Major Progress!

Wow! Has it really been almost a week since my last post? We have made a lot of progress since then. Here's an update...

Friday we had our labwork taken. Then we went to the health department so that they could administer our TB tests. It was GREAT of our doctor to order these for us in advance of our appointments with her. Definitely helped to speed things up.

Saturday we took the two cats and the big dog to the vet for their shots. After that we ran errands and tried to get some chores & organizing done. It was early evening before we realized that there was a message waiting on the answering machine. It was CCAI telling us that they had finally received our application and all they needed to approve us was a doctor's letter for Michael. Whoo hooo! What a sense of relief!

Monday morning we went to the doctor and she filled out all our forms for us. I faxed them off to CCAI as soon as I could. I also faxed copies of all our newly completed documents to our social worker to help her complete our home study.

On Tuesday Michael went downtown and got our Tennessee recognition of Cackie's foreign birth. We still need to apply for a copy of her birth certificate, but the big part is done. That evening when I got home there was a message waiting from CCAI. We are officially approved and the agency forms, etc were waiting in my email box! Then just after Cackie went to bed, our social worker called to confirm a few items for our home study. The last item that she needed from me was our personal financial statement and I got started on that immediately. Our home study is now complete and we meet with the social worker tomorrow to review it and give it our blessing.

Yesterday we had all the CCAI agency forms signed & notarized and sent it all off in a FedEx package with a nice big check! They recieved the package today at 8:44 am and as soon as they process it we should get an email telling us how to access our dossier guide. Yay, more work to do! lol!

Tomorrow we get a look at our homestudy and then our social worker will fax it to CCAI for their approval. Once we get CCAI's approval we can get a final copy of our home study and go have fingerprints taken. The Memphis USCIS office says that they are taking approximately 8 weeks to process the I-600A and issue the I-171H. If we get fingerprinted next week, 8 weeks would put us around March 16 to receive our I-171H. That is plenty of time to have everything ready and get it to CCAI before their deadline. Whoo hooo!!!

Now, if just some of the other stuff in our lives would come together so well. Two days before Christmas our dishwasher died, ugh! On the 26th we ordered a new one from Sears. It was available for pickup on the 2nd and we got it on the 3rd. Michael started to install it last Thursday, but it needed a special part, etc. Thank goodness Home Depot is just down the street. He didn't get to work on it again until late Saturday afternoon. We were soo excited when he finished installing it.... we loaded that sucker up and turned it on. It was just as quiet as in the store... after running for a few minutes we opened it up to see how it was doing.... NOTHING! There was no water getting to it! Long story short, the repair man came Tuesday and said it needs a new control panel! We'd never even used it and I wasn't going to accept such a major repair on a brand new appliance. After going around and around with Sears they have ordered us a new dishwasher and when it arrives (not soon enough!) we'll take back this one. Hopefully the new one will have no problems.
Then, do we sell the house and move... or do we stay and do more renovations & add on? We're having a heck of a time finding a house that suits us and has owners who will wait for us to sell ours. We've already lost the house that we really loved because ours didn't sell before someone else came in and snatched it away. We really would like to have a bigger yard and that is the downside to staying where we are. We don't want to sell and then live in an apartment until we can find a new house. That would not be a pretty sight! We're still hashing through this one, hopefully an answer will present itself soon!
That's all for now!