The long, long trip from hell!

28 Jun 2009

We left Taraz around 3:30pm on Saturday, June 27th. Wayne still wasn't feeling well, I was starting to feel poorly as well (sore throat, ears hurt)and Ernur's car wasn't feeling well either. I quit counting the number of times we stopped to add water and antifreeze to the radiator. He called Zema to have her tell us what was going on and to make sure we weren't worried about getting to Almaty. Considering our flight didn't leave until 7am the next morning my only concern was not getting stranded on the side of the road in the middle of no where. He finally got the car fixed at the gas station in Kordai. It took 8 hrs with all the stops. He left us at the airport at 11:30pm. We camped out on a bench at the far end of the terminal until it was time to check in for our flight on BMI (the airline from hell!)

They never did post a check-in time so knowing the issues we had in Heathrow we decided to get in line early. The passport check let us through and we headed to the checkin counter. They had an eticket for Wayne but the one for me was locked. The showed we both had reservations but only one ticket. He asked if I had my bording pass stub from the London trip which I happened to still have. It had my name on it but came up as being Wayne. We were about to buy another ticket just to get me on the plane which would have meant I would have to go back out and downstairs to the ticket counter. God was with me and the manager gave the checkin agent permission to print me a new boarding pass and they would work it out with my travel agent later via email. He, however, put me 3 rows back. I guess he couldn't issue my original seat because the ticket was locked (whatever that means). Fortunately the plane wasn't full. We opted to keep our newly assigned seats since it gave us more room. I slept most of the way but Wayne says he wasn't able to sleep very well.

We are currently sitting in Heathrow Airport waiting for our British Airways flight home. We figured since the tickets were purchased through BA we wouldn't have a problem with my boarding pass in London. Wrong! He couldn't locate an eticket for me. Just Wayne. Fortunately I had the receipt from my agent showing I had paid for two round trip tickets. Again a call to a supervisor. God was again with us because she said to go ahead and issue a boarding pass and note a comment in the computer regarding my eticket and they would work it out with my agent later. Eldo is going to be getting a great deal of international calls this week about my ticket.

Fortunately both of us seem to be feeling better although very tired. We have had a bite to eat and rehydrated. I hear the stores calling my name and some British pounds saying they need to be spent because we plan on using Lufthansa for the next trip even if it is more expensive. We don't want to have to deal with these types of issues with Lukas in tow on the next trip.

Time to shop!
Lynda and Wayne

Tentative dates for return to Taraz

Well, we heard from our translator today that we will most likely be having our court date June 22-23. It is evidently a 2 day process where you have the hearing one day and get the ruling the next day. She told us to plan on spending a week in Taraz. So I guess that means we will be gone for 1 1/2 to 2 weeks this trip. That was the good news of her email. She also gave us a list of documents that we need to re-do so that they have 2009 dates on them instead of the 2008 from our dossier. Bear with me as I vent on this one...is it our fault that they took so long to process our dossier and invite us over to get a referral? I know it is out of our control and we must do whatever they ask without question but it is really annoying when you spend time and money to prepare the documents exactly as they have told you to, in the quantity they have told you just to have the court tell you they want them done over because it is a new year. Oh well, I guess it's off on the paper chase yet again. At least they are all things that we can do quickly. It will give us something to do to keep us busy for the next 2 1/2 weeks. At least we have an idea as to a court date. One more step closer to the end. Yeah!

The long awaited updated USCIS form finally arrives!

After 2 months of waiting and 2 weeks of hounding and 6 emails we finally received our renewed fingerprint clearance for the US side of things. They promised me a week ago they were sending the updated form in the mail. I had to laugh when it arrived because they obviously print them in the office in Baltimore. They didn't even let the ink dry before folding it up and stuffing it in the envelope. The ink from the bottom which has their contact information in big bold letters was smeared on the fine print in the upper part of the form which has all the important information. Never a dull moment. Next step is to send off for our updated FBI fingerprint card clearance that we have to take with us. I'm glad we thought ahead and had more than one set of cards made the last time back over the summer.

We now have firm travel dates, if there is such a thing in the international adoption world. We leave on Tuesday, April 14th and for now are scheduled to return on Wednesday, May 13th. Our caseworker had us pad the return trip by a week just in case we don't get our guardianship council appointment on May 4th. If all goes well we will change our tickets and be back on Wednesday May 6th instead.

When we first received our LOI and were told we would be traveling in Mid April it seemed like it was an eternity away. Now it is rapidly approaching and we feel like we have a million things to do to get ready. Guess we'll be spending Easter weekend packing and shipping the pooches off to grandma and grandpa's for an extended holiday at the shore.

LOI final arrives in our hands!

Well, we finally got our LOI (actually "proof of our sponsored invitation" according to a Russian friend of ours) and can proceed forward with getting our Visas and planning our trip. We have been told to report to Almaty, Kazakhstan on April 16th and will hopefully start the bonding process on April 17th. We were hoping to travel sooner but I guess this gives us more time to get everything in order for our first trip. Ah, Spring in Kazakhstan instead of Winter! Should make packing a little easier since hopefully we won't be needing the heavy, bulky clothing we were anticipating. I guess Wayne doesn't get to take his new fur lined cap with the ear flaps he got for Christmas either. I was kind of looking forward to seeing him wear it :). At this time we are expected to stay until the 1st week in May. We'll keep you all posted on this blog site.



On the down side we just found out our local agency that did our homestudy and was to do our required post placement reports is being closed out by their parent group do to the down turn of the stock market. The adoption arm of the parent group was funded through dividends they received from their stock portfolio and as is the case with everyone they took a big hit and have had to cut expenses. Unfortunately for us that means we are losing our local agency. Hopefully this will not impact our current process and will be something we can deal with after the adoption is finalized and we have to submit our first post placement report. The director at the local agency has been helpful in suggesting other local agencies we could use and will transfer our files to whichever agency we choose. It's always something!