Sunday
7.23.06 - Last Post at Blogger
Hey Everyone! This is our last post here at blogger. We're moving to our new site. If you don't have the URL, feel free to e-mail me and I'll send it to you.
Wednesday
7.12.06 - First Apostille!
We got our first Apostille today! Woo hoo! It's not that big of a deal, but considering 2 months ago I didn't even know what the word meant, 7 months ago I had never heard the word, and regardless of my knowledge (or lack thereof), the word is not even in the dictionary! (I had the devil of a time figuring out what it actually meant.) Do you know what a notary is? It's a a public officer who attests or certifies writings to make them authentic. In other words, in our case they prove that our signatures are true and accurate and not a forgery. Before I sign a document, I have to have a notary witness my signature and put her (his) stamp on it and sign it also. An Apostille comes from the Secretary of the State of the state the notary is issued in saying that the notary is a true and legal notary of that state. The same is true for state certifications.
So for instance in my case, I was born in NY state so I requested certified birth certificates. They've got to have the state seal pressed into them. Once I received my birth certificates, I had to write a letter to the Secretary of State of NY asking for an Apostille on the authentication of my birth certificates. I sent both my birth certificates and the letter back to NY state (because heaven forbid one office does both things), they processed my request and sent both my birth certificates back each with their own Apostille attached. It's simply a piece of paper stating what I mentioned before.
So I bet that's waaaaaay more than you ever wanted/needed to know about Apostille's huh? We've got to do that for EVERY document though. So I sent Jim's birth certificates off to the Secretary of State of Texas. I'll have to send our FBI letter to the SECSTATE of West Virginia, etc, etc. And of course all the documents we collected here in our very own MN.
Ok, now that you're probably fast asleep, time to switch subjects. Contract.
We got our contract in! We're now legally bound to WPA and they to us.
That's it on that one. There's a sorta funny story that goes with it, but it's not really funny, and it's rather tedious, so... That's it on the contract.
We've already started feeling the "Nesting Syndrome" I'm afraid. We stopped at Babies-R-Us on Friday night, more on a whim than anything. We went out to dinner and we were relatively close so afterwards we decided to go. We were mostly looking at cribs.
Ok, let me back up and tell you why we're already looking at cribs. The average time to get our travel dates will be March-April. Life is never easy so I'm expecting June or July. But! absolute best case - everything lines up perfectly and no one experiences a delay (ha, ha) is January. Well even though I don't believe we'll be anywhere close to January, I sure would hate to be caught off guard. It wouldn't be much fun if all of a sudden we knew the baby was coming and we had to rush to pack and haphazardly throw a nursery together right? Ok, so then the next piece of knowledge was that sometimes it can take cribs 2-3 months to be delivered. (We belong to a discount club so that's why the long delivery dates.) Well we don't want to have to set it up in December as we'll be busy doing other things. That means November. Well that means we need to know what we want to order by September. That gives us about a month and a half to shop around, look at styles, colors, read Consumerreports.org and epinions.com on products, etc. So... perfect timing! :-)
Yep, so maybe I'm a little planful and organized.
Ok, ok, back to shopping. So we looked at cribs and everything else. We found the perfect baby entertainment system- what are they called?- those things you put them in and they can stand and wheel themselves around and have a whole bunch of toy things in the tray area? I don't know. And Jim found himself the pack-n-play he wants. And there was the cutest little girl dress!! But it was white and who's crazy enough to make kids clothes using white fabric??!? Even I know better and I've never had a kid!
So then that evening I was looking at cribs online and found one I really liked, and two stores here in the cities carries it so Jim and I went to BabyUSA in the morning and looked at a whole bunch of cribs. Actually too many because after awhile, they all look the same. Oh, we're also looking at the "Lifestyle" kind. It's a crib that can be turned into a toddler bed, and then the front and back of the crib actually become the headboard and footboard to a full size bed. That seems rather attractive- buy something that will last for years rather than just trying to sell it on Ebay a year later.
