Step #3 - Passports are here!!!

We still aren't finished, but the step that has been taking 2 - 3 weeks is finally over!!! I am done with the orphanage and the city of Meknes! We have everything we need to turn into the consulate on Friday. Tomorrow we take them to the Dr in Cassablanca, Friday we turn in all the forms and paper work to the Consulate, and hopefully if all the forms are right, pick up Visa's on Monday!!! And catch a plane home on Wednesday with one day to spare! Until it's done and I'm on the ground in Utah- please keep praying because everytime it's looks like it's going good, something swings bad. It's not over - till it's over!

Cohen's 1st bath (not in a cold bucket of water)

New Friends and Family link

We have met some great people while here. Josh & Rachel. They have been assigned to Morocco for the past couple years and while here, they decided to adopt from the same orphanage as we are. Their process has been different and harder because of them living here. They have been working on their adoption of two beautiful identical twin girls since March of this year. They are scheduled to return to the states in 8 days, hopefully they are finished with their adoption in time also. But I have added the blog link to mine. She has posted a lot of pictures of the orphanage and their life here that are fun to look at. There is even a post about a party that was thrown by a great friend of ours to celebrate all of the children that we are all trying to adopt and take home to the USA! Check it out when you have time!

Quick Update

So we closed Kafala on Tuesday the 8th, and the Judge we had was not the normal Judge. There are 3 judges and 2 of them are out of town and I guess the one we had is kind of a stand in judge. Well when we were trying to close Kafala, him and the lady helping us, and another guy sat and argued back and forth in arabic for like 15 minutes. We could tell something wasn't good, and could hear the would Islam, every so often. We kind of gathered that they weren't happy that we were Americans and didn't think we were going to raise the kids Muslim (I don't know why they thought that :) but anyway, they finally signed the Kafala and we were out of there.

Well the lady helping us said she would turn in the passport papers the next day and we would hopefully have them on the next Friday. Well Friday came and went, Richie went home on Sunday the 13th - Monday came and went, no -still not ready, so on Tuesday the 15th, I just happened to go up with my friend who is also trying to adopt, so that we could pick up Cohen, cause I was tired of waiting for the passports. So we get to Meknes to do stuff for my friend, and instead, she has me running all over to sign papers because the judge was being petty and making her do all kinds of little extra's. So, not only were passports not ready, she had even turned stuff in for them. So I sign all these papers and she says she will turn them in the next day- Wed.- and passports should be ready on Friday again. So the next day on Wednesday, I get a call that she forgot to have me sign one of the papers, so I run to a place here in Rabat, cause Meknes is 2 hours away, to sign this paper that they have waiting for me. I'm told that it will be sent back, that day, by driver and that she will turn in for passports on Thursday now!

So, on thursday, I do some run around work for the US side at the Consulate in Cassablanca (an hour a way) and basically got nothing accomplished except now I know the area and where I need to go- because passports weren't ready and no one said they had to be when they told me to come and I had told them already that I didn't have them yet- but I feel good about the trip cause now I knew a little about the process anyway.

So on Friday, I had a friend call in the morning to the lady helping us (she speaks pretty good English but sometimes it's hard to get details across) , but a friend calls her and then informs me that they still don't have that paper I signed on Wednesday, so here I am waiting for passports and they still haven't even been sent in yet!!!! Now we're going on like 2 weeks of just waiting for an easy 2 day process! So now, passports won't be done till atleast next Tuesday, if not later, and once I get those I have to have them all translated into English, which takes a few days, and then turn in all of that to the Consulate to get visa's, which takes a few days- I'll be lucky to make it out of here on the 30th for my flight. I can bump that flight back but that is the last thing I want to do right now. With the way things went in the beginning we thought we might be able to bump it up- not back. So I'm about to scream!

Don't anyone stop praying for me just cause I have custody of the kids, cause the process isn't finished yet. Till I'm on that plane landing in Utah, we're not done. And actually, then I'm gonna need the prayers to help me get through life after the fact. Jordan is a good natured kid, but he is from an orphanage with a culture all of it's own. For instance, he has never seen the process of preparing the food for dinner. At the orphanage, they are taken to a table where their food is already on a plate waiting for them. Yesterday, I was trying to fix spaghetti and he cried the whole time because he couldn't figure out why I wouldn't let him eat the food that I was handling. Plus he doesn't really even chew his food - I don't know if they have a limited time to eat or if there isn't a lot of food, so the faster you eat and finish, the more you get off other kids plates or what the deal is. Communication is also an issue. We get a lot understood by hand gestures and things and he is picking up on it rather quick, but in the middle of a tantrum, there is no cooperation or understanding. Dallas wants me to tell you he is clumbsy too- because there are no stairs at the orphanage so, when we got him, he would just walk right off of a stair and fall, and going up he didn't really know what to do either. But he is even picking up on that, he used to cry for our help to go up or down, but now he atleast knows to sit down and scoot, and one of these days he will have them mastered. There are just a lot of things that you don't realize that are ordinary things that they have never even experienced.

Anyway, my little blog entry turned into a novel, but now you are all somewhat caught up on a little bit of my experience here. Thank you to eveyone who is helping us out this whole time. Sorry if it feels like it's been going on forever, but trust me no one wants me to hurry and get back more than I do! Hopefully, that will happen soon! I'll post again when there is anything new!

Cohen's home with us!

Dallas, so excited to be taking his "baby" home. Here he gets to hold him in the car- once we get back - not a chance!

