Come look at our house!

Come look at our house! Ok well, don't rush over too quickly, we still have a lot of fixin' up (you can see by our profile that we're in the south) to do. What I am referring to in this long introduction, is that we are ready (we think) to begin our in home visits by the social worker. We have at this point completed our initial application, which included about 50 pages of information that we had to track down, and are ready for the in home visits that comprise the last portion of our home study. We have already installed the smoke detectors, or at least one of them, and have purchased our carbon monoxide detector which will be installed soon. We still have the usual stuff to finish up like cover the outlets, get rid of our firearms (this is a joke for those of you who don't know us. In reality the gun issue is irrelevant due to religious beliefs) and etc. We are still debating on how much we can actually get done on our house. We still need to finish some small details in our kitchen that's been remodeled and we also need to do some major yard work, aside from the usual cleaning stuff. We have some friends and family on emergency standby to help us clean if we need them.

Other items completed since our last post include the completion our I-600A (Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition) and our I-600 (Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative), and G-28 forms to INS. These are the first of our steps in completing what is known as the Dossier to be sent to Guatemala. We are sooo ready to be on that plane down to Guatemala City (and then on to Antigua). But still, we wait and continue with life that is going by with a feverish intensity. I (Chris) am currently finishing up class work for J-Terms that were taken this past January as well as working on my thesis. I am ready for this to be over! The prize at the end of the journey is even bigger now though. With the expedient processing of some of our clearances, I could both graduate and get to hold my little girl for the first time this summer. Somehow, the thought of this makes all of the stress and agony of getting there seem like nothing. I can't wait to see you Isabella.