Such good news and a HUGE thank you!

First of all, let me say that our vacation was wonderful! Thanks to Mark's sister Betsy for watching the "puppy" for us and to our neighbor Sandy for feeding the kitties while we were gone. Thanks to Mark's parents for allowing us to invade their space, being gracious hosts, keeping us well-fed, and giving Mark the chance to help out with the fishing tournament. We are looking forward to making the trip next year with at least one new family member. The weather was perfect (at least in my opinion, but I like it cool), it truly was a time of rest and relaxation - and oh, so hard to come back to the real world and stack of paperwork that was waiting for me at work this morning. But... there was incentive to come home. Wait... the HUGE thank-you is yet to come!

Our fingerprinting (biometrics) appointment was scheduled for Sept. 28. We had requested an appointment to plead our case for earlier fingerprinting - this was scheduled for tomorrow. Although we were hoping they would squeeze us in while we were there, we knew that there were no guarantees. As I shared last week, we had made some contacts hoping that our USCIS I-600A application might be expedited. Arrived home to find a message on our answering machine from Senator Amy Klobuchar's office saying that she would like to help. Faxed some information to her and Mark followed up with a phone call this morning. Early this afternoon, we received a phone call telling us that it would not be necessary to go to the "plead our case" appointment - we have been scheduled for biometrics (fingerprinting) TOMORROW! If I hadn't been working, we could have even went today!

Now, we will be asking for urgent approval so that we can get the last few items in our dossier apostilled - it would be great if we can have our dossier on it's way to Ukraine by the end of the month. We will ask for an appointment with the SDA in October.

So... THANK YOU to Senator Amy Klobuchar and her staff for taking the time and making the effort to assist with the expedition of our biometrics appointment. We are so thankful for your willingness to help us out!