Still waiting (Version 4?)

I am not sure how many times I can use the same post title, but, yes, we're still waiting.

We requested more photos of our children (we just have two and they are almost two years old), and it turns out that one of children requested more photos of us. I can't tell you how that makes us feel.  They are probably as interested in seeing as many glimpses of their parents as we are to see them.

One of these days, kids, we will be able to look at you for a loooong time.

Documents have NOT arrived

Quick update:

Our agency is still waiting on our documents to arrive from across the mighty pond. Our caseworker assured me that she will let me know as soon as she sends them in to USCIS. I don't think we will be leaving in March now, but maybe there will be a surprise!

A little more gas in the Patience Tank

Tonight, I'm dining alone. I don't understand why Bryan isn't interested in my delicious black bean soup with lime-tahini swirl and cilantro. And  you probably don't understand why, at my age, I still have a pesky 7-year-old inside me that wants to crack a joke about my dinner and the title of my post tonight. (Get it?)

Only I won't because it would embarrass Bryan and my sisters. Probably my brothers, too, although it  shouldn't. The soup really is excellent; is that tooting my own horn? Not really. It's so easy, you can't mess it up. It's not quite as good as the carrot soup with lemon-tahini and crisped chickpeas that I made the other day, but they are both good for you.

But you don't read this for recipes. Or immature puns.

Tuesday night, our long-suffering agency sent me the paperwork they did have. I began to fill out the paperwork and quickly ran into some roadblocks: "What does this question mean? Which name do I put there?"

Tonight, our agency called and helped me fill them out.

We still don't have everything, but we will send these forms to our agency tomorrow. Once they receive the last paperwork from Poland, they will send them to USCIS for us. We think this will speed up the process a bit. So hopefully they will send everything to USCIS next week.

As long as we don't run into any major problems, we should have our approval back in four weeks. Once we have the approval, our contact in Poland can get our preliminary visas and schedule our court dates. Then we will be buying flights and renting an apartment.

We are now thinking it will be mid-March (at the earliest) before we leave.

I found out that the kids will not attend school any more once we're there. I didn't know if they would remain in school during the day and stay with us at night. So, it will be up to us to entertain two active kids all day long. Fortunately, the city we'll be staying in looks really interesting (nice architecture, parks, etc.), so we shouldn't run out of things to do.

Another positive note: Our agency told me that the kids pick up tons of English during those 6 weeks. Whatever else this may be, it will be a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

In fact, it already has been.

Still waiting, patience tank running on fumes

I force myself to only email our agency once per week when we're waiting on something. I know they will let me know as soon as our paperwork is done, but I can't help myself from checking.

Today marks three weeks since we were officially approved. And three weeks since we've been waiting on the paperwork to be legalized. I'm trying, really I am, to be very patient, but each week pushes off our travel dates by another week. At this point, I don't think we will leave until March.

But I digress. Today was my "email the agency" day. She said the delay was because the kids' birth certificates had errors on them, so we should be getting the papers "soon." 

If "soon" means by the end of the week, I can get my patience tank refueled and be good to go for another 3-4 weeks while we wait on USCIS.

Getting there...