Cohen in his PJ's getting ready for bed. -Except they ended up being way to hot and we had to strip him down to a onesie.

I don't know if we will really end up letting him sleep here, but we don't have a bed for him, so we put a big pillow and covered a blanket around it in my suitcase and it actually fits him really good. He doesn't roll over yet since he has been confined to a hospital type bassinet his whole life so he should be safe, but I don't know if I dare. Dallas was just laughing hysterically and insisted on taking a picture. I told him we should title this picture "We're going Home!" and that's what made him laugh.

Saying goodbye to the orphanage!

Some of the nurses from the baby "hall"

The Nurses from the toddler "hall". The one on the far right took Jordan from me last Tuesday and wanted to cuddle him one last time and was attatched to him, but today- do you see the look on Jordan's face- he is screaming for me to take him back!!! I don't know if he thought he was staying or what, but as soon as I took the picture and took him back he was fine. Yeah! He likes me!! :) But they were so excited to see him again and ran to give him hugs and jabbered to everyone till all the other nurses came and hugged him. It must be really hard and rewarding at the same time to say good bye to a child they have raised for his whole life! It makes me want to cry for them!

One of the nurses with Cohen after he got his "go home" clothes on

Cohen in his traditional outfit for circumcision

Cohen with the Nurse at the orphanage

Me and Jordan & Mary and Juleal (the boy she wants to adopt)

Richie and Cohen at the orphanage

Richie and Jordan at the orphanage

First bath in a bath tub!

Playing at Mary's

Sight seeing at the Chella (sp?) -Ancient Roman and Aarabic Ruins

Dallas and Cohen -Jordan in the background

at Kafala!

Adoption Update

Sorry it has been so long since I have contacted anyone! Thank you to everyone that has had a hand in taking care of my kids!!!!!! We haven't been able to have computer access till about a half hour ago.

On Tuesday we closed the Morocco side of the adoption "Kafala". So the kids are legally ours here!!! We have had custody of Yasine (aka- Jordan) since that day! He has been so much fun! The kids there never leave the orphanage unless they are going to the doctor. So Yasine had only left the orphanage once in his 2 year life!!! Everything is new to him. The wind blowing in the windows as you drive, and the wind blowing the bag in the car- he was acting like the bag was alive!! He is fine with everything and isn't even on sensory overload like you would expect! He loves it and has only had a few tantrums since we got him. That is where communication would come in really handy. He is picking up on it really fast though. He already answers to Jordan and a few other commands. Dallas has loved having him around!

Nofel (aka- Cohen) couldn't come with us on Tuesday because according to their culture, he had to be circumcized first and then they carry them around for 2-3 days straight and take care of them in certain ways, so he had to stay and we will go get him as soon as the passport are ready.

Richie leaves in the morning to come home. I'm scared to be here on my own, but hopefully we will make it all work out. All that is left is to pick up the passports, birth certificates, and Nofel, on hopefully Monday or Tuesday and then as soon as possible get into the Consulate office and have there blood work done through a dr there, as soon as we can do that, it's only a few days after that till we get their visas and as soon as Delta can get us home - we are there!!!! You just have to schedule an appointment at the consulate and we don't know how far out they are. So we'll let you know as soon as we know.

I am going to try to post some pictures, but we haven't had much luck with being able to do that so we'll see. If there are new ones on here, you'll know it was a success. if not- I will try to send an email to a few of you with pictures if that will even work and you can spead them and send them around to everyone.

Thanks again! We appreciate everything that everyone is doing!! It sounds like everything is going good! I hope that is really the case! We will now have email until we leave, but can only call on select times. Take care and we'll talk to you soon!! Cindy

Here are our 2 boys!!!

We hope this all works out! Nothing is ever for sure until it's sign and sealed here, so we are still holding our breath. On Saturday, they told us that Yasine was 1 year and 9 months & on Tuesday, they told us he turned 2 on June 4th. So we don't know exactly how old he is yet. And the younger one is younger than we wanted to go but he is the one that we felt good about. His name is Nofel and he is supposedly 6 months or so, it kind of changes too. When they find these babies, they have a doctor guess how old they are and assign them a birthday. On Saturday, Nofel wasn't available, his mom was coming back for him, but he was so cute and we were asking about him & thought we couldn't have him. But on Tuesday, he was one of the babies that the nurses brought in to see if I wanted. So now - he is supposedly available. Like I said, until everything is signed and sealed--NOTHING is for sure!!!! We'll try to post more info later as we can. I hope all is well there and a very special Thank You to every one that is helping us out while we are gone!!! Sorry for the change of plans for everyone who is involved in that, but hopefully in the end it is going to ensure a quicker process! Take care and hopefully I will see you in about 2 weeks or so instead of 3-4 more.

Yasine

They are on a very strict schedule and he was so tired by the time we took pictures of him. We'll try to post a better one after Saturday. But it made it fun because he was so cuddly. They have so many nurses that they go to anyone and call all of them mama so I am already known as mama- along with everyone else :)

Our friend here, Mary, is also doing the adoption process, and we think that the little boy that she is adopting is best buddies with Yasine and they are always together. So were excited that they can still grow up somewhat together. It will be fun. I'll post pictures of them later too.

Nofel

Dallas is so excited about Nofel because he wanted a younger one. It will be a little tricky for a little bit with him and my baby being so close, but others do it all the time, so we'll make it work. But he is such a good natured baby. Some of our friends that go to the orphanage all the time say that he is very content and good natured. I haven't heard him cry yet!