Busy Times

The past few days have been pretty busy for us. Lots of little things, like a birthday party, errands, taking advantage of a tax free shopping weekend, making cookies for a work potluck, etc. Some bigger things too, such as doing the I-800A paperwork, laying the sod in our backyard and getting our tenant's 30-day notice unexpectedly. The good news in out tenant moving out is that within hours of getting the notice, we may have found a new tenant. :)

The I-800A paperwork is important because we can't get a referral until we are approved by Citizenship and Immigration Services. It should only take a couple of months though, so we should get it approved well before the March referrals and most likely even before the December referrals. So I'm not worried. :)

For those wondering what the paperwork is all about, it is the process that is used to legally immigrate our foreign-born, adopted child into the U.S. The end result being that when the adoption is finalized, they will obtain U.S. Citizenship. Our agency explained it like this, the I-800A paperwork is like the application or pre-approval part. The I-800 paperwork is the approval of a specific child and the I-864 is the issuance of the visa at the U.S. Embassy in Thailand. So we're glad to have the process started. :)

As for our backyard, after four hours of hard work we have a lawn! Through the picture progression, you can see in an instant what took us weeks to accomplish. :)

This is installing the sprinkler system

This is the finished sprinkler system

This is our finished lawn! :)