Gotcha Day!

The info you have all been waiting for...That was Fast!!!

Colombia has already confirmed our Gotcha Day (this is the day we will meet the children). Monday April 14th! The photo is the only photo we have or that we will get before we meet Jessica and Joaquin Alexander. Jessica just turned 7 in February and Joaquin is 4. He has a birthday on April 17th, just a few days after we meet them. It will be fun to celebrate his birthday with him. By they way, Joaquin is pronounced Wakeen…just in case you needed help with that.

It looks like we will be traveling on April 10th or 11th. We are flying on buddy passes so we need to leave some extra time to make sure we all get down there. Then on the 12th and/or 13th we plan to visit Children’s Vision International to deliver the books and other items and to spend some time at the orphanage. We want to do this before we meet Jessica and Joaquin for several reasons. One reason is just that we want to be able to focus on them and us as a family, not worrying about anything else. Secondly, our children are currently living in an orphanage and it may be terribly scary or confusing to them to take them to Children’s Vision International.

Our next steps are to notarize and apostille a few of our items then send them off to Chicago where our visas will be processed. We have to have visas while we are there to carry out the legal procedures of the adoption in Colombia. All of this will take a few weeks, so I’m on it. I will spend the weekend and beginning of next week gathering documents. I will have to take them to have our notary verified here in Cincinnati, then I will be driving to Columbus on Friday or or the following Monday, to have our documents apostilled, same day service, so we can get everything off to Chicago.

It’s so hard to believe we are actually getting ready to travel!

Wow, one year ago about this time we applied to CHI. It’s hard to believe it’s been a year. I remember before we took the step I called my sister to, in a way, get her permission to adopt. See, my brother and I are older and had the fun of having our babies, but my sister was just starting her family. She had two baby girls at the time and I didn’t want to take anything from her. It was time for all of us to focus on her and her family, I in no way wanted to dampen that. For anyone who doesn’t know my family well, my siblings, parents, most of my grandparents, aunts and uncles all live within 15 minutes of each other. So we are a tight group, and I am very close to my siblings. Before I got the words out of my mouth she said, “I think I know why you are calling, but you talk first, just in case I’m wrong.” So I told her my thoughts and she, with not one bit of hesitation, said “Of course it’s okay!” She did indeed know what I was calling for, she knew it was coming. Just one more confirmation that we were on the right road. We filed our application, were approved and began telling our families. They were all so open to adoption.

Our families have been so incredibly supportive and are very excited about getting the kiddos home. Eric and I are so fortunate to have such wonderful families.

Okay so, maybe I am a little bit bias, but aren't they adorable????