl stuff" for two?  Yikes!

Guess Where I Was Yesterday?!!!!!

Here are some clues:

Yep!!! Went to downtown Chicago to have our last two documents apostilled (sealed to send to Eastern Europe).  THE. LAST. TWO. DOCUMENTS!!!!

Now we wait:
1. For documents to be officially SUBMITTED to the foreign government agency
2. Then TRAVEL DATES to meet our GIRLS (yes, that is an "s" on the end of there - another post, my friends, another post soon . . . .)

Just a little midnight fun! Making a trip to Chicago tomorrow to get apostilles for a chunk of our dossier! So could this be considered third trimester in our paper pregnancy?!?! We're getting closer, D!