July 15th - Ava has been in our arms for six months, SS Card, First Post Placement Report

We sent in our first post-placement report. Six months after receiving your child you need to send a post placement report to Vietnam. We promised to do this during our Giving and Receiving Ceremony in Thai Nguyen. Our adoption agency, World Child International reminded us twice to do it and sent us the report to fill in. I sent it in just under the wire - last week I was concentrating on the readoption and then realized we needed to send the post-placement report in by July 15th. We answered basic demographic questions, medical updates, and noted developmental milestones and the family members that she has been introduced to over the last six months. It is hard to summarize all of the amazing things that have happened to us in such a brief way. We also added pictures of her over the last six months. I can't believe how fast the time has gone!

On Friday I took all of Ava's legal documents to the Social Security Office and filed the paperwork for her number and card. All documents were accepted as proof, so now we are waiting for her card to arrive in the mail. We were told it will take about two weeks. Last week when we completed our re-adoption the court filed for our new birth certificate and told us it will take about two months to receive.

Last weekend we hosted a 4oth birthday party for my friend Carol - thanks to Grandma Belva for taking care of Ava. On Sunday we went to a birthday party for Kurt's cousin and four families had new babies to introduce to everyone - what an exciting party. Kurt has a very large extended family and Ava and the other babies were quite a hit- each one is so beautiful or handsome.

On Friday, we are hoping to get the money and paperwork out to change her name on her Certificate of Citizenship prior to the increase in prices ($200.00 increase) on August 1st. After that, all we have left to apply for is her US passport and we should have all the legal documents we should ever need to prove we are her parents, she is a US citizen, her name is A.L.C., and she can travel anywhere that an American citizen can travel.