Mexico....you are annoying me today

Mexico....today you are annoying me. Listen, don't get me wrong...I love Mexico. I lived there for my junior year of college. I stayed from August of 2001 to August of 2002 and loved it all!! I have been to more Mexican states than I have US states. The majority of my students are from Mexico. I love talking to them and they think it's hysterical that I understand their Mexican slang. So, I had to say all of that before you got upset with me for being annoyed with the country.

For our adoption, we are required to provide child abuse clearances for every place that we have lived in since age 18. Now, for Brian that is easy. He has lived in NC the whole time. Even if you have lived in other states, it's super easy because the United States has a central child abuse registry. They check to make sure your name isn't there and ta-da you're ready to move on to the next steps of the adoption process.

However, if you have lived in another country you are required to get clearances from that country to prove it. Well, Mexico doesn't have a national based system like we do. They do it by state. Oh, and guess what? I lived in 2 different Mexican states (Veracruz and Quintana Roo). Now, God has been amazing to provide already! My great friend Carla that I met through Vida Estudiantil (Mexico's version of Campus Crusade) had a connection with someone that could help me. That guy sent me the info to another department that said they can give me a verification for what I need. This is all for the state of Veracruz. Anyway, so I was all excited and ready to fill out some form when I received an insane email. I had to read the thing like 4 times to understand it because of all the legal jargon. I thought my Spanish was getting rusty but my friend Carla said she read it out loud a couple times too to actually understand everything!! Anyway they want me to scan some rather important documents and send them to them via email. They want my scanned passport, scanned birth certificate, scanned handprints, a front and profile head shot, and a simple power of attorney (which I will explain in a minute). Yes, ALL of those things in an EMAIL to some person I have NEVER met in some office in downtown Xalapa! So, as you can imagine I'm a little concerned about sending my Identify Theft Kit (as my friend Ben called it) to just anybody. That's not all mind you!

The next thing is that I have to have someone that I know and trust that still lives in Xalapa to go pick up this verfication and then have an apostille placed on it. He then has to mail it back to me here in the US! This is what the Power of Attorney is for. It gives him permission to pick it up for me. Now I do have a friend that said they will do this for me. However, remember this is just one state!! I still am working on the 2nd one.

And to top it all off, my printer stopped scanning today. :( So, if you are thinking about adopting, DONT GO LIVE OUT OF THE COUNTRY or if you do make sure they have an easy to use/track child abuse clearance system.

México...te quiero...pero me caen mal tus trámites

What we're up to!

I realize that I haven't posted anything new in a while and it's because we have been working on our paperwork! Last week we had our first talk with our Case Manager at AGCI. She went over everything that will need to happen for our dossier and what we should be focusing on right now. Our main focus for the next couple of months is our homestudy and our education. We are currently gathering and working on our homestudy documents (some of these are the same as our dossier documents). After we get all of these gathered and signed, etc. we will send them to our local homestudy agency and then we will begin our visits with our social worker.

I have been busy working on my autobiography. Brian and I are each required to write up an autobiography discussing our childhood, school, relationships, how we met, our dating relationship, marriage, our daughter, etc. So, as you can imagine this is pretty time consuming. I've enjoyed writing it but I also am having a hard time finishing it.

I also mentioned that we are working on our education. Our agency requires that we complete 6 online classes about adoption as well as a huge workbook that Brian and I will do together. It has 20 chapters and just about every page has questions. We've already looked through the book and I am really excited about it. It's going to be tough but stuff that we need to think about and ask ourselves. I'm so thankful that our agency wants us to do this education so that we are better prepared.

So, if you wonder where we are or why you don't see us as much it's because we are working on all of this! This week Brian is going to get our certified birth certificates and marriage certificate. We have to take pictures of each of us and the front and back of our house too. We are also going to be getting our criminal background checks done. The list is long guys and I won't list everything but we are eager to get it all turned in! Pray for us that this will go smoothly and we can schedule our visits soon!



Much love,

The Paper Chase!

A couple days ago we received our homestudy packet. It is full of information that we need to complete and collect. Some of the items are to be turned in sometime before the last visit but most of it must be turned in before we are able to schedule the visits. Next week we are scheduled to receive our adoption planner and have our dossier run-through call with our new Ethiopian Case Manager. I think this officially means that we are beginning the paper chase! One thing in particular that I am chasing after now is a report from Mexico. In order to adopt you are required to prove that you have not been on any child abuse registry lists. This definitely makes sense! If you have only lived in one state then it's a pretty simple process. If you have lived in another state you work with the FBI to get that but if you have lived in another country since you were 18 then you must check with the registry in THAT country. Well, apparently Mexico does not have a central registry but one for each state and I lived in two different states in Mexico. So, I am going to contact the DIF (Desarollo Integral de la Familia) for both states by writing up a statement requesting clearance. Good thing I speak Spanish! DIF is like the Dept. of Social Services in our country. Our agency said that this has been a long process before so pray that it goes smoothly! :) We'll keep you updated! I can't believe we are already in this phase of gathering documents!! It's exciting!

p.s. that is not our current stack of paper, don't worry! It's a cool picture I found though!

UPDATE!!!
I told you guys about having to get in touch with the DIF in the two states that I lived in while I was in Mexico the other day. I decided to ask a great friend that I actually met living in Xalapa. Let me just say that she is awesome! I asked her if she happened to know anybody that worked in the DIF in Xalapa and guess what? She does!!! Crazy! And get this! The guy that she knows actually works in the adoption dept. of the DIF. AND they went to the same church that I went to in Xalapa and we're thinking that I might have even met them. I really am amazed at how God has continually provided for this adoption. One of these days I'm gonna write up all the ways because it's amazing!

Check out this Chicken Leg!

I haven't posted a picture of my dinner on here before but I couldn't resist adding this one. We are always trying to save money and so when I find an inexpensive yummy dinner I think it's worthy of sharing. I found the recipe in one of my older Real Simple magazines. It had a feature for a month of dinners. At Lowes Foods the other day they had like 16 chicken legs on a crazy sale! I think we got the whole pack for $3.00 and some change. I was in Harris Teeter today and they have the same sale going on. So, I cooked half of them and froze the other half. Without further ado, here is our lovely drumstick! I just salted and peppered them and then roasted them in the oven on 400F for about 35 minutes. Then I brushed on the glaze and let them cook for about 10-15 more minutes! Soo easy. The glaze is the duo you see behind the drumstick. Any variety of chili-garlic sauce (you find this on the Asian aisle) and orange marmalade!
It's sweet and spicy all at the same time!
















Spicy Orange-Glazed Drumsticks
1/4 cup orange marmalade

1/2 tsp chili-garlic sauce (a little more if you like it really spicy)

8 chicken drumsticks (about 2 1/2 pounds)

Kosher salt and pepper

1. Heat oven to 400 F. In a small bowl, mix the marmalade and chili-garlic sauce.

2. Season the chicken with 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper (or just eyeball it). Roast on a foil-lined baking sheet until cooked through, 35-45 minutes, brushing with the glaze during the last 10 minutes of cooking.

That's it!! Enjoy!