Another Hurricane Looming and NO Answers in Adoption Land

Wilma is looming and will this hurricane season ever end?!? She has been looming for days and every day she perplexes the experts. We are expecting a visit from her in the next 2-3 days. We are all prepared as usual and waiting to be house bound again..ugh!

On the adoption front...nothing new. It is eerily quiet on the boards that I follow and so we still do not know if we have a chance to be up at bat after this round of referrals is sent out. I will say it again; hopefully we will hear something at the beginning of the week.

Next weekend we are going up to meet Justin in Orlando to celebrate his birthday with him the day before the big event. You see, Justin is a Halloween baby and I always called him my treat. My parents are coming up with us and Justin and his girlfriend Judy are meeting us. I cannot believe my son is going to be 21 years old. I know it sounds so cliche but where did the time go? I hope the next 21 years do not fly by the same way but with Katie on the way I am sure it will... Sigh....

Adoption Land

This week should be an interesting one in adoption land. Adoption land is the world of online discussion groups that I seem to live in these days searching for any rumor that I can regarding the next cutoff date for referrals. I think that our agency must be getting bombarded with questions that they cannot answer as we get e-mails from them just about daily basically saying the same thing; which is that they are waiting for further information from China. To us it sounds like blah blah blah. Writing us these e-mails that tell us nothing comes under the category of the best defense is a good offense.

This week should bring us that much desired info. If the cutoff for this month is after the 17th of April then our referral should come in the next batch around the first week of December. I hope to be able to report some positive news this week.

On a lighter note: I was part of a three person web site construction crew for our Adoption DTC Group. After a great deal of work along with two other wonderful women we finally finished our web site a couple of weeks ago. If you would like to view it here is the link Meidreams2005. I hope that you take the time to view it and learn a little about our wonderful group of adoptive families and Chinese Adoption.

Don't try this at home...Or in a restaurant!

Hello All:

We had our monthly FCC dinner and had a ball as you can see. Marc was up to his old tricks again - always entertaining the kiddos. They absolutely love him and I do too. This is Ryan Przelomski, our special friend with Marc mastering the art of silliness. This event was last Thursday. We also went to a "Gratulations" Party on Sunday for all of the new babies that have come home over this past year. The party and the name was chosen by Jia Trescott, a new big sister and adoptive daughter herself who wanted to welcome her little sister and all of the rest of the children. (How sweet is that?)This soiree was held on Hollywood Beach and all of the children and lots of adults enjoyed the sun, surf, food, conversation and of course the children. I have attached some more pictures from the dinner so enjoy!

Pictures from the FCC dinner

The children having a blast!


This was a tough picture to get; it was spontaneous combustion!

Some more pics from the dinner

Ryan concentrating (notice that tongue)
Molly at her first FCC dinner

More Pics

Meg and Family
Mom and Dad with new friends
Aimee and Cadence
Ryan mastered his new trick

Ally

What a nice surprise!!

Wow...we came home to find a package at the door from Marc's Aunt Shirley and Uncle Paul! Shirley knit by hand this blanket and poncho for Katie Starr! We were so excited; so what was our reaction? It was to post all about it on our blog. We posed Justin's 21 year old cabbage patch with the poncho relaxing on the blanket. I have also posted the card that she sent with it. I have not had the good fortune to meet Marc's Aunt and Uncle but I was so very touched by the thought that went into these beautiful gifts. Aunt Shirley and Uncle Paul......Thank you so very much!!

This woman can hang with the big dogs of shopping!

Yesterday Marc and I had dinner with our friends, Shannon and Alan. After dinner we were going to the airport to meet one of the newly adoptive moms in our FCC group with her new baby at the airport (more on that later). After dinner we went to their house and Shannon showed me around her home. When we got to her soon to be daughter Mia's room and she opened the closet door I was impressed and astonished at the amount of clothing that Mia already had. Well let me tell you, I had to call Marc into the room to show him, as we have been so conservative in buying clothing so far. You see, Shannon is a power shopper. The girl got Skillz as they say. She and some of the women that belong to our FCC group discuss sales around town quite frequently and I truly cannot hang because I am one of those shoppers that have to see the item in a beautiful display in order to purchase it at full price I might add. Shannon on the other hand can smell a sale a mile away and many of the items in Mia's closet were deeply discounted. One item from Old Navy was even 0.97. I was totally impressed but I would not to be out done. Today, Marc had to run into K-mart to get something for a show he is doing tonight and I told him that I was going to look in the baby section while he tracked down his item. Yes, I know, K-mart is known for it's blue light specials (does that date me?) but I strode purposefully over to the clearance rack and found this cute bathing suit. The tag read that it had been discounted to 6.00 with 25% additional off at the register; but guess what....It was $1.87. I was totally proud! So Shannon this ones for you girl and please pass this information about my bargain on to your mom who will be truly proud of me. :)

As I mentioned earlier we then went to the airport and met Anna and her new daughter Molly. She traveled with her mom as well. A group of us came with balloons and a sign to greet them. It was great to see Anna with her baby, who is an absolute doll. I hope to be able to post a couple of pictures in a few days.

We had a little bad news earlier this week in that the cut-off this month for referrals was much earlier in the month than we had hoped which means that it will probably take us longer than we thought to get news of our baby. I was super upset about this turn of events when we were finally getting so very close but I took a vow to myself to just take this one day at a time (as my hubby keeps telling me) and enjoy each day that that we have together. I will do just that.

Note to Justin: Hey Mr. J...I am sending up some mags to you including your Spin Magazine. Love you!