Wherever you go, there you are...

So here we are. It's mid-July and we're still waiting as patiently as possible.

Last we we did take a little time and go see both sides of the family, Bill's dad in DC, and Cathe's parents in Brooklyn, MI. It was a lot of driving from Bartlett, TN, but well worth the trip. The photo to the left is us at the Smithsonian.

Latest update from our coordinator is that we're now targeting late September for our big trip to Kazakhstan. The process has slowed while everything is checked, double checked and given the final check before proceeding. We recently met a family who traveled to Kazahkstan, met their new son, then found out that he had not completely cleared the legal process due to a "minor oversight." The good news is that they did eventually adopt their son and bring him home. The bad news is that they had to return home, wait for the required time to expire, then travel again. We're hoping to avoid the same issues.

All that said, our coordinator will be working to get out Letter of Invitation (LOI) issued by the Minister of Education (MOE). Once we have the LOI from the MOE we can apply for our travel visas and start shopping for plane tickets. Getting to Kazakhstan from Memphis is relatively easy, at least to Almaty (the former capitol). Northwest has direct flights to Amsterdam where we would shift over to KLM for the leg to Almaty. From Almaty, we will take a domestic flight to the city listed in our LOI. Since Kazakhstan is four times the size of Texas, that can still be a pretty good trek. Once we have the LOI, we will post a map showing the specifics. Meanwhile, we have had a lot of fun exploring with Google Earth, anticipating where we could be going next.

Not knowing where we would be going, Bill did a little looking around the web and found that the Catholic church sponsors a few orphanages. The difference is that the church sponsored orphanages are designed to assist families through their difficult times rather than placing children. Monsignor Massimo Ungari wrote us a very nice note telling us about his orphanage just north of Almaty. You can read more about it at: http://www.focolarivergineeucarestia.it/ Once you reach the page, there's a button for English (if you don't read Italian). We hope to visit Monsignor Ungari if time permits. We also hope to sponsor one child a month ($70/month) and would be more than happy to pass along anything anyone else would like to send as well.

So, here we are, and hopefully soon there we will go....