A New Look For Three Bathrooms

Here are some photos of our bathrooms after a makeover.

British Embassy Letter "in the mail"

Finally, today at 5:03 we received an email from the British Embassy stating that they will be mailing the letter we need tomorrow. I had pretty much given up hope that we would have it this week. Looks like we might have it next week after Labor Day.

I am done predicting when we are going to get stuff etc. So will just let you know when our agency sends off our dossier to Bulgaria.

Haven't heard back

Well I was supposed to receive the letter Monday via email to look over and now it is Tuesday. I am still waiting for the "letter"from the British Embassy. Please keep us in your prayers, it would be good to have this week. Once again, I am learning to be patient and trust on the Lord.

I haven't had time yet to post pics of the bathrooms so will try do that by the end of this week. I am still wanting to get curtains for the girl's bathroom and Chris' bathroom. But at least they are painted and look much better.

We are enjoying our last week of summer vacation. We will go swimming at the beach tomorrow for the last time this season. So sad. School starts Sept 2nd here, we have a meeting tonight at the school and then Caroline has a drop in day to meet her teacher on Thursday morning.

I added another Bulgarian blog I found, under my "favorite blogs". Staci and Damon are in the Ukraine to pick up their son. I haven't heard anything yet. They should be home by next week,hopefully.

British Embassy

Yeh. The British Embassy returned my call today and said it won't be a problem, they do this all the time. So I am hoping we will have the letter by the beginning of next week.

I can only give God the glory for this. It is his doing, I was so frustrated today because I hadn't been able to talk to a live person. I had faxed, emailed and left voice mails. Thank you to those of you that were lifting us up in prayer.

I will keep you posted as to when our dossier actually leaves the USA.

Dossier still in USA

I heard from TOL yesterday stating that I have to get a letter from the British Consulate stating that I am not violating any UK laws by adopting in the USA because I am a UK citizen. Can't believe it as I have been living in America for over 15 years. But I just never have gotten my citizenship here, because I have residency status and just have never gotten around to it.

So today I have sent a fax to the B.Consulate in Chicago asking them what I should do and if they can write a letter stating I am not violating any laws of the UK by adopting in the USA. Bulgaria also wants to make sure if I were to move back to the UK (never lived there, except for 5 months when Chris was doing a semester of law school there in 2000) that my adopted child would be granted residency in the UK as well.

Can't believe I have to go through this. Nothing is as easy as it looks. I will keep you posted on what happens next. I understand Bulgaria's concern but I would think a copy of my green card would be proof enough that I plan to continue to live here and have no plans to go to the UK.

Please keep us in your prayers that this would be resolved soon so we can get our paperwork to Bulgaria. My main concern is that our dossier paperwork will be expiring before we get a referral.

Prov 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path."

1Thes 5:18 "Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."

Dossier off to Bulgaria

I am assuming our dossier has been mailed to Bulgaria either yesterday or today. We did get a long email from TOL saying that MOJ is assigning 80 children at one meeting (every other Tuesday) to families. 50 of them are healthy children and 30 of them are special needs/sibling groups. This is very good. However, they do take off the month of August as it is hot there and the building don't have ac.

We are also being told that worst case scenerio is 18 mths to bring our children home from Bulgaria from dossier submission. I am hoping because we are wanting a boy it will be sooner. Families requesting girls are being told it takes longer. I will let you know when we hear anything else.

Enjoy watching the Olympics, and keep us in your prayers (especially our son).
By the way, I will probably post pics of the bathrooms tomorrow.

Non adoption related entry

Well seeing nothing is happening on the adoption front I thought I would blog about Chris' bathroom. I painted it "Moroccan brown" and the trim is "polite white". When we have completed the bathroom I will post a pic for family that have never seen our home (in South Africa).

Chris still has to put molding around the ceiling (long story) and do something to the ceiling (long story). He also bought doors when we moved in the first year (3 years ago) and hasn't put them all up yet. It is a big job, as he has to shave them etc. Our house is old and not very symmetrical. So he has 4 doors left to put up out of the 2o something he bought. Yes I did say 20. Cost a small fortune for doors, but he wanted solid doors....We also replaced all the handles, now they are bronze.

I bought bronze handles for the cupboards in his bathroom and am still looking for lights to match. I looked at Lowe's and Menard's, our next stop is Home depot. So the painting part was easy now we just have to buy the cosmetic stuff so it will probably be a month before we post the picture.

I did paint the girl's bathroom last month. It looks much better. It is a "rose" color and white trim, white mirror and white vanity. I am still looking for pictures to put up on the wall. We also did the down stairs half bath last month (it really needed it). The wall paper came off and we painted it and put a new medicine cabinet and lights in that one. It looks so much better. It is a mustard color with accent of blue (we had to match the tile in the bathroom, the colors actually look really good together).

