Timeline

I was thinking about this last night as I was mentally mapping out my vacation days in my head, and thought others might be interested in this as well and decided to share.  :)

Here's what I'm currently estimating / expecting for the rest of this process (assuming things go mostly smoothly - which we all know has not really happened so far :P, so take that to mean all of these dates are subject to change). 

End of May - We'll know Davie's appointment date at the consulate in Nicaragua
First of August - Davie will have his appointment
Mid August - Submit second round of paperwork to the National Visa Center (My plan is to be ready to do this as soon as Davie walks out of his appointment, but I'm saying it will take another two weeks or so, just to play it safe and because the lawyer is ultimately responsible for the submission and I can see it taking them longer than I would like....they do have other clients that, I guess, need help too. :P)
Mid November to ?????? - Get answer on the second round of paperwork and (hopefully!) bring Davie and Eduardo home!

Right now I'm hoping we have an answer in time to bring them home for New Year's.  I think even if we got an answer in mid November, we wouldn't try to bring them home until New Year's.  I would go for Christmas and then they could come home with me after that.  That would really be ideal, as the process would have taken us a year and that's what we had originally hoped / planned for.  At this point, I don't think getting them home will happen any earlier than January, unless the system just really speeds up all of a sudden, and I just don't see that happening.  Technically, three months to get an answer on the second round of paperwork is the SHORTEST amount of time the lawyer estimates for that step.  It could be upwards of a year before they finish processing that application and get us an answer.  So, conceivably, we're looking at summer of next year before we know something.  Which sounds terribly far away, and I think will be the worst part of this whole process because we will only be waiting - there won't be any steps for us to do during that time, so we won't have any control AT ALL.  And we all know how well I do with a lack of control!!  I'm going to end up with some crazy hair style every other month, major renovations on the house and who knows what else!  :)  I'll definitely need to find other ways to keep myself occupied if it really does take that long - good thing I've got this work out addiction going.  That should keep me busy!  (Especially since right now I'm contemplating training for a full marathon after I do the Route 66 half marathon in November.  I think I could do the OKC Memorial full this time next year, don't you?)

So that's where we are right now.  I'll keep you posted as we find out more and hopefully this timeline turns out to be accurate.  I'm ready to have my boys home!!  Although, I will say that yesterday was a pretty darn good day.  I had a CPE event at the bank my company uses, followed by a happy hour with free food and wine, then I went home and hopped on the treadmill and busted out 3.75 miles (first time on the treadmill since doing 12.45 miles on Sunday and almost keeling over - it felt good to get back on there!).  I got some laundry done since I'm headed down to OKC this weekend to help Mandy and Colin pack up and cuddled with Bella for a while while watching TV.  I miss my boys, but there are times when I'm still able to be pretty happy.  I partly feel guilty for enjoying my time without them, but I also know that time to myself will be few and far between once I become a full-time mom, so I'm trying to make the most of it while I can!  :)

I hope everyone has a great weekend.  I love you all!!!!!  Thanks for following along with us during this process!  We couldn't do it without you!