Settling In
Hello Again! We are finally settling in. Once again we have internet and consequently blogging access. The furniture and "goods" all seem to have arrived safely and are finding their place in our new home. We discovered a washer and dryer in one of our bathrooms. That is a delightful and unexpected surprise. Just after moving in we went for a weekend to Geneva. We met friends there (Drew & Diana from Atlanta, Shannon & Vaughn from London, we just missed Melissa and her sister-- darn it!) They were all on their way home from a Swiss biking adventure. It was very nice to see them all. So check out some pictures.

Swiss beach? The lakes in Switzerland have "beaches" all around them. Interesting eh?

We are behind on our updates!!! We have not taken photos of the flat yet because we have much to do yet. We will get there. It has not all been fun and play. We have had to contact lots of agencies about our international/international adoption. The US embassy sent us to the Dept. des Innern, who sent us to the embassy, who referred us to the foreign police, who sent us back to the embassy, etc... We finally scheduled an appointment with the Department des Innern. It was in the Canton of Schwyz which is really at the "heart" of Switzerland. It is a beautiful little city. Check out this view. It is picturesque. We had a bit of a walk from the bus stop to the Dept. des Innern.
Here's Rene calling the US Embassy. The next photo is the building the Department des Innern is in. Another dead end? After our appointment we stepped outside to call the US Embassy. We finally got connected to someone in immigration.

Here's the scoop as of today: we plan to proceed with the adoption. We will be the baby's parents as soon as we leave China. The baby will have papers to travel with us. The baby will be traveling as the child of US citizens, but with a Chinese passport. He/she will not become a citizen of the United States until we all immigrate to the US as a family. Therefore, the baby can live in Switzerland with us, but not as a US citizen. We will have to get special permission for the baby to reside with us here (from the Foreign Police in our Canton). At this point, we must 1)update our homestudy 2)get fingerprinted and renew immigration paperwork that has expired 3)get permission for our baby to live here with us with a Chinese passport. Once we have completed these three steps, our wait for a referral should not be long. Maybe 2 or 3 months. We are encouraged that it seems we can continue with the adoption. It is disconcerting that our baby will not be a citizen of any particular country. Still... we are hopeful it will all be resolved soon.