The only room that hasn't been updated/painted is the kitchen. I just don't know where to begin. It is fine, and functional but drab compared to the rest of the house. That might be my project next year (After redoing Caroline's room for our son and redoing the guest bedroom for Caroline). Next summer we will also be working on our landscaping a bit, especially in the front of our yard. I am thinking of planting some daisies and yellow and pink cone flowers. That's it for my rattling on.

What Next?

I talked with our coordinator and they received our dossier and will be mailing it off to Bulgaria probably by Friday. Then it will take 8 days to get to Bulgaria. Once the agency in Bulgaria gets it they will translate it and that should take 2 weeks is what we are being told.

Our lawyer there then adds her paperwork and submits it to MOJ (ministry of justice). They will then get to our dossier and register it within 4-6 weeks. So with that time line we are actually looking at October, not September, for our dossier to be put in line with other adoptive families. Remember also that most adoptive families are not American, they are European. So we have Americans, Canadians and Europeans now adopting from Bulgaria. It was mainly Europeans before. Only something like 100 families have adopted from Bulgaria these past couple of years.

The director of MOJ is new since last year and things are moving better with children being adopted so now American agencies are accepting applications for Bulgaria again. TOL, whom we are going through, never stopped working with Bulgaria so they know the ins and outs of Bulgaria, which is reassuring. We will let you know for sure when our dossier leaves for Bulgaria.
Keep us in your prayers, our son is probably born now. Pray for his safety and that he is receiving the hugs we can't give him. Thank you.

No news to report yet about our dossier submission so I thought I would leave you with the meanings of the words I had typed in Bulgarian down below in a previous blog.
Dobre, bravo= good, good job
momche= boy
momiche=girl
baba=grandmother
diado= grandfather
mama/tate=mom/dad
merci=thankyou
lecha nosch=good night
spri=stop

The girls are visiting thier grandparents so I will be paiting a bathroom today. So I better get off to work. Thanks for reading our blog, hopefully it will be quiet with nothing to report until we bring our son home.

James 1:27 "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world."

Dossier mailed today

So we finally mailed off everything to Tree of Life. They should get everything on Monday. The plan is for them to look over our dossier then mail it to Bulgaria. It takes 8 days for mail to get to Bulgaria via Fed Ex. Once Bulgaria gets it the agency over there translates it for us, which can take 2-4 weeks. Then they submit it to MOJ (ministry of justice). Then we are submitted once they read it and give us a number in line with other adopted families. I am guessing we will probably be submitted to MOJ middle of September. Once submitted we can wait up to 18 mths probably to be given a referrel of a boy. We were told we will probably find our in 12 months but I am not holding my breath. Will let you know when we know something. Keep us in your prayers that everything goes according to plan!

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you will see that I have added the weather in Bulgaria. Kinda cool! Chris had to help me a bit as I was getting frustrated, as I am not very good at computer stuff. Did you also notice the countdown to getting our son on the top of the page?
Thanks Staci I got that idea from your blog!

Well today I did go to the secretary of State to get our 42 pages apostilled. I sat there for 20 minutes then they called me by name and said that they were understaffed today so I would have to come back tomorrow to get my stuff apostilled. Couldn't believe it. So tomorrow morning the girls and I will go down there again and hopefully get it all done and in the mail to TOL. I will jump for joy when it is in the mail.

Once we go to court (after trip 1) we will most likely have to do this again with our home study, FBI clearance, and medicals. All these things will most likely expire before we can bring our son home. Oh goody, can't wait to go through all of this again. NOT.

Can it be True?

Okay, have a seat. Can it be true? The doctor's office actually called us to say the papers are ready to pickup!! Chris is on his way to pick them up. Lets pray that everything is good and later today I will go and get everything apostilled and put in the mail to TOL. Finally starting tomorrow the count down begins to getting our son home from Bulgaria.

We have been told it could take 12-18 mths to get a referral from when we submit our dossier so lets begin the countdown:) I will keep you posted but don't be surprised if we are quiet for awhile. We are thinking maybe in January to fix Caroline's new room and our son's room.
Thanks for those of you who have been praying, God does answer prayer.

Medicals

We are still waiting on Chris' doctor's office to get the paper work together. I don't understand what is taking them soo long to get the results and have the doctor sign the papers. I picked up my results today. The doctor was out of town until today and he signed it and they had it notorized. If my doctor's office can do all this in one day what is taking the other office so long to do?? Chris called them last week Friday, Monday and today and still we don't have anything from them.

As soon as we get his medical we can send everything off to TOL. Please pray that it happens this week.

I have been practicing my Bulgarian this week. I bought a CD. So far I know "dobre", baba, diabo, momche, mama, tate, da, ne, aka. Guess what they mean and leave a comment....
Take care, Celeste