Approved!

we received a very important document in the mail yesterday... our I800A forms have been approved by the government and we are officially approved by them to adopt a child (or children - we said we would be open to twins) from colombia! yay! some much needed good news after my injury and some flooding in our basement... needless to say, heath has been #1 husband lately. i'm gonna owe him big time when this is all done! :)

An Unfortunate Incident...

in case you haven't heard, i suffered an unfortunate incident at softball last week. after all my years of playing sports, my luck finally ran out and i injured myself. i was playing left centerfield for our undefeated softball team, the foul swingers. a ball was hit over my head and as i turned to run after it, i decided to try and jump while turning to my left. not a good idea! my right cleat either got stuck in the grass while the rest of my body turned or i twisted my leg as i landed...either way i was in extreme pain and knew something was wrong. after being aided off the field by several of my teammates, i sat on the bench for the rest of the game (well, i did try to bat one more time, but that didn't go so well!). after a visit to the emergency room and sports medicine doctor the diagnosis was: torn ACL and bruises and minor abrasions in the outer bone of my knee. not good! needless to say, my softball season has ended and all sports are out for approximately the next six months. boo! i meet with an orthopedic surgeon tomorrow at 1:00 to find out what he has in mind regarding surgery and when it's going to take place. great way to end my summer!

on a positive note, we just got back from our round of fingerprints for immigration and that went smoothly. i guess we can be glad that our little one is not with us yet as i can't even imagine how we would be dealing with that as gimpy as i am! heath is doing a great job as my nurse and is keeping up with the housework as well. he took over for my mom after she did a great job this past weekend!

heading to the scene of the incident tonight...gotta cheer on my team in the finals!

Passports & Fingerprints!

hey everyone! just a quick note to let you know that our passports arrived today and we are officially set up to do our next set of fingerprints on august 5th in saint paul. things continue to progress! everything seems to be going smoothly...fingers crossed this continues!



here is an excerpt from an email from our colombian adoption worker, bettina:



"I just wanted to let you know that I received your original application materials today! Congratulations! Another step completed!

The next step will be to complete your dossier materials – and I will send you those materials when we are instructed to do so by Cecilia in Colombia. Until that time, you’ll be receiving monthly Colombia Program Updates. You’re more than welcome to contact me during this time to ask questions or seek clarification.

Again congratulations on completing another step bringing you closer to completing your family!"



her email gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling, so i thought i would share.



time for bed after a fun weekend with friends. poor heath had to work, so i was on my own! :)



ang

The Application is in the Mail...

hi again! just wanted to report that our official application to los pisingos is being sent to the duluth office of lss tomorrow! all of our 'not-so-natural' pictures are printed off and have been posted on 8.5" * 11" paper (everything is very official!). i did make doubles of the pics in case any of you ever want to see them and have a good laugh! :) seriously...who stands in front of a plain white wall in their house and takes a full body picture??! oh well - just another fun step in our adventure, right? we are also submitting our family letter to the orphanage explaining why we are adopting, why we chose colombia, explaining who we are, etc. hopefully i did a good job and they want to pick us sooner than later!
that's about all for now. we've been waiting for almost 3 months already! can you believe it?
have a good night,
ang

Photo Night @ the Reedy's!

tonight was photo night at the reedy's! i came home from work and guess what heath was doing? putting together the crib! it looks as beautiful as i hoped! i think you guys will all like it, too...now we just have to get rid of the obnoxious blue paint in the baby's room! still pondering what exactly we want to do.
while heath finished the crib, i grabbed the camera and started some of the 'house' pictures. our application for los pisingos requires one of the front, one of the back, 4 random indoor photos and then a pic of the baby's room. needless to say, i went from room to room moving our little piles and snapping pics! not sure why, but this was more difficult than i thought it would be!?!!? seems like it should be easy, but i felt like everything needed to be perfect and that each room had to be shot from just the right angle. i'm such a nerd.
as i was finishing up, i heard heath get in the shower. we all know how much he loves dressing up in a suit, so i slowly approached him and asked if he would like to just put the 'dress up' clothes on right away and get the rest of the pictures over with. he said yes! i quickly changed into my dress and we started a photo shoot of each other! it felt pretty ridiculous posing for a "full length" shot of ourselves in front of a blank wall! that is so NOT natural! oh well, i think we got them all taken care of (thanks to the camera timer, our dining room table & a stack of books!). i'm going to submit everything tomorrow (photos, letter to the orphanage and orphanage application) for review and we'll see what bettina (our colombian advisor from lss) has to say!
pretty sure heath will kick my booty if we have to re-do any of the pics! :)
good night!

Los Pisingos!

another quick update...as of today, we officially decided on adopting from the los pisingos orphanage in bogota. lss works with two private orphanages (los pisingos and ayudame) and we had the choice of which one to go through. essentially, they are very similar: wait times are the same (they are telling us the average is 15-23 months), number of families in the program are similar, both are run by former adoptees, etc. if you would like to see some pictures, check out the website at: www.lospisingos.com. most of it is in spanish, but there is a small english section as well. (to see photos of some of the beautiful children, first click on 'fundacion los pisingos' and then click on 'Galeria de fotos'.)

after our selection, bettina, our international adoption worker, then sent us the los pisingos application that we now get to fill out. we have some questions to answer, a letter to write and some photos to submit... "full length photos of mother and father, waist up of both of us, head & shoulder photos of us, pictures of our house, the baby's future room, etc." i can already imagine the two of us roaming around the house taking pictures of each other! a photo shoot at the reedy's... mel, we may need to borrow you and your fancy camera! heath especially loves the fact that they tell you that the father should wear a suit and tie and i'm supposed to wear a dress!

i am also posting another link under our favorite websites. i found it on another couple's blog and it has some good basic info about colombia for those of you who are curious.

summer seems to have officially arrived! stay cool!
love,
ang

Exhausted, But SO Excited!

who knew just sitting through some classes could be so exhausting and yet so exciting at the same time? heath and i again had another great day full of information and excitement. no tears today, but we definitely learned a lot about cross-cultural adoption and how this will affect both us and our future child. so much to learn and think about! i will explain more later but seriously, we are both exhausted...we went to the twins game right after class and (as some of you very observant people may notice) we left after 6 innings because we were so tired! we were able to see the entire ulstad clan before the game so that was very fun & it was special to be able to share some of our stories with them. we can't wait for our little guy or girl to arrive so they can play with their kiddies!

good night for now!
ang