Ok, I'm still not to the good part of the story. See- I'm bad at telling stories- I drag them out and tell too much info. Anyway, I mentioned two places had this crib. Well I purposely asked Jim to drive to BabyUSA first because it was bigger and I called and knew they had a floor model of the one I was interested. But the second store was called Baby on Grand. Now Grand Ave is located in St. Paul and it's one of those streets with moderately big houses on them (not mansions, but not tiny either) that were built in the late 1800's, early 1900's. This is a quaint part of town and in recent years, the houses are being bought out by small businesses who are looking for a small, cozy, trendy place/look to sell their wares or services. All in all, Grand Ave is one of those streets that appeals to all ages- you have the Grand 'ole Creamery making ice cream every day, bakeries, bread shops, chocolatiers, etc, all in beautifully painted Victorian era houses with beautiful flowers in the front yards and hanging baskets on the lamp posts. So I saw that Baby on Grand was... well... on Grand and knew it was going to be a smaller store- after all it is in an old house. But it also said it was a specialty store and that piqued my curiosity. So I convinced Jim to go to Grand and Jim had a blast. There was this lovely girl there who was a nanny and an aunt so she knew something about kids, and she knew her products well. She helped us out so much and spent so much time with us. The other thing we're looking at is strollers. Not for the same timing reason as above, but just because it's one of the more expensive items to get. It's not something I'd register for just because of the cost. But anyway, Jim had so much fun looking at all the really cool strollers and all the different features. We got to play with them and fold them and unfold them, lift them for weight comparisons, and click and unclick car seats. It was really a great experience. Just because of the customer service, we'll go back. Plus they just had really great stuff there. I can't even describe the store. Between all the merchandise and people, one could barely move (which I abhor that type of situation), but it was quite bearable. Just a fun place to go.
I did learn that one of the best places to go for a date (with your spouse- I don't recommend it for those just starting to date) is a baby store. The ratio of men to women is completely 1:1. At all three of the baby stores, all we saw were couples. And of course they're all excited and happy and lovey-dovey and because of that everyone is so friendly and full of smiles to each other. Quite the lovely place to go if you need a relationship pick-me-up. :-)
At any rate we had fun on Saturday. We were both ready to start buying things and bringing them home, but we know we gotta hold off for awhile and really focus on getting the dossier done.
It is amazing though how when you tell people you need paperwork XYZ because you're adopting, they become much more friendly and full of smiles. It's quite wonderful.
Well anyway... I'm writing more for myself than for any updates, so I'll end here for tonight.
So for instance in my case, I was born in NY state so I requested certified birth certificates. They've got to have the state seal pressed into them. Once I received my birth certificates, I had to write a letter to the Secretary of State of NY asking for an Apostille on the authentication of my birth certificates. I sent both my birth certificates and the letter back to NY state (because heaven forbid one office does both things), they processed my request and sent both my birth certificates back each with their own Apostille attached. It's simply a piece of paper stating what I mentioned before.
So I bet that's waaaaaay more than you ever wanted/needed to know about Apostille's huh? We've got to do that for EVERY document though. So I sent Jim's birth certificates off to the Secretary of State of Texas. I'll have to send our FBI letter to the SECSTATE of West Virginia, etc, etc. And of course all the documents we collected here in our very own MN.
Ok, now that you're probably fast asleep, time to switch subjects. Contract.
We got our contract in! We're now legally bound to WPA and they to us.
That's it on that one. There's a sorta funny story that goes with it, but it's not really funny, and it's rather tedious, so... That's it on the contract.
We've already started feeling the "Nesting Syndrome" I'm afraid. We stopped at Babies-R-Us on Friday night, more on a whim than anything. We went out to dinner and we were relatively close so afterwards we decided to go. We were mostly looking at cribs.
