Korean Itinerary

I fly out Tuesday from FLA (yes, during my spring break) to Detroit to meet my brother (travelling buddy) and then to Tokyo and then to Seoul. I leave at 11 am and arrive their time at 10:30 PM the next Day! Yikes

Pricelined the hotel and I hope it worked... 5 star hotel at a 3 star price! YEA

I wrote Delta a complaint note: without getting into it a great deal, the delay on getting to purchase my tickets was ungodly. I spend more time on hold and no one told me what to do or bring in order to get the tickets. Folks, a travel agent would have taken care of it. I am a bit stubborn on this as my flight costs (ones that I got) were $1100 cheaper per ticket for my round trips than the agents. I am thankful for their honesty in saying that they could not match my costs. The one way I got was $883 and they could not touch that. My complaint to Delta was that they needed to do better guidance on telling me what I needed to do in order to get the adoption rate. I.e. bring in the I-171 form with a formal letter from Bethany. It took two days to do this but it all worked out! Whew...

Got Skype all set to communicate with family and facebook is all warmed up! See you in Seoul, soon with Pics! YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Travel Call

I started on Monday, March 22nd taking my first day of family leave in order to get things in line. I got a few laughs from folks saying that I was crazy because I did not get a call yet and I could be risking losing pay, etc. I did my homework and realized that I was in the "window" of getting a travel call so I rolled the dice. Wow, was the timing great as at 9:30 AM, my caseworker called and said pack your bags.

What did that mean? I had to now spend the next 5 hours on hold with my airlines that I had already booked a flight with them for Spring Break. In addition, I had already booked Bok's flight to Florida too. Meaning, I had to figure out how to get his money back as I had planned that he would have come much earlier. I got the flights held and waited 24 hours for Holt to approve the flight plan. They want you there within a week after the "call." I could only work out to be there 9 days after the "call." It all seemed to work and Holt has now set an agenda for me.

Look for the next post on getting the tickets... It will be a doozie...

But Bok-Hyeon is now on our radar to see in a very short time! WOO HOO... I hope you all who are reading this get your calls too!

ANCY!

I put in for Family Medical Leave for this Friday, thinking positive. Last evening I emailed the embassy and asked them time lines on processing Visa Interviews. Great response, we hold them as top priority and usually are done in a two day turn around. So, I am really hoping that the paperwork finds them asap. Holt Children's forum had 9 travel calls yesterday and we were not in the pile. :( But let's hope they are doing some business this week!.... Cmon,,, Ring phone ring!

IT CAME!

We received our I171 form which means our I-600 application was approved. This gets sent to the National Visa Center and then sent to Korea. Since the Korean Ministry has already approved Bok for travel and he had his physical, we are only waiting for "the TRAVEL call." Now I am nervous but know that he will be here soon. I am requesting suggestions from you if you are reading this as to what gifts I can gt the foster family....