The latest...

Amos and Kalee were taken to the embassy clinic as scheduled on Friday. Bloodwork was done but their physical exams were not completed.

We haven't gotten a good explanation why.

Hopefully they can be seen for an exam early this week, the results will be forwarded to the embassy and our agency will produce a copy of their biological mother's death certificate.

The embassy tells us that as soon as they have those two things, they can schedule our appointment for the visa exit interview.

(That means Drew or I will need to get on the next do-able and available flight to Monrovia!)

Good news/Bad news

It's only Tuesday, but it's been an up and (mostly) down week so far when it comes to our adoption.

Good news: Amos's and Kalee's biological father interviewed well and "passed" the questioning at the US Embassy on Monday.

Bad news: For reasons as of yet unexplained, our agency rep did not take Amos and Kalee to the meeting, so the bio father and the boys have to return to the Embassy tomorrow for another round of questioning.

Bad news: The boys' physicals have been postponed until Friday.

Bad news: Neither our agency, nor the Embassy, can produce the boys' biological mother's death certificate. It exists, or at least once did, because it was presented to the Liberian judge before our court decree was issued in 2008......but......no one can find it. It will have to be reissued.

Bad news: The Liberian government is requiring an additional step before they will sign off on clearance letters for Amos and Kalee to leave the country. They are requiring that we submit the results of our criminal background checks directly to them. This is in response to the beating death last week of a Liberian girl adopted in 2007 by a family living near Sacramento.

Good news: No skeletons in our closets! Other than a few (err.....several) speeding tickets on my part, Drew and I check out squeaky clean. We've already emailed our files to all the necessary parties.

You know that expression, "So close and yet, so far away...."?

I'd say that pretty well sums things up from here.

Big sigh.

Adoption news

We got really encouraging news on the adoption front yesterday.

After several weeks worth of waiting for corrections, our new and improved case history was delivered to the US Embassy on Tuesday.

The boys' birth certificates and passports (issued three different times to get them right!) were delivered to the Embassy Thursday.

The boys' biological father is scheduled to appear at the Embassy for an interview on Monday the 22nd.

Then, Amos and Kalee will have a physical with an Embassy doctor.

Assuming every thing goes according to plan, and DNA testing is not required by the Embassy....

...it might not be long now.

Stay tuned!

Snow Ball, 2010

Brant and his friend, Emily Kait, had a big time at Calvary's winter dance Saturday night. It was rescheduled from January 30th because of all the snow and ice here, but sounds like it was worth the wait.

Brant said he definitely chose the right date. Emily Kait is really outgoing and has had years of dance training which meant he had someone fun to dance the night away with.

I think his actual words were, "I got my groove on.......oohhh yeah." Then he showed me some of his moves.

The next morning, Brant woke up sore and complaining from dancing all night long.

Took me all the way back to 1980 when gangly David Moore and I went to Carmel Junior High's Christmas dance. I couldn't even hold a pencil, I was so sore from snapping my fingers.

Good times. Good times.