Or, back in the mail...

I (being Rebecca) haven't posted on here in, oh, ages. However, I was the one to talk to the man from the Taiwan consulate this evening, so I decided I'd break my long silence. My reading on the couch this afternoon was interrupted by Jonathan answering the phone:
"She's not here right now...he's not here either...no, my parents aren't home...would you like to talk to my sister?"

Wonderful. He walks over, hands me the phone, says "It's someone from Taiwan." Again, wonderful. I considered handing it off to Annie, she's older, she's been to the country, and she is far more up to date on what exactly is going on with the paperwork side of things.

The man wasn't actually from Taiwan, but from the consulate, which relieved me greatly because anyone calling us from Taiwan only seemed to mean bad news. Not that his news was good: the paper work we sent in needs to be authorized by the county clerk. Which is hard, because when mom called them before sending off the paper work, they had no idea what she was talking about...So anyway, it looks like, unless there is an excited development after one of my paternal units phones the consul in the morning, our paper work will be back in the mail - to us. Not Taiwan...

In the mail!

Our paperwork got sent off to TECO today! There never should have been a problem notarizing the Chinese documents the first time, since notaries are just verifying that the person who signs the document is the person whose signature appears on the document. It doesn't really mater what the document says. So, once we found a notary that realized that, there wasn't any problem at all.

We got a surprise in the mail the other day- another update on Kai Wei! I wasn't expecting one so soon, but since it took us awhile to get the first one after it was sent, I guess the next one was due! Kai Wei had been to the Yingge ceramics museum, which I thought was cool, since I went there while I was in Taiwan. It's a really neat museum and has AMAZING ceramics for sale in the gift shop.

We sent letters and pictures and a couple little gifts back to Kai Wei. I attempted to write a note in Chinese. If it's actually understandable to a native Chinese speaker, it will sound like a second grader wrote it. Oh well. It was fun. :)

There's still really no news on Si Ya. We do know that Cathwel got the photo album to show her and "it has been given to her" Whatever that means exactly. We don't know what her reaction is, but we are praying that her heart is being prepared to join our family and that she will be excited!

Smile!

Last week we got Kai Wei's adoption paperwork in the mail, which would have been exciting, in of itself, but it also included a few photos, and a card Kai Wei made for Mom and Dad. This was my favorite. It was taken on the day I visited, but he has a much nicer smile in this picture than any I managed to capture. Sorry about the poor quality- It didn't scan very well, besides, I cropped myself out of the photo as it was a rather uncomplimentary photo of me attempting to eat a large strawberry. I figured you'd all rather see Kai Wei's smiling face. ;)

The paperwork is proving more troublesome than expected as the notary wouldn't notarize the Chinese adoption contract since she couldn't read Chinese, so now we have to try notarizing, take 2. Hopefully we'll get that cleared up soon.

We're getting closer!

Labor Day Project

A few years ago, I got a book of patterns for a Southern Belle doll and her dresses. I sewed the doll, cut out the pieces, and then, Christmas vacation over, I slid the box under my bed with all my other craft stuff to finish when I had more time. She languished there for years, until, in search of a sewing project last summer, I pulled out the box, dusted it off, and made two dresses for the doll. I wanted to do a sewing project this summer, but I didn't have a lot of spare time, and wasn't sure what to make. I got the idea the other day to make a doll for SiYa, so when I was in Wal-Mart on Saturday, shopping for fabric for a 100 Good Wishes quilt, I bought some yellow and white checked gingham (SiYa told me those were her favorite colors) and by Monday I had a masterpiece.



Now, any ideas what I can make for a 10 year old boy?

A little news!

Well, a little news is most definitely better than no news! We were hoping for an update on Kai-Wei and SiYa by the end of August. Just today we received an email from our agency that they have Kai-Wei's paperwork to get to us to have authenticated etc. Then it will go off to the Taiwan court system and the adoption will be finalized! It has taken them a while to get this info to us, as our agency worker had a baby in the meantime! Well, I was somewhat concerned that we have no information on SiYa so I decided to call the orphanage and see what was up. I'm glad I did! As it turns out they are still waiting to get our photo album from the second orphanage we sent it to in Taipei so they can show it to SiYa and she can make a decision. Hopefully that will be a positive decision and then we will be receiving her documentation. We also called the 2nd orphanage tonight and they were very willing to send the photo album right out. The orphanage thought that would only take an additional 2-3 weeks to process the paperwork for SiYa--so there hopefully won't be too much time between the finalization of the 2 children's adoptions.

This seems like a very disjointed post. But it is a rather disjointed series of events. The long and the short of it is--we are getting closer to the day that these two sweet children will really be a legal part of our family and not just a hope in our hearts. Praise and thanks be to God the Father and Jesus his Son! :-)

Sorry no pictures to go with this post. Maybe we'll have some to share when our paperwork comes. . .

Duckling update

My Aunt has been paranoid since our first duckling post that people will think we are irresponsible pet owners since we said we would let our ducks go free when they grew up. She asked for an update, so here it is. As you can see, our little ducklings grew up fast and are little no longer. In fact, they look like full grown ducks to me. We live on a lake that is home to MANY wild ducks, so our ducks, now that they have their feathers and can stay in the water, have been very happy to discover the path from our yard to the lake. There is still a hutch in our yard for them, but I think they have stopped sleeping in it at night. We put out food for them, but we hope that eventually they'll be like the wild ducks, surviving from all the good stuff in the lake and occasional free handouts of bread from all the kids around the lake.

Right now, they still stick pretty close to home and all swim around in their group of 8. It makes us laugh to see what a tight little group they are. I have a feeling once they're fully grown they'll stop staying so close together, since that is really duckling behavior, but we'll see.