CIS Approval!

We were so excited today to find our Notice of Favorable Determination in the mail from the CIS Office in Los Angeles! This was our last paperwork step to the waiting list...what a great way to end 2008 and to start 2009!

First Post

So this is our first official post on our first official blog. This whole blog thing is new to both of us so please bear with us! We are excited to start documenting the great adventure we began to embark upon August 2008 of adopting a baby from Japan. We are both so excited to one day meet the little person that will expand our family. We are still in the process of getting our final piece of paperwork in to get on the waiting list (USCIS form) and will be meeting with Taz, the Japan program coodinator for our adoption agency (ATWA), sometime in January. We are looking forward to meeting one of the people that will be so integral in the process of us being chosen by a birthmom and helping us through everything once we finally get to travel to Japan and meet our baby.

This so far has been a lesson in patience (especially for Jill), but we are learning :)
We know that when the day finally comes, every minute we waited will be so worth it!

Over the upcoming Christmas break, we will start renovating what will be the baby's room...painting, scraping and retexturing ceilings, replacing closet doors, adding lighting, etc. Luckily Ryan is Mr. Handy and can take care of every last detail! Here are some "before" pics as a guest bedroom, we will update with photos as we make some progress in the transformation: