The Cluttered Pantry

Vroom vroom…. We sold the mini cooper, dropped it off this evening and bid fair well to a super fun ride with the “we got hitched in the tunnel of love in las vegas” bumper sticker still on the back. Think the new owners will keep that?
We’ve decided to give the local car [...]

We’ve been working late and getting up early for weeks now. Trying to get ahead on projects so that we can keep from having to do any work while we are in Russia. This past weekend was a particularly rough one involving staying up all night to finish a major web transfer.
So tonight we [...]

It’s Friday night. One week from now we fly to Moscow. Last minute paperwork included a document to prove there is actually a house on the property we own (thank goodness our pal Sung is a licensed realtor!), redoing our police clearance letters to prove we still haven’t been convicted of major [...]

Howdy everyone…sorry for the long radio silence…we’ve been waiting for some news before posting anything
Our travel invitation just came through so we are set to leave for Moscow on the 8th of August, to do paperwork and such, and then on our way to Chita – Siberia, Russia on the 10th
We’ll get to spend 3 [...]

Just a quick update…. We have officially accepted the referrals for the girls. A flurry of regional documents have been completed and sent in to be added to our Dossier so that we can be eligible for invitation from the Ministry of Education to travel for our 1st trip. This process [...]

Our last post was almost four weeks ago…we told you then that the adoption agency gave us an estimate of 2 to 4 months wait for us to get matched with the two children we have asked for (most likely boys.)
This morning we got a call asking us if we might be interested/willing to consider [...]

58 documents – each and every one of them signed, notarized, and apostilled, were carefully sorted, tagged, stapled with our fab red swingline, (again, if you don’t know what we are talking about we pity your pop culture education and insist that you come over for movie night…) then filed and sent in [...]

We mentioned in our last post that one of the things we are doing while we wait for all that paper to get stamped and signed and certified and sealed and translated is some minor home projects. Well, we thought they’d be minor projects…
Now that the Wee Kahunas’ bedroom construction is finished we were [...]

Or are you just happy to see us? Our next step in the paper chase is to compile our “Dossier.” (This is the giant packet of documents that Russia requires be completed prior to putting us on the waiting list for children to be referred to us.
Many, many of the documents listed in the [...]

You mean we can’t just put a bunch of pillows on the floor and let them fall asleep where ever they want like the puppies do? Well sheesh…I guess we should take Dave W’s advice and get some of them thar cribs and a stuffed bunny or something, since “kid’s like that sort of [...]

The Department of Home Land Security notices arrived!

Appointment Notice

Case Type: 1600A Application for Advance Processing or Orphan Petition

“To process your application, the US Citizen & Immigration Services must capture your biometrics.”

Of course, the dates they assigned to us are while we are still traveling, but Judith saves the day by following up with them and [...]

The Wee Kahunas room is finished…magic men, made of dirt, came to the house while we were working abroad. They moved walls, rebuilt a closet, installed new wood floors, replaced a window that wouldn’t budge, painted the whole room and installed a ceiling fan that looks like a honey pot for Winnie the [...]

A quick look at the calendar and we can tell that if we don’t keep pushing to knock “to do” items off our list we will be setting ourselves up for a trip to Russia in the middle of the winter to pick up the Wee Kahunas. Now, don’t get me wrong, we like [...]

So, the real world and work calls. The two of us start our next set of travels for Really Really Big Industries, Inc. this coming week. This is likely to be one of the last multi week/multi continent trips that we take together for the next couple of years.
We’ve added to the Really [...]