A fun time at Chucky Cheese

We went to Chucky Cheese with my good friend Kira and her nephew Adrian. A good time was had by all. There is a picture of Katie with her mouth wide open as wide as the Grand Canyon. It is because she is screaming with joy and not pain. :)

Our Girl LOVES To Eat!!

First Time in the Pool

Here is our little adrenaline junkie having fun during her first time in the pool. We were absolutely thrilled that she liked it so much as she is still not sold on baths. At one point she actually went in head first after her sippy cup which had drifted away. We took her out and she was laughing like she had done it 100 times before. Our girl is too much.

A Wonderful Weekend

We had a truly wonderful weekend. We hosted an open house for family and close friends to come and congratulate Justin on his accomplishment of graduation from the University of Florida as well as welcome our Katie Starr home. My sister Jane, brother in law Steve and Nephew Sam came from Northern Virginia to meet Katie. Our Starr was her usual social self. She is quite the ham and a real people person. She has captured our hearts as well as all that meet her. Justin enjoyed the open house as well. We are all so proud of him. Marc and I were overjoyed to be able to share our love and pride for both of our children yesterday.

Above is a picture of Justin, my nephew Sam and Katie together at the party and the other photo is of Katie on her new riding toy that her cousin's Jeff, Kathy, Ariel and Brittany gave her. She loved it and has been on it quite a bit today. We have also posted a Flickr Badge on the right margin of the Blog. If you click on it you will be directed to our photo account where you can view all the pictures from yesterday.

We are home and loving life

As many of you know, while we were in China we posted on the Story of you. Now we are back and I will begin updating this site frequently with updates from our new family of four. Katie has made a beautiful transition into our lives. The first 10 days that we had her were very difficult as she was grieving heavily for her foster family and she was ill. She is now well and has finally settled into our lives. After a few days home she began to show us the real Katie Starr. She is smart, funny, energetic, mischievous and quite obstinate as was stated in the information that the CCAA gave to us :) We are totally in love with her and feel very fortunate indeed that the Chinese Government allowed us to adopt and raise this child. The above picture was taken today as we left to go to a party that we were invited to. We were told that Katie likes to be around people and again she proved that to be true. She is quite the charmer and has a warm smile for all that interact with her. She is quite attached to us all now and loves her brother Justin very much. I promise to post again soon with a few more photos.

We are leaving in the morning to get our Katie Starr :)

We are up tomorrow at 4 am to begin the journey to finally bring home our Katie Starr. We will be in LA all day hanging out with some friends until almost midnight when our flight departs Los Angeles and travels 15 hours to Guangzhou, China. We then connect another 2.5 hours to Beijing and somehow it becomes the 11th even though we leave on the 9th :)

We will be sending home photos and journals every day on The Story of You. We hope that you follow along with us as we become a family of four. We receive our girl on Mother's Day.

Here is the link: http://www.thestoryofyou.net/KatieStarr.html

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words!

Congratulations to our son, Justin who made himself as well as us very proud when he graduated from the University of Florida this past Saturday.

It is absolutely Crazy Around Here!

First, I would like to thank everyone who sent us their sympathy's both publicly and privately for the loss of our fur baby, Buddy. We sincerely appreciate all of your support so much.

Life has been so nuts lately. There are really no words to describe the chaos around here. There are suitcases everywhere in various stages of being packed. The whole house has turned into a staging area for the China trip. Our days are devoted to winding up work at our businesses, running errands for the trip, compiling orphanage gifts, knocking off my list of about 100 tasks that have to be done before we leave. Besides all of that we are trying to keep our Chihuahua, Gabby as happy as possible after the loss of Buddy and all of the strange crazy vibes in our home.

This weekend we travel to Gainesville to attend Justin's College Graduation. We bring him home on Sunday, unload his things, pack him up and then we are off to China the next day. I am actually starting to believe that spending 21 hours on two aircraft will be relaxing. I know I must be overworked as I am absolutely terrified of flying. The idea that it will be a relaxing time has to say something about my present mental state.

