Our Region

Another new development: We've been assigned a region!!! Lyle & I have been referred to Kyzylorda. This is a verbal confirmation only. We still need to wait for our Letter of Invite and that can take a couple of weeks to a couple of months, but knowing our region is huge!

I know you're wondering where the heck is Kyzylorda?! So were we. Google tells us it's in the Southwestern part of Kazakhstan. It's geography is similar to that of Utah or Nevada and the temperatures range from -11.5 Celsius to +35 Celsius throughout the year. So, if we travel in January, we're going to feel like we're in the tropics if it's a balmy minus 11 degrees! Who needs Miami?

The region has approximately 160,000 residents, so it's not too big but it's also not a little wee village. I think we'll have some of the amenities we've been hoping for. We've been reading some blogs from other families who've adopted from Kyzylorda and that's been very helpful.

Hope to have more details (Letter of Invite) soon.

Checkpoint

Our latest development is an exciting one: Yesterday, we found out that our dossier cleared the Ministries in Astana, Kazakhstan. The next destination is to the particular region from where a child/children matches our application. We signed a couple of Power of Attorney forms that the country needs in order to have local officials act on our behalf on certain issues. So far, we still feel it's likely we'll be traveling early in 2009. That's it for now.

Lyle & I made the decision to adopt a baby from Kaz in December 2007. Since then, it's been a marathon-type event getting our dossier prepared to be sent to the country. Fingerprinting, child abuse checks, home studies, medical histories & autobiographies. Oh, I can't forget about the adoption seminar Lyle had to attend solo. He couldn't stop talking about the lunch for days afterward. Hopefully, we'll encounter a similar menu while we're away.

Our dossier left Winnipeg around the middle of July 2008 and made it's way around parts of Canada, including Toronto, Montreal & Ottawa for notarizing, translation into Russian among other things. Finally, on September 2, Lyle tracked our 3 pound FedEx package & located it in Astana, Kazakhstan at the Foreign Affairs Ministry. Whoo hoo!!! This was a huge relief, knowing that things are really kicking into high gear. Based on our friends' experiences, we judge our departure date to be early in 2009! Hope we're not jinxing anything by suggesting that.

As we wait...

Hello there, Lyle & I thought we would begin a blog about our upcoming adventure of a lifetime-adopting a boy or girl from Kazakhstan. We want to share our path with family & friends. Please keep us in your thoughts and stay tuned...