Nice Suprise!

We got surprised with our Homeland Security approval 2-3 weeks early on Sat! I was waiting for the mailman everyday because I had a gut feeling it would. I don’t know why. Thank goodness we walked in early for our biometrics and didn’t wait for our appointment! The appt wasn’t even until later this week. Saved us a good 3 weeks 🙂

I immediately got in “FINISH DOSSIER ASAP” mode. Sam and I stayed up until almost 1am Sat night finishing up some things. I finished the picture translations thanks to Leslie and Ana, my Spanish speaking amigas, yesterday. Sam is scanning all of the docs today so that The Colombia Adoption Program Specialist (Ms. K) can review them upon her return. After she reviews them, she’ll notify us of any necessary changes then we can take the docs originating in GA to the Secretary of State’s office to be apostilled, which is basically a certification to the authenticity of the notary that originally signed the document. Crazy, huh?! We already got docs apostilled in Texas (my birth certificate), Tennessee (Sam’s employment verification), and NY (Sam’s birth certificate). Relatively painless, but quite expensive having to pay extra for a courier service in NY to cut out 5 weeks it would have taken to process through the mail. Luckily Ms. K offered to get our marriage certificate from the Bahamas apostilled in MN.

Ms. K is currently in Colombia, but will be back in the office on Wed. Hopefully she’ll give us the go ahead Wed and we can have our dossier to her by the end of the week! She will review everything one last time and add a few more docs from the agency, LSSMN. After that they’ll send it on it’s way to Colombia!