We are finally all together!

What a reunion it was! After a really long day of delayed, missed and re-routed flights, Todd and Isaac landed in Lexington, KY at 11:30pm. It felt so good to all be together at last! God delivered Isaac and he is a forever Robinson! The kids were so thrilled to hug and hold their brother. Isaac traveled so well with Todd and really enjoyed the airplane rides....looking out the window the whole time. As Isaac went to sleep last night he kept reaching over and putting his hand on Micah's face. It was so sweet! Today Micah said, "Mom, I can't believe I have a new brother and I really love him!"

So! We continue to bond, share and adjust. We'll be here in Kentucky through the weekend to give other family members a chance to meet Isaac. Then on to our Texas home! We are all missing our community there and look forward to the reunion there.

Thank you so much for all of your love and prayers! God used you in our lives even though we were many miles apart. So many times during this battle, when we felt like we didn't have any "fight" left, your words of encouragement and love gave us the strength to keep going!

We have the visa!!!

Today was a landmark day in that we finally have the visa! We leave tomorrow morning early and will be in Kentucky by evening.

We spent the morning finishing things up in Antigua and packing. Said good-bye to some friends and made our way back to Guatemala City.

After the Embassy appointment, we celebrated with a meal of hamburger and French fries, refried black beans and tortillas…oh, and a Coke!

It feels so good to have the final hurdle of this process over. We look forward to the reunion with the family tomorrow night.

Pray for a smooth customs/immigration process so we can catch our 2^nd flight!!

We were at the Embassy for 3 1/2 hours (arrived there at 7:30am, finished at 11am), but we did it! We had our interview and it went well. Praise the Lord!

After we left the Embassy, we packed up our things at the hotel and then in the afternoon made our way to Antigua for the weekend. The orphanage director graciously gave us a ride over.

We have to go back to the Embassy Monday afternoon to pick up the visa. We fly out on Tuesday! We're almost there!! So glad.

Antigua is a great place to be for the weekend because everything we need is in walking distance and it is very economical. Our adoption coordinator lives here and she has been a great help directing us to anything we might need.

A lot has been happening since our last blog entry. Sorry that we haven’t posted in a while, but we’ve been working things through with the Embassy and making a lot of decisions.

We are excited to say that we have an interview on Friday with the Embassy! This is a huge milestone. We were able to talk to the Embassy staff about 3-4 times this week and they looked at our situation and gave us a very early interview date compared to what it could have been. We are very thankful.

On the other hand, the interview is Friday and Anne left this afternoon for the U.S.! She so wanted to be part of the Embassy process. We wanted to do that together. Kind of like not getting to cross the finish line of a marathon even though you ran right up to the line…and she’s been running long and hard for these past 2 years with the final push being this last month.

So the interview is tomorrow, but I can’t pick up the visa until Monday afternoon. So I’ll have to adjust my ticket when I know for sure that the visa will be ready Monday. So, if all goes well (which it should), I’ll be back to Kentucky the middle of next week.

So be praying for us guys here in Guatemala (good interview, safety, decent flight schedule, etc.) and for Anne and the kids in Kentucky. We look forward to our reunion next week.

Encouraging day.

After we turned in our paperwork yesterday, the normal process is to wait for a "pink slip" which could take days or a week (I think). Instead, Anne and Ema and I, went to the Embassy today around 1:15pm and talked to an agent at a window.

We explained our situation. She was very helpful and said she understood. She looked up our information and found it in the computer. She said things looked ok even though there could be information that she's not aware of. She said that she would see if she could get our interview/appointment for tomorrow(!) or Friday(!). If she's able to do this, it will be a huge miracle. We've heard that sometimes people wait 2 weeks for an interview! Normally, people travel to pick up their child after the "pink slip" is issued. Of course, our situation (with the Birth Certificate problem) resulted in us going much earlier.

Also, normally, after you get the "pink slip" (which tells when your interview is) someone (lawyer/orphange rep?) takes the child to the Embassy approved pediatrician to get the medical checkup done. The agent told us to go ahead and get the medical thing done today! So we did. No problem. Now we have the medical "envelope" ready for tomorrow or Friday. Another hurdle over.

So, no matter what, Anne is going to get back to Kentucky by Friday. We've promised the kids that, and we're going to do it. But if we're able to get our appointment tomorrow, we may all be going back by Friday!!!!!!!

We haven't heard anything tonight...not sure what that means. So tomorrow morning, we're going to go in again and see what we can find out.

We submitted our documents to the Embassy today...finally!

We went at 8:40am to be ready for the 9am submission time. The time came and went and no one called us in. Our person inquired and they said, "Submissions are at 1pm now." This was news to all of us, including the lawyers. We investigated a bit and got conflicting information, so our adoption facilitator went into the Embassy and found that, it is true, we have to submit at 1pm.

We went back at 1pm and got in a long line. As we got closer to the window, we saw a sign that confirmed that submission started at 1pm...but only lasted until 1:30pm! We got a bit nervous as it neared 1:30. At one point, a "runner", that was submitting 4-5 cases, cut in front of us and just smiled back at us as if to say, "You don't mind, do you?"!! Whew! Lots of tests through this process.

Anyway, we got up near the window, it was 1:25 and the "runner" with all the cases was going up. Just at the last minute, she let us go before her. I'm so thankful. We submitted the paperwork and were out of there at 1:28pm!

So now we wait to get our "pink slip". This will tell us the date and time of our visa interview. We're praying for a speedy process.

We've moved from the orphanage to the city so we can be in place for the Embassy early tomorrow morning.

We went to the church service at the orphanage this morning and during the service, they called us up and prayed for us. Then we had an emotional time of good-byes after lunch.