Documents Certified

Unfortunately Friday did not go as smoothly as I had hoped. I try to be so organized that I am disappointed in myself when things don't go smoothly. I met Kevin in Oneonta Friday to get the documents notarized. When I took the documents to the Blount County Probate Office to get certification of the notary, I learned that the notary was not from Blount County. So we had to make new copies, find a Blount County notary, and go back to the Probate Office. Kevin helped with a lot of this so I could get back to work.

I know God uses my gut many times at work and in my personal life. I had a gut feeling when I was driving back to work that we may have not done something correctly with the home study. I told Kevin to hold off in mailing the documents to the Secretary of State until I spoke with CCAI. I learned that I did not need to get the home study notarized by us. It was notarized when it was sent to us. Therefore, I had to find out what county the notary was bonded and get the certification. I was disappointed to have just figured this out since I have had the home study for a few weeks. Anyway, Kevin took Monday morning off to drive to Huntsville (Madison County) to get the certification. So all the documents were mailed to the Secretary of State on Monday.

Today, we received the letters from the Secretary of State. We are almost done. Yea! I was able to get everything ready during lunch in anticipation of receiving the letters. So tomorrow, I will put everything in the mail to the US Consulate for authentication.

Over the weekend, we got the extra passport photos we need for submission of our dossier. We also got all the family life and couple pictures printed for our dossier. We tried to make sure that everyone in our family was captured in the photos. So when they are looking at our pictures, they will have seen all our family.

Thanks for the prayers. So far things are flying by. Pray that the US Consulate quickly authenticates our documents. All we will lack in making copies and sending to CCAI for review.

I797 Approved

Finally. The moment we have been waiting for. I almost cried when Kevin brought me the mail.

We received the I797 form. I had previous said I797C, but over the last few months they have changed it to I797. I am meeting Kevin to get the I797, home study, and revised financial statement notarized and certified by county clerk today. Then I will mail the documents to the Secretary of State.

I think we are about a month away from a Log-in Date (LID). It took about 3 days for the SOS to return the documents. Then I send them to US Consulate which took about 7 days to approve. This will complete the compilation of our dossier. Then I submit our dossier to CCAI for their review which will take 9-11 days.

Continue to pray this will go as fast as possible with no delays.

Super Bulldog Weekend

We had a great weekend. We left at noon to go to Starkville, MS with friends. We ate super good at Old Hickory and Harveys. We enjoyed beating TN 2 of 3 games. We had a good turnout at the football scrimmage on Saturday. The highlight of the weekend was Kevin's picture with Coach Dan Mullen. We joked about going over to the Meet the Players event. We really needed a child with us to have as an excuse. It did not stop Kevin, but I look forward to the days when our daughter is with us to enjoy these fun weekends.




Kevin, Dan, Michael

Biometrics Testing

We went yesterday to have our biometrics testing done. Biometrics is just a fancy word for live scan fingerprint process. Since the state and federal government are not friends, they don't talk to each other. So the fingerprinting we went to Montgomery to have done, we had done again for the federal government. We were able to have it done in Birmingham this time.

Kevin helped make copies of our sealed documents. I am trying to stay one step ahead. I don't know how long it will take from having our fingerprints taken till the time they issue the I797C. In the mean time, I am getting everything ready to take to the notary, county clerk, and mail to the state.

We are going to Starkville, MS for the weekend. Hopefully, we can get some more good pictures of us and friends to complete the pictures we need for our dossier.

We are getting close. When someone told me the process is like giving birth to paperwork, they were not kidding. Hopefully, the paperwork is premature (less than 9 months).

Earthquake in China

As reported by the New York Times:  A powerful earthquake in western China killed at least 400 people, injured 10,000 and left many others buried under debris on Wednesday.  The quake, which struck at 7:49 a.m. in Qinghai Province, bordering Tibet, had a magnitude of 7.1.  The China Earthquake Networks Administration said the quake struck in Yushu County, a remote and mountainous area sparsely populated by farmers and herdsmen, most of them ethnic Tibetans. 90 percent of the homes in the county seat, Jeigu, had collapsed. The houses were of "quite poor quality," with many constructed of wood, mud and brick. At least 32 survivors had been pulled from the debris. At least 18 aftershocks measuring more than 6.0 followed the quake throughout the day.   We are continuing to hearing of earthquakes over the last few months.  The worse being Haiti.  I use to think these countries are a world away and did not impact me, but now it does.  Pray that God will protect China and other foreign countries from natural disasters.

Weekly Update

We are still working on getting pictures for our dossier. This weekend we went Zip-lining with some friends from church. I can't believe I did that, but I want to go back and do it again. It had some amazing views. Below are some pictures from our trip.


Pat, Megan, Courtney, Kenny, me, Kevin

Chinese Lessons 1-3

I typically listen to my Chinese lessons when I am running.  Since I have been sick with sinus and headaches, I have not been able to run the last two weeks.  I have only mastered lessons 1-3, but I probably need to go back over lesson 3 a few more times.  Below is a list of the words I have learned (word/phrase - English, word/phrase - Chinese, how the word/phrase in Chinese sounds).    A little - yìdiǎn - edar American person - měiguórén - mei e qua rhen But - dàn shì - ka shh Can - huì - quay Can't Speak - búhuì - boo quay China - zhōng guó - dong qua Chinese - zhōng guórén - dong qua rhen English - yīngwén - ying one Excuse me - duìbuqǐ - dou boo che Goodbye - zàijiàn - si gen Hello (You be well) - nǐhǎo - ni howe How are you? (not a greeting) - nǐhǎo ma - Ni howe ma I - wǒ - Woa I don't speak well - Wǒ shuōde bù hǎo - Woa shoew da boo howe Mandarin - pǔtōnghuà - putongqua Please let me ask - qǐng wèn - chen one Speak - shuō - shaw Thank you - xièxiè nǐ - shiz shiz  ni Thanks - xièxiè - shiz shiz  To be/Yes - shì - shh Very - hěn - hung Very well - hěn hǎo - hung howe Well - hǎo - howe You - nǐ - Ni

Biometrics Appointment

We received our letters in the mail informing us that our biometrics (fingerprinting) appointment is April 15th at 9AM.  I was so excited to see this piece of paper.  Once this is completed, we should be receiving our approved form (I797C) which is the last document we need.