I will post one last time after graduation and then I will post our link on The Story of You where you can follow our journey on starting next week. Thanks again for all of your support :)

An Even Sadder Day....

The news is not good as we had to made the sad decision to end Buddy's suffering this morning. He is no longer with us. Thank you for all of your support both on this blog and privately. This is a very tough time for us as we prepare for one of the happiest times of our lives and yet we feel so sad right now. We know that time will heal this wound for us and for Gabby, our Chihuahua, but right now it just plain hurts.

We are very sad today

Marc and I have two furry children, Buddy the Miniature Pinscher and Gabby the Chihuahua. Buddy was Marc's dog before we married and Gabby was mine. When we introduced the soon to be siblings it was not pretty. Neither one of them was going to have it. They both ruled their respective roosts and did not share well with others. Marc and I would not let the initial setbacks scare us away from trying to make our newly created family more harmonious. After weeks of challenging moments to say the least, they finally fell into a rhythm of sorts and now are inseparable and have been for almost 7 years. Whenever you see one the other is not far behind. They even sleep curled up next to each other.

Unfortuately, we found out recently that Buddy who is about 14-15 years old has age related Kidney failure. We have been trying to slow it's progress but he has had a major setback last night and is at the Vet now for a few days while they try to stabilize him. Gabby is despondent without her "buddy" and so are we. If we are able to rally Buddy we fear that while we are in China he may take a turn for the worse again.

We are so worried and sad today and would be very appreciative for any positive energy that you all can flow our way.

Happy Mother's Day to Me!!

Today we received our itinerary and found out that Katie Starr will be brought to us in the Civil Affairs office in Lanzhou, Gansu Province China on May 14th ****Mother's Day**** Katie Starr will be placed into our loving family and I will have my two children with me on Mother's Day!! I am so happy about that.

Here is our basic itinerary:

5/9 Depart Fl for China via Los Angeles and Guangzhou
5/11 Arrive in Beijing
5/12 - Tour
5/13 - Tour
5/14 - Depart Beijing arrive Gansu and Katie Starr Day!!
5/15 - Complete Adoption
5/16 - Shop
5/17 - Tour
5/18 - Tour
5/19 Get babies passports and depart Gansu arrive Guangzhou
5/20 Photos/Medical Exam/INS paperwork
5/21 Tour
5/22 Consulate Appt
5/23 Evening depart China to US arrive Los Angeles and stay overnight
5/24 arrive home!!

Of course in addition to all of this we will be leaving to go to Gainesville, Florida on 5/5. Justin graduates from The University of Florida on 5/6 and we arrive home on 5/7. One day home and then off to China. May is going to be quite a month for our family!

Happy Birthday Katie Starr!!

Today is Katie Starr's first birthday. We will celebrate it with family in her honor. We will make her a special party when she comes home but in the meantime...HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET KATIE STARR!! We love you so much and will be there very soon to bring you home forever.

Love,

Mommy, Daddy and Justin

We have TA and CA!!!

Hi all

We were notified today that we have a consulate appointment in China on 5/22 at 11:00 am. What this means is that we will be leaving here on the 9th of May to get our Katie Starr!! We are in the process of booking our flights. The day that we receive our sweet girl is 5/15 which is actually mothers day here. Many people call this day "Gotcha Day". The term has never appealed to us much so we are calling it "Katie Day" We will keep you posted when everything is confirmed.

Waiting for TA and Preparing

Hi All:

We are still waiting for travel approval and slowly but surely preparing for our journey of a lifetime. You cannot even imagine the lists that I have going right now but I am really knocking off the items pretty quickly. My friend Shannon, who is in China now has informed me to stop preparing and wait until she comes home so I can look at the notes that she has made for me. I hope to be able to post news about when we travel within 10 days. Believe me...when we know you will know :)

Travel Journal on The Story of You

When I began this blog I had hoped that I would be able to use it as a way to journal and send pictures back home when we traveled to get Katie Starr. Unfortunately, it can be hard to access Blogger in at least one of the provinces that we will be in so we decided to make things easier on ourselves and to post on The Story of You. The Story of You is a very popular journaling website that makes it EASY for adoptive parents to document their trip and to send pictures for everyone to see back home. Please bookmark this link and please feel free to check it out now. Tina even made the cartoon people look like us :)

http://www.thestoryofyou.net/KatieStarr.html

We hope to announce our travel dates in the next 2 weeks and we would love you all to follow our journey to our precious girl.