Ok, let me back up and tell you why we're already looking at cribs. The average time to get our travel dates will be March-April. Life is never easy so I'm expecting June or July. But! absolute best case - everything lines up perfectly and no one experiences a delay (ha, ha) is January. Well even though I don't believe we'll be anywhere close to January, I sure would hate to be caught off guard. It wouldn't be much fun if all of a sudden we knew the baby was coming and we had to rush to pack and haphazardly throw a nursery together right? Ok, so then the next piece of knowledge was that sometimes it can take cribs 2-3 months to be delivered. (We belong to a discount club so that's why the long delivery dates.) Well we don't want to have to set it up in December as we'll be busy doing other things. That means November. Well that means we need to know what we want to order by September. That gives us about a month and a half to shop around, look at styles, colors, read Consumerreports.org and epinions.com on products, etc. So... perfect timing! :-)
Yep, so maybe I'm a little planful and organized.
Ok, ok, back to shopping. So we looked at cribs and everything else. We found the perfect baby entertainment system- what are they called?- those things you put them in and they can stand and wheel themselves around and have a whole bunch of toy things in the tray area? I don't know. And Jim found himself the pack-n-play he wants. And there was the cutest little girl dress!! But it was white and who's crazy enough to make kids clothes using white fabric??!? Even I know better and I've never had a kid!
So then that evening I was looking at cribs online and found one I really liked, and two stores here in the cities carries it so Jim and I went to BabyUSA in the morning and looked at a whole bunch of cribs. Actually too many because after awhile, they all look the same. Oh, we're also looking at the "Lifestyle" kind. It's a crib that can be turned into a toddler bed, and then the front and back of the crib actually become the headboard and footboard to a full size bed. That seems rather attractive- buy something that will last for years rather than just trying to sell it on Ebay a year later.
Ok, I'm still not to the good part of the story. See- I'm bad at telling stories- I drag them out and tell too much info. Anyway, I mentioned two places had this crib. Well I purposely asked Jim to drive to BabyUSA first because it was bigger and I called and knew they had a floor model of the one I was interested. But the second store was called Baby on Grand. Now Grand Ave is located in St. Paul and it's one of those streets with moderately big houses on them (not mansions, but not tiny either) that were built in the late 1800's, early 1900's. This is a quaint part of town and in recent years, the houses are being bought out by small businesses who are looking for a small, cozy, trendy place/look to sell their wares or services. All in all, Grand Ave is one of those streets that appeals to all ages- you have the Grand 'ole Creamery making ice cream every day, bakeries, bread shops, chocolatiers, etc, all in beautifully painted Victorian era houses with beautiful flowers in the front yards and hanging baskets on the lamp posts. So I saw that Baby on Grand was... well... on Grand and knew it was going to be a smaller store- after all it is in an old house. But it also said it was a specialty store and that piqued my curiosity. So I convinced Jim to go to Grand and Jim had a blast. There was this lovely girl there who was a nanny and an aunt so she knew something about kids, and she knew her products well. She helped us out so much and spent so much time with us. The other thing we're looking at is strollers. Not for the same timing reason as above, but just because it's one of the more expensive items to get. It's not something I'd register for just because of the cost. But anyway, Jim had so much fun looking at all the really cool strollers and all the different features. We got to play with them and fold them and unfold them, lift them for weight comparisons, and click and unclick car seats. It was really a great experience. Just because of the customer service, we'll go back. Plus they just had really great stuff there. I can't even describe the store. Between all the merchandise and people, one could barely move (which I abhor that type of situation), but it was quite bearable. Just a fun place to go.
I did learn that one of the best places to go for a date (with your spouse- I don't recommend it for those just starting to date) is a baby store. The ratio of men to women is completely 1:1. At all three of the baby stores, all we saw were couples. And of course they're all excited and happy and lovey-dovey and because of that everyone is so friendly and full of smiles to each other. Quite the lovely place to go if you need a relationship pick-me-up. :-)
At any rate we had fun on Saturday. We were both ready to start buying things and bringing them home, but we know we gotta hold off for awhile and really focus on getting the dossier done.
It is amazing though how when you tell people you need paperwork XYZ because you're adopting, they become much more friendly and full of smiles. It's quite wonderful.
Well anyway... I'm writing more for myself than for any updates, so I'll end here for tonight.
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