We return from the White Rim and are approved by the INS!

Can you believe that the US government has completed part of our paperwork FASTER than they were suppose to? Yes, folks, we received our I-171H approval to adopt a foreign orphan last Friday. And somehow, we managed to get it signed, notarized, and Express mailed to our agency today! One more hurdle is jumped, now all that is left is for all the documents to be authenticated by the State of Oregon, the US State Department, and the Chinese Embassy. We are so close to having our paperwork sent to China I can almost feel it. And then the REAL wait will begin. At this time, the wait is about 10 months........

Our trip on the White Rim last week was an unqualified success. The weather was surprisingly beautiful, even though everyone kept claiming it would snow on us. We did see a short snow storm one night after we were tucked away in our sleeping bags. Big gusts of wind scattered our camp around, but the only remainder in the morning was a little crust of snow on the bikes.
I am hoping to write up a series of posts detailing our trip, but for now you can chew on the following data that was collected by Bob on his GPS during the trip. One graph shows our altitude and relative speed, the other shows humidity and temperature. Since his GPS was sitting in his camelback next to the water bladder the entire time, the temperature data is probably a little off. But you get the general idea.

Our new cabinets are here!!

Ok, so 2 months have passed without so much as a peep. We've been crazy busy, but I guess that is no excuse, considering the lives of other bloggers out there. I'm going to keep it short and simple...
Adoption update: We finally went for our INS fingerprinting last week. It took our agency almost a month and a half to approve our homestudy. There was nothing wrong with it, people just kept taking vacations. The fingerprinting is the last part that we have to take care of. Now, we wait for the INS to approve our application. Once that happens, in a month or two, then our paperwork goes to the state for authentication. After that, a courier takes it to DC, first to the state department for their seal, then to the Chinese Embassy for their seal. It is then sent by FedEx to our translator who does the translation and then sends it directly to China. If we are very lucky, the whole process will take only 2 months until it is sent to China. But that is only if we are VERY lucky. More waiting.....

The house: We managed to open up an outside wall in our house and close it again, none too quickly. Patrick fabricated new siding to match the original stuff and a window sill that is beautiful! I'm posting pictures, but without seeing what the window looked like originally, I'm not sure you can have any idea the magic he worked. Another big accomplishment was installing most of the sheet rock. I say most, because as we were installing we realized that there are some fairly important issues we need to resolve before finishing the walls. For example, we had ethernet cable coming out of one wall, but it was not integrated into a box. I quickly learned how to wire a phone and DSL line, and we now have a real outlet for both. But, these little things take time.
Ooooh, our cabinets came and they are beautiful! I am so impressed with the job that the Cabinet Factory did. The fit the space perfectly! The designer even surprised me by including a cap for the half wall that I wasn't expecting. I hope you can get an idea from the pictures, but I just invite you all to visit and see for yourself. Well, maybe wait a couple more months until we are really finished with the project. We've decided to take on plastering ourselves. Will be heading up to Portland for a class in early April, so will give more details then.

Tomorrow we are heading off for a week of biking in Moab. A little respite from working on the house constantly! Hope you all are well

Shula