I am such a lucky woman!

This picture of me and my son Justin was taken last weekend at our Century 21 Annual Awards Banquet. The office that I own with my father won a very prestigious award that we had been trying to attain for 12 years. This was on the very night that I received my referral picture of Katie Starr. Justin was home from college on Spring Break and was able to share in our joy.

I look at this photo and it just plain ol makes me grin from ear to ear.

And soon they will be Four....

Tonight we had dinner with our wonderful friends Shannon, Alan, their son Ryan and Shannon's mom, Pattie. We wanted to spend a little time together before Alan and Shannon left for China to pick up their daughter, Mia. Of course, being the mushy girls that we are we had parting gifts for each other. Shannon gave me a ceramic jewelry keepsake box with "Wish upon a Star" written on top of it for our Star, Katie Starr as well as an adorable ladybug pin that she made. I gave Shannon a statue of two women holding hands called "Sisters of the heart". Shannon and I feel very strongly that fate has brought us together in a very special friendship that unites us, our families and our daughters. We know in our hearts that our daughters will share our special bond.

When we parted there was so much emotion in saying goodbye. We know that a very emotional and wonderful two weeks lay ahead for them. They are so eager to unite with their daughter and so sad to be away from their son. Ryan will be home surrounded by his grandparents love so he will be fine but it is so hard to be away from him for such an extended period of time.

Marc and I love them very much and will be sharing very special time with their parents and Ryan while they are away. We will also be eagerly searching on a daily basis for their updates on http://www.thestoryofyou.net/MiaP.html from 3/24 through 4/8.

Shannon and Alan: We love you very much and look forward to the day that Aunty Lori and Uncle Marc will be at the airport with your loving family and friends to welcome you and Mia home forever.

Presenting Miss Katie Starr!!

Wow..what a day it was! GWCA received the final 26 referrals on Friday at 11:30 am. Marc and I had always hoped and dreamed that we would look at our daughters face for the first time together but it wasn't meant to be that way. It seems that there have been many twists and turns on our path and this day would be no different.

Several days ago, we had informed our referral counselor that Marc had to leave by Friday at 3:00 for a large corporate event where he was entertaining. I, also was receiving an award at the same event that evening, so I had to leave soon after he did. As the clock ticked away Marc began to get more and more upset as others in our group were receiving their pictures and we still had not. We had been assured that we would have the picture before 3:00. Finally, Marc called and found out that the computer server was having problems and it may take some time to work it out. After 3 weeks and 2 false labors, this was the final straw for us!  I just sat there and cried and Marc looked absolutely despondent. Expectations were dashed again!! Marc then left and my Mom and I stayed there looking for the e-mail; willing it to come through. Finally, one of the other employees tried again and the picture came through. Marc said before he left, that if the picture came through, then to open it and bring it to him at the event.

My Mom and I sat in front of the computer and I said "Are you ready?" She said "Yes!"  I clicked and in an instant all of the pain of the last 3 weeks melted away. I felt all of the things that I had prayed I would feel when I saw my daughter's image for the first time. It was a good thing that my Mom was there; she held me while I cried with happiness. Katie Starr's face brought me such joy. I felt like she was mine immediately and I was thrilled with the light and happiness that I saw in her eyes. I then rushed to bring the picture to Marc and my son, who was at the event as well. We met in a private area to view Katie's picture and there it was again...Instant love!

Even though it was not the way we planned at all; seeing Katie for the first time was one of the most awesome moments of our lives and worth every minute of the wait.
Of course, now we cannot wait to go get our daughter!!  I am also very happy to report that Justin has told us that he wants to come and experience this with us. I cannot express the happiness that this has brought us. Our family will be together when Katie Starr joins us. As far as I am concerned, it doesn't get any better than this!!