The Homestudy and beginning paperwork

I have recieved the certified birth certificates for me from Maryland, and have printed out the order form for Tim's from Minnesota. I will have to call Kensington, Maryland to order our marriage certificate since it is prior to 1993. I will be getting the police clearance letters done next week, and then the financial statement. We will need to have our medical clearances done. Will need to schedule those appointments next month. I have talked to Tom Baxter, and he has all our paperwork from last time, but, China will require most of the documentation be current, so, he really can only use the stuff that hasn't changed for our homestudy. We both make more money then we did two years ago, and we moved into a bigger house last year. We are just now selling our old house, that closes next week. Katie and James will both be out on their own, James already lives in his own place in Orem, and Katie will be moving out by end of December, so neither of them will be part of the paperwork.

That just leaves us with three kids at home, which makes us better candidates anyway, and there is less paperwork involved than there was last time with having James, over 18, living with us. We had to have him go through a physical exam, and he was going to have to submit fingerprints to USCIS for a background check, since he was an adult that was living in the home.

So, now I will be scheduling the physicals, and then afterwards, the homestudy. Once they are complete, we can apply to USCIS for an I800A appointment, and then go over to the sattelite office for fingerprints once our interview is complete. They will give us the fingerprint form to take with us. Once that is done, we wait for the approval in the mail.

The financial statement will need to be copied for Tom, and the original sent to be state certified, and then batched with the other docs to be authenticated.

The medicals, criminal clearances, employment letters, letter of interest, birth certificates, marriage certificate, and homestudy, will be batched and sent to my courier for authentications in DC. Then they will be forwarded, along with the passport photos, family life photos, copies of our passport photo pages, to AAI. Once the I800A arrives, it will be sent to AAI as the final document for our dossier. I will have to check to see if that needs to be authenticated, I believe it does, but, can't remember off the top of my head.

Now I find out that as part of the new requirements from the Hague treaty, the USCIS will require background checks for every state we have lived in since we were 18, which is a no brainer for me since I lived in Minnesota when I turned 18, and then moved to Utah and have lived here ever since, but, Tim lived in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Utah, which adds a state to our paperwork. Ugh.