From Korea to Texas

Sunday, December 29, 2013

We're Going To Korea!!!

Well we were finally submitted to court on 11/14/2013! This was later than we had hoped, but we were still holding out hope that our hearing date would be in early December. Again, we were disappointed. On the 5th of December our agency called to let us know that our court date was scheduled for January 21, 2014. So very sad that another holiday season will come and go without meeting Liam in person. So excited that we are getting close to hugging our sweet boy.

Rey and I will be leaving on January 12th. (My mom will be staying with Max and Talia while we are gone.) We will have a Seoul City Tour on the 14th, meet Liam on the 15th and then again on the 17th. Then we appear before a Korean court judge on the 21st to again let the officials know that we most definitely want to proceed with Liam's adoption.

All of this means that Liam will most likely be home in late March or early April of 2014, a full 2 years since we began our journey. Our little boy has changed so much. I am so ready for him to be home in my arms!!

When we started this adoption.

Liam in November 2013 (most recent photo we have).

Saturday, November 02, 2013

So Many Things...

I know it has been many months since I've last posted. We have had some delays in the adoption process. Some of those delays were in the form of other adoptive parents blogging and South Korea not liking the tone of the posts. At that point our agency asked that we not post about our process. So I went a step further. I deleted my Facebook account and have made this blog private until after Liam is home.

After several weeks of delay we did finally receive EP approval on October 21st!!! Our next step is to have our paperwork submitted to court then wait for a court date. While at this time we believe we will take our first trip before the end of the year, Liam will most likely not be home until 2014. We are happy and sad about that. We will miss his 2nd birthday and 3rd Christmas, but we will be able to spend that time focusing on Talia and Max a little more.

Speaking of Talia and Max.... They are doing awesome. School and fall soccer has started! Both are doing great in school, right on target. This is a blessing for Talia who was having so many issues at the end of last year. She even has a new friend to eat lunch with and hang out. Retaining her in 3rd grade was the best decision we could have made. Max (and Rey) are passionate about soccer this season. Earlier today they played the last game of the fall 2013 season. They ended with a win of 9 to 8 and a 7 - 1 season!

Thursday night was Halloween and the kids actually got to buy costumes this year. Talia went as Frankie Stein (from Monster High) and Max went as a ninja.

Here are a few photos from the past months.

Max at the Dallas Zoo

My trick or treaters

Mr. Ninja

Frankie Stein

Talia at the Dallas Zoo

Spontaneous zoo trip

Talia going after it

The whole Raiders Team

Max going for it

Max at his desk on the 1st day of school

My 2nd grader

Talia at her desk the 1st day of school

Miss Priss 3rd grader

Silly boys

Max concentrating

Talia thinking about her next move

Talia really hustling

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Mini Vacation

This past weekend the kids and I had the opportunity to go with Rey to Houston.

Rey was finishing up a project for work and

we didn't have anything else going on so we tagged along.

On Friday, since Rey was working, the kids and I went to the Children's Museum of Houston.

It was an awesome place!

They could jump, run, play and touch everything.

Here they are playing dodge ball with the digital ball on the floor.

Here they are learning dance routines.

Here they are helping out in Cyberchase.

Talia is in the giant web. It went up three stories tall.

Max on the rock climbing wall.

Max in the web.

On Saturday we had a real treat!

We met up with the kids' Godparents (who live in Houston) at the Houston Zoo.

We have not seen them in a couple of years.

All of our kids had such a great time with each other.

The gorilla and tiger are Lego statues found in the zoo.

They were awesome to see and to realize that each statue was hundreds of hours of work

with tens of thousands of Lego pieces.

Talia and her favorite animal!

After the zoo we all went to Kemah Boardwalk (just outside Houston) for a yummy late lunch.

Then back to our friends' home for delicious dessert and wonderful conversation.

We wished the night didn't have to end. It was so good to see everyone and we were sad to leave.

I'm so happy we were able to take this mini vacation and have such fun.

Liam

We have had some pretty exciting news about Liam recently.

We also received new photos. This one is from June.

These three photos are from mid July.

I know I say it all the time, but he is getting so big!

I wish he would just stop growing for a little while.

From the previous post we sent off our 2nd acceptance packet on May 31st.

Then it took longer to get to the next steps.

We found out that our EP (emigration permit) was submitted on July 25th!!

This is much later than we expected but we are so thrilled to be one step closer.

It is estimated to take 4 to 5 weeks for EP approval.

We are hoping for the end of August to get approval.

Next we will be submitted to court for our 1st trip. We don't know how long that will take.

We are hoping to at least take our 1st trip by the end of September.

That would mean Liam could be home sometime in October.

We just aren't sure at this point.

But, we do know we are close and that makes us very happy!

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

The Good Things

I know it has been a long time since I last posted. Sorry!

However, when we are in the midst of good times and good things it is hard to stop to blog. We've had some good things come our way lately!

Last Tuesday we had a conference call with our agency to clarify the new laws and process in Korea. We found out that we will be making two trips to Korea. We are very happy with this news!! Even though it means more money, it gives Liam the opportunity to come home as an immediate US citizen. This could not be better!! Such good things for us and Liam.

Our agency also went through what the process will look like for us. Here are the bullet points.
*    Matched with Liam
*    Submission of the 2nd acceptance documents
*    EP submission (this is the emigration permit Liam needs to leave the country)
*    EP approval (this is Korea saying Liam may leave)
*    Court submission (we are told when our hearing will be)
*    1st Trip to Korea (we will meet Liam and appear for our court hearing, trip is between 7-10 days)
*    Come back home (for 3 to 5 weeks)
*    2nd Trip to Korea (we will assume custody and bring Liam home, trip is between 4-7 days)

During the call the social workers discussed how far they were in requesting the 2nd acceptance packet from families. They had mentioned that they would be through July matches by the end of May. Since we were matched the 1st of August we were not expecting our request until June. To our suprise I received an email just after the completion of the conference call requesting our 2nd acceptance documents!!! We are thrilled!

We have been working hard on getting everything in order so that we might send our packet by the end of this week!!!!

No one (not our agency nor us) know what the total timeline will look like. However this is our best guess right now.
*    2nd acceptance packet submitted to Korea by 6/6/13
*    EP submitted about 6/27/13
*    EP approved about 7/18/13
*    Court appearance about 7/30/13
*    Final trip to bring home Liam about 8/26/13

Again, this is just an estimate. It could go faster or slower. I feel like this will probably be the case just because I don't want to leave Talia and Max at the beginning of the school year!

I love taking the kids to their first day of school and if our final trip is the end of August I will miss it. From the beginning of this journey I talked about the fact that I wanted to be with my kids on their 1st day of school and that the timing seemed like it wouldn't be possible. So, being the horribly selfish momma I am, I would like you all to pray the process goes very quick and that Liam is home before the 1st day of the school year!! I know it is silly, but that's the thing that bothers me the most with this timeline.

So, there you have it!! The good things going on in our lives! What are your good things today? I would love to hear them!