Just a little Update.....

I know it has been awhile since I last posted but we have been super busy. Being busy is a good thing as we tend to dwell less on the wait for Katie.

We are just about finished remodeling the house. There will be some tweaking here and there for awhile I am sure as I have found that redecorating has a domino effect. Once you change one thing then the next thing looks shabby or "not quite right". We are still finishing Katie's nursery and will have her furniture delivered next month.

Justin came home last weekend to work a gig for Marc. He DJs a teen Dance that he has grown from 2 people the first time to several hundred kids. He comes home about every 2 months to do this job. While he was home we double dated with he and his girlfriend Judy. We had a great time. Wow..What a kick in the head it is double dating with your son. I can't believe how mature he has become. Justin...I love you so very much and am so proud of the wonderful man that you have become.

Last week we had our Century 21 State Convention in Marco Island. We do this one every year and it is always a blast. Marc also is the MC for the general sessions as well as DJing the evening party so we basically get paid to play.

The referrals for this month should be coming out next week and will include through most if not all of January. That means we are still on target for a November referral. This coming week we will have the next waiting families meeting so I will post later this week with an update.

DTC Group Activities

I belong to two DTC Groups on Yahoogroups.com. One is May DTC and the other is Great Wall (Our adoption agency) May DTC. Basically, they are a way for people around the world who have sent their dossiers during the month of May 2005 to monitor when referrals are sent out as well as a forum for advise, discussion and support. Many of these people will be traveling with us or we will see them at some point while we are in China. While we wait we have some activities that will help pass the time and are fun and creative. One is The 100 Good Wishes Quilt Swap and the other is a Secret Pal Gift Exchange. I will tell you more about the Quilt Swap later but below you will see pictures of The Fabric Square and Good wish that was sent by us to our fellow DTC members and also the gift that I received today from my Secret Pal. The theme this month was welcome to America and she sent me a very cute patriotic outfit with 2 pair of matching socks. She told me in the card that she enclosed with the gift that her 10 year old son helped her pick it out but it was actually his second choice. A cute little bathing suit was his first..LOL. I am sending my gift out this week to my secret pal. I can't say what it is in case she is reading this BLOG. :) My fellow DTC Group members are fabulous people and I can't wait to get to meet them in China!

The Gift that my Secret Pal sent. Isn't it sweet!

Our wish for our fellow DTC family and our Quilt Square

Marc and I had to begin our immunizations today. We had the Hepatitis A and B shots. These are strongly recommended, as unfortuately China has very high rates of these diseases. The shots are given in a series that spans 6 months. We will also have a Tetanus before we go and possibly a couple of more shots depending on the province in China that we will be traveling to in order to get Katie.
OUCH!

Gabby's Big Adventure

The One That Almost Got Away!!

This is our chihuahua Gabriella or "Gabby" for short. She is a little bit of a dog weighing in at 5.5 lbs. She gave us the scare of a life time on Friday. Marc was taking our dogs up to the vet to be boarded for the day while we had workman in the house. Gabby is not a big fan of the veterinarian's office. When Marc got to the office and opened the door of his car Gabby jumped over him onto the ground and under the H3. Marc quicky closed the door so Buddy, our other dog could not get out and looked under the car for Gabby. SHE WAS GONE!!

Marc frantically looked all over the office plaza for her before finally calling me. He exclaimed over the phone to get up to the vet right away...Gabby is gone! I immediately got into the car (in tears) and drove towards the vrt's office. It is a short ride away but it crosses two heavily traveled streets. When I got half way there I saw a little flash running across the street in front of traffic. It was our lil Gabby! I pulled to the side of the road and called out to her. She ran towards me and jumped into the car. She was totally glad to see me. The squirt had gotten half way home...Unbelievable. I took her back to where Marc was and you never saw such a relieved person in your life. Gabby is not the type to leave our side so this was totally out of character for her. It seems Marc's timing was perfect in calling me when he did or I don't think that I would have seen her. We are so grateful that she is OK.

Our little Gabby sure has a mind of her own!!

A Couple of Cool Experiences

Marc and I took my in-laws out for dinner. When we were seated we were told by the hostess that our waitress would be Katie (also our soon to be daughter's name). We sat down and the waitress walked up and started to speak to us. I looked up and saw the face of a beautiful young Asian woman who was the same age as our son (20 years old). After we gave her our drink order I shared with her that we were naming our soon to be adopted daughter Katie and she asked me to tell her more about the adoption. We told her we were adopting from China and she shared that she had been adopted at 6 months of age from Korea. She also told us that she was in College now and worked in the restaurant part time. She then left the table to place our order. I told my family that I would like to know more about her experience but I did not want to cross the line and be intrusive. When she came back my Marc took it upon himself to ask her if it was OK that we ask her a few questions about her adoption story; would she be comfortable with that? She was more than happy to tell us that she was adopted by Caucasian parents who had 2 biological children who are her siblings. She has lived in Florida since she was adopted and was brought up to know her culture as well as all the particulars of her adoption. She has known that she is adopted for as far back as she can remember. She has info on who her parents are and where their last address in Korea was. She said that she know some other Korean adoptees that have chosen to go to Korea to meet family but she has chosen so far not to. She loves the relationship she has with her folks and cannot think of anyone else as possible parents. She did not have a great deal of exposure to other Asian adoptees growing up until about the age of 10 when she was in a soccer league. There was another adopted Korean child on her team and both of their parents tried to force a friendship that simply was not there based simply on their shared heritage. She thought that if friendships like that were introduced early on and more naturally they surely could be beneficial to the child. She was so positive overall about her adoption experience and her close relationship with her family. We loved that she was totally at ease talking to us about her story. The whole meeting truly made our hearts soar. She was such an open, bright and terrific young woman! We ended the evening by thanking her profusely and telling her that we would be back to have her meet our Katie.

The second cool thing that happened this past week is that Marc and I as well as another couple, Shannon and Alan started a waiting families group here in South Florida. We held our first meeting at a local Chinese Buffet Restaurant that had a room for us. 45 people came including about 9-10 children. Everyone had a blast. We were able to have the waiting families gain insight from the experienced ones and everyone just had a great time talking. Next month we will have a panel of speakers. We all felt so gratified that the meeting was as successful as it was.

We Just Met Our New Cousin

We met our new cousin Joshua yesterday. He is cute as a button! He slept through most of our visit, even though he was passed around like a football as you can see by the pics. Finally at David's urging we nudged him enough that he woke up and showed us his eyes and a little taste of his vocal talents. What a sweet boy.

Marc with Josh

Lori, Justin and Joshua

Justin with new cousin, Joshua David Ruocco

We are proud to present the newest member of our family

Joshua David Ruocco

Joshua is Lori's second cousin. He was born on 6/14/05 (His Late Great Grandmother's Birthday) He and Katie Starr should be great friends as well as cousins. Congratulations David and Stephanie!! We are so very happy for you.

We have an LID!

I know that it has been awhile since the last time that we posted. That is mostly because we had nothing new to report.

Well, now we have something new...a log in date (LID). We were officially logged into the Chinese center for Adoptive Affairs on 5/17/05. We were very happy with that date because it keeps us on the same timeline as we had hoped for. Some people had much longer delays in their LID but we got lucky. We are hoping for a November Referral and Late December or Early January travel to get our daughter.

Family update: Marc and I just celebrated our 5 year Wedding Anniversary. We went to Key West last weekend and had a great time. Justin finishes Summer Term A next week and will be home for a few days between the two Summer terms. He will be home for Fathers day and we are very please about that. I promise to post soon as I have news about a waiting families support group that a new adoptive friend and I are starting.

This week's Chinese lesson

Well here we are yet another week closer to meeting our daughter. If you have visited our journal before you will know that I have decided to teach everyone some Chinese words and phrases that we can share with Katie, or at your local Chinese restaurant!
One of the first things you need to know to start a conversation is

Ni Hao Ma?- How are you (Ni= you Hao=how Ma= question particle )
Hen Hao- I am fine
Ni Ne? - And you?

Now you can greet your waiter and maybe they will give you an extra fortune cookie!
PS- if they do you should say "Xie Xie" which means Thank you!

Chinese words of the week

Hi it's Marc and this is my first post on this beautiful journal. As we officially begin our paper pregnancy and begin our wait to go to China, I wanted to begin teaching everyone some Chinese words and phrases that we can use to know Katie and her heritage a little better. I have studied the Chinese language in High School and in College. I was about to go to Taiwan to continue my studies but unfortunately the US and Taiwan relations broke down and I never received my visa to study abroad, so I became an entertainer and the rest is history.
So hopefully my experience with the language and culture of the people of China can help you in understanding a little something about out daughter.

The first phrase I wanted to teach you is a very important one that we can use not only to say to Katie, but you might want to try this on someone special in your life.

"Wo Ai Ni" - I Love You

In the next few weeks and months as we learn more about our travel and the regions of China we will be traveling to, I will pass along some interesting words and information about these areas and customs of China.

So keep in touch and come back soon..

It was a very nice day

Today was very cool. Pam Eidson, the woman who compiled our dossier came to South Florida to do an adoption workