Home Study Update

We completed our home study update today with Karen. It was fun to catch up with her. We showed her Sara's new room, Ally's "new" room, tested the smoke detectors and door alarms to the back yard. We gave her our notorized medical exams and pet immunization forms and income verifications. That was about it. One more item checked off our list and one more check written. She seems to agree with my timing predictions. Again, I'm just somewhat still in disbelief about so much of this!

We have a new roof and we are getting some work done on the chimneys. Other than that, not too much is new!

I've Been Tagged

Tagged by my friend Debbie. The tag is to pick up the closest book and turn to page 123 and type lines 6-8, so here goes!

"Press A on your keyboard to switch back to the Direct Selection tool and click the large text block on page 5. Select the upper left anchor point of the text frame and drag it up to the same horizontal guide you used to reshape text on the left page."

Sorry, Debbie, my book selection is pretty lame! It's the Adobe InDesign manual!

1 YEAR / 12 Months Since LID

An ENTIRE YEAR…
Has passed since our LID (Jan 27). I just can’t believe it. There’s not much to say – it’s so hard. Really hard for my heart to understand, especially when the answer is so logical. I just want it to be done. That’s all – simple? I like things to be simple; after all, who likes complications? Too much thinking has to occur when things get complicated. But in this case, thinking still doesn’t change anything.

I will be eager to see if the CCAA has updated (I’m out of town for work – in the airport, just sitting here with my MP3 playing “Swept Away” on repeat – again, what kind of a pathetic image is this?). These days, more often than not, the words just won’t come. Unusual for me, most of the time, but this is just so different. Last year at this time, I was in Dallas telling some of the people with whom I work about our big news. A year ago – that makes it even more of a reminder to me of how much time has passed. At the time (Jan 06), I knew in my heart that she would be here with us by now!!! Why not? I don’t get it. At ALL… My writing stinks today due to sleep deprivation. That sounds like I’m assuming it is usually pretty good.

I’m going to some Billy Joel now. Maybe Billy can help! If he can’t, I know that Queen can, most definitely! I’m sure my brain will suffer from the volume on either. It is my escape… I’m pretty much an 80’s girl without big hair! Our kids love it too…

I often wonder how this will change our lives. Some changes happen and you have no time to prepare; this is not the case with Ally. I just hope that with all this time, we don’t stray from reality. I do tend to be a realist. You never know how things will change until they do, however. We can, of course, speculate; but what good does that do? So, should I dwell on what I don’t know? Not sure – but at times, I cannot help it. Now is one of those times. And sometimes, I seek it out. I find myself thinking about how it will be when we get the call, when we board that plane, when we see her little face. I have seen so many reactions thru the blogs I like. I know what I hope for, but I know I can’t count on that happening.

Our home study update is tomorrow. It will be nice to see Karen. I still can’t believe we are playing the “here we go again” game with this. Cha-ching! ‘Frustrating’ hardly describes things these days. Our fingerprint appt is on Feb 26.

Can't Sleep

Yep - it's 30 past midnight and here I am. Pathetic, huh? We did receive our appt time for our re-fingerprinting for the end of Feb. I was pretty surprised that it came so quickly. We'll see how long it takes to get the results! That will be the real trick.

Angie (high school friend) is in China right now. Their daughter is beautiful - really, really pretty!

Wow - sometimes I just can't stand the wait, but mostly I'm OK with it. Not that I like it, but I don't stay consumed with it. There are some rumors that this months "batch" will cover about the same number of days as the current average. As we approach our 1 year mark since LID (Jan 27), it would be nice to see a little encouragment on that front. I am happy that we will be able to go to the HFC (our agency) Chinese New Year celebration in February. I even found an ornament to commemorate the CNY for this year (the year of the Pig -- lovely!) at Hobby Lobby (love that store!) I'll try to post a picture of it once the actual holiday gets closer.

Wonder what Ally is doing right now. Probably eating lunch or getting ready for a nap. When I think that I will be her mommy, it makes me cry and smile at the same time. I hope that someday she will know how long we waited and prayed for her, as well as how hard we worked to get her here, and how much we loved her before we met her or even saw her face!!!

DANGLES

This is the name of Sara and Lauren's new "company". They are designing and making bead earrings. They have lots of beads and have made many pairs. Sara is the President and Marketing Director; Lauren is the CFO; I am the investor! Guess what that means! So far they have earned about $100 and once they start making a profit (the investor will be partially paid back, but not fully!). They are writing everything down and plan to use their profits to "shop" in China! Not only are they learning some things about business, but they (we) are having lots of fun together with the TV off! Here is a sample.

My Friend's BIG DAY!

My friend Angie and her hubby are in China right now - they just got their daughter, Becca, yesterday! She is adorable and they all look so happy. They are first time parents and are really excited (as we expect to be, as third time parents).

On our front, not much is happening! Just waiting around for the end of the month updates!

Here We Go Again!

Our first "re-do" occurred today. We had to re-submit our application for an appointment to have our fingerprints done again. This is for a form called an I-797. We will have to go back down to the Immigration Dept in downtown Atlanta. We also have to pay again. The crazy thing is that our fingerprints have not really changed since the last time we did this! And they were done on a scanner. I can see why they may need to process the fingerprints again - I mean, maybe we became criminals since the last time! But why do we have to GO DOWN THERE AGAIN? AARGH!!!! What a chore -- this is the first of many things we will have to re-do or update (and pay again). It's all worth it, I know! Just another little frustration along this long road.

DTC - 1 Year Today

It's true, much to my chagrin. Our Dossier was sent to China one year ago today. That is our DTC date -- Jan 13, 2006. Now I have to indicate the year when I refer to our DTC and LID. That's a bummer. I guess I should look at it as "one year down", but it's hard to see it that way when we have no idea how long this ride will take. Hopefully, we have the majority of our wait behind us, but I'm not convinced. I'm sure the people that just got their referrals never thought they would have waited 16 months (most likely they were told 6 months when they were DTC). I can't imagine how long the wait will be for the families that are celebrating their DTC being today in 2007. It's just sad -- so many little girls and so many eager parents -- separated by a world and governmental bureaucracy - literally. Glad we have a year behind us, but sad that we still have no idea of when we will see Ally's smile.

Update for CCAA

They JUST posted their update of the recently mailed referrals. They moved from Sept 8, 2005 to Sept 27, 2005. That is 19 days closer -- 19 days closer to the day that we will finally see our little Ally's face. Still no idea of when that will be. My calculations say about 9.3 more months. The problem is that from what I hear, Oct and Nov 2005 were huge months for log-ins with CCAA. So, things may slow down even more. We'll see. Trying to keep my hopes UP! Sometimes it's hard; in fact, lots of times it's hard.

The car is great! We rode around with the top down on Monday (58 degress, but sunny). Nothing screams "new convertible owner" like driving with the top down when it's cold outside!

I just realized that this was my 100th post to my blog!

Hoping ALLY "Hops" into our Family in 2007

Doug got this ornament (that is has a little 2007 tab at the top) that shows our family with ALLY hopping onto our family sleigh in 2007. We certainly hope this is right!

We had a wonderful time with both sides of our families. The girls got Nintendo DS's and we all got 6 Flags season passes.

The big surprise at my mom's house was so special. She had made each of her daughters (my 3 sisters and me) 2 huge Creative Memories scrapbooks of our family - going way back to thier parents, thru when my parents met in college and thru our family life since then. It was amazing and really made me think a lot about what it takes to make a family work. I was so thrilled. She had made 8 complete books. Most of them were the same - she had made copies of tons of pics - but were customized with things like cards we had each made our parents and our report cards (some of them) that she had saved through the years. She said she worked every spare minute since last Feb and finished in Nov. The last pic in each book is one of my mom with all 8 books in front of her. What a special keepsake -- I know they were each made with so much love. It was really neat to read about my parents and family before I came along. Sometimes we loose sight of what came before us, and this was a great reminder for me as a mom to record significant (and not so significant) things that happen in our family! She even had gotten a picture of David Thompson (my childhood best friend) from his mom in KY! It has made me think a lot! I'll have to make 4 update pages once Ally is added to our family!

We went from my mom's to Doug's moms in Ohio the day after Christmas (spending one night in Charlotte). We had a great time seeing all of his family. The girls especially enjoyed going to the bead shop where we made some jewelry. The highlight is the family get-together gift exchange. We were at his Aunt Sue and Uncle Ralph's house. The most fun was seeing all of the kids together and watching them play. We enjoyed the time we were able to spend with Doug's mom too, since she came down early.

WOW What a Christmas!

This is a beautiful picture that Doug made for me and had framed. It is the "red thread" legend (was in our Christmas cards). The cool thing about this is the border - it is made of the Chinese characters that say the same thing - he found a translator in Yahoo. The frame is really pretty - this is what I thought was my "main" present from him (which was wonderful, and plenty!). That is until, I opened an "I Love Lucy" ornament. It was a convertible ornament with a note taped to the bottom saying "yours is in the driveway, I Love You". I totally DID NOT BELIEVE HIM. I didn't even go upstairs. We finished opening presents and then he went up to get breakfast ready as I picked up in the playroom. So, he had to go into the garage and honk the horn of my new convertible! I really couldn't believe it. It is so much fun and he kept it a secret for 6 weeks! Isn't that crazy?

11 Months Since LID

I missed our actual 11 month date of Dec 27 because we were travelling to Ohio. This art is compliments of Ally's oldest sister, Sara.