Yesterday USCIS and Lunch with Cora!!

Well, Hope everyone has had a good week. I had to make an impromptu trip yesterday to Yakima,WA. It is a 2.5 hour drive from where we live. The weather was rather iffy with rain,fog, snow and construction on I 90. The purpose of my trip was to go to USCIS and see where our renewal of our I 171-H is that we filed last Sept. 2008. We had our fingerprints done at the Seattle office in Oct. 2008 and then got our homestudy sent in the end of Feb. 2009. At that time you had up to a year to file your homestudy after submitting your paperwork for the I600. I never heard from them and I just kept on waiting for the formal paper to come in the mail.


Needless to say it never came. Meanwhile we found or little emperor in Zhuzhou, Hunan China. It occurred to me we still didn't have our renewal. PANIC!!! So, we (Edd at AAO and myself) took it upon ourselves to email them everyday. Finally got a response that they did not have our request for renewal. Thank goodness for FEDEX tracking system. We were able to prove it got there, who signed for it, what time etc. So, emailed her about this and attached documentation. Waited and waited... Nothing. Last week finally she responded and said she had given it to her supervisor. Nothing the beginning of this week. So, talked with AAO and we decided that I needed to make a trip to USCIS in Yakima because that is where all of our paperwork is.

A friend that I have met through AAO, April DTC 2007 group lives out near Yakima.It is Cora from Waiting For Little Miss Whats Her Name. We have been following each other's blogs for awhile and email each other to catch up on where we are in adoption and how we are feeling. I sent her an email and asked if she wanted to meet and have lunch. We decided on a place Weds. night.

So, I drove to Yakima and got to USCIS 10 minutes before my scheduled appt. time. Thank goodness cause this girl had to go before she could sit down and talk to anyone!!! So, I go up to window # 4 tell the lady why I am there and she calls to the person I have been emailing to for the last 1.5 months. That person relayed to this lady that our renewal was on her desk and she was going to process it today. They talked back and forth a little more and discussed whether we owed any money (I don't think so cause we renewed before ours expired). No money owed. She asked me if I wanted to do fingerprints while I was there I said no as hubby did not come with me and we would do it in Seattle. She said she would send a renewal for scheduling our fingerprints with our updated I600A form. Okay, and that was it! It was 11:50 when I got out to the car and my appt. time was for 11:50. It took only 5 minutes to get something out of them. They did not need any paperwork or anything.
I was so prepared!! I had stayed up until 12:45am collecting everything I need to take with me!


Proof I was there! Last time we went we forgot to take pictures. At least now I have one.

What a relieve!! I laughed so hard on the phone with my agency. It just took a little nudge that yes we want this and are serious about adopting an orphan to get them to move on our paperwork.


Autumns color on street in front of USCIS.


Then I got to have lunch with Cora!! We had fun finding each other at first. I ended up in Selah and she was in Yakima in front of a closed down restaurant. We laughed so hard over this! Thank goodness for cell phones.... We finally got to meet. It was so amazing cause we just felt like we knew each other and had this instant connection! We had so much fun just chatting, sharing news about our little boys and our hopes that we can bring them home soon.I think we could have kept on talking forever but I had to get on the road and she had to get back to work. She is just such a sweet and dear person! I am so glad we met and hope we can see each other more often. We are going to try to get the boys together for playdates. I know we should meet some weekend and have a camp out! I bet the boys would love that! I know Princess would. Friends for ever!! We made sure we took pictures so we could show you all!


Myself and Cora pregnant for 30 months and counting!! Tee hee...


I stopped at Thorps Fruit stand and Antiques on the way home. It is always such a fun place to look around. I picked up some goodies for my friend Erin who had Princess over for a playdate with her son. Hope you enjoyed them Erin. I was so cold in there I had to get a Pumpkin Pie Latte! It was a good treat for on the way home.