Sunday, January 11, 2009

A Short Intro

Okay. We are now roughly 36 hours from actually flying out of Kansas City to Bogota to meet our children Oscar - 11, Diana - 8, Angelica (or Mayerly - her paperwork uses both names) - 7, and Claudia -5. It's almost unbelievable that we are actually this close now.

I had planned to do the whole "date and timeline" thing on our adoption blog, but just haven't had the time. So here's the condensed version of our adoption journey: February 2, 2008 applied to Children's Hope International adoption agency; February-April worked on paperwork; in April first saw our kids on the waiting children list in CHI's 'Noticieros'; May-June worked on more paperwork and finished our home study, and our house got struck by lightning (yippee); first of July inquired to the Colombia Program Director about kids on waiting children list - found out that the siblings were still available, then sent a letter to ICBF (Colombian Family Welfare) requesting them and started the paperwork for our insurance claim; July-August kicked the adoption paperwork into high gear in order to be first in line to get our kids, began remodeling to fix what the lightning fried - and some things it didn't (that extra work thanks to termites of yore); September sent dossier (that's French for 'a ton of paperwork') to Colombia, dossier was translated into Spanish and delivered to ICBF, got ICBF approval to adopt (we're told this part doesn't usually happen that fast) and started taking a Spanish class; October waited for official assignment of our children (which came on the 31st); November '08 to January '09 readied the kids' rooms (yup, more remodeling), prepared a bit more paperwork and for travel to Colombia.

It's all gone much faster than we expected. That's why I used the picture of us on the speed boats on Lake Michigan in Chicago a couple of years ago at the top of our blog. It pretty well sums up what we have felt like since we started this little adventure.

Stay tuned... we plan on blogging from Colombia about the rest of our adventure! Below are pictures of their rooms:

Oscar's closet and bedroom

Diana's bed

Mayerly's bed

Claudia's bed

6 comments:

CathyO said...

Rooms turned out awesome, kids ought to love them...I knew you would get them done! I think you had upstairs help,
That speed boat you feel you have been on...that ought to go away in about 12 to 14 years...

Craig and Joy Devor said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Craig and Joy Devor said...

Looks like the rooms came together nicely. I didn't see the girl's closet - how did that go?

Everything looks ready to go, how 'bout you?! When is your flight tomorrow?

Anne said...

Sorry, no pictures of the closet Joy. It takes forever for them to load onto the blog and I didn´t have time to set up a myflickr account.

Kevin Tina Bailey Frankie Toni said...

The rooms look lovely,the kids will absolutely love them. Wow, you got the rooms done fast. Hope you have a fun time. Aunt Val is waiting for more pictures (checking your blog every other minute.) I can not wait till you come back to America. Miss you so much. -Love,
Bailey (your niece)
(P.S. say hi to the kids for me)

Diane, Cardiology Associates said...

Tim & Ann,

Great pictures, can't wait to see more. The kids look so happy and so do you guys.
Diane, Cardiology Associates