Robin here. I am amazed at the patience I have demonstrated over the last ten months of our adoption process. This experience has been so different from our first. Considering what I now know, I am so grateful that our journey to Julia in December of '04 went so smoothly. I think ignorance really is bliss in certain cases.

We initially set out for Russia this time around. But, after five months of uncertainty over accreditation and the future of independent adoptions, we decided to switch to Kaz and go back to the program we already knew and loved. I must say that our coordinator, Alla, did a superb job of moving our dossier along.

And... five weeks ago we thought we would be traveling very soon. But, as Greg previously posted, our dossier is sitting on the desk of a vacationing regional official. Hence, we wait for said official to return and issue our much anticipated LOI so we can finally travel for our daughter.

Poor Julia has been waiting for ten months for a little sister and I have to say that, all in all, she has been very patient. Still, we are all very ready to get this show on the road...

We're in the final weeks of waiting for our Letter Of Invitation from the government of Kazakhstan. Last week I would have said we were in our final 'days', but we've just been informed that whomever issues it has gone on vacation and we shouldn't expect anything for another month. Ah, bureaucracy. The only true common ground among nations and peoples.

Once we receive it, we'll embark on our second and final adoption odyssey. Our first trip was in December of 2004 when we traveled to Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan to adopt our daughter Julia, who was 7 years old at that time. She is an amazing girl who plays with all the neighborhood kids, loves to watch Disney's High School Musical and just celebrated her 9th birthday among family and friends.

Although Julia is a younger sister to our 15 year old daughter and 18 year old son, what she really wants is to be an older sister too. So, we're gonna do it one more time and see if there's some 7 year old in Petropavlovsk who wants to join forces with us and the human tornado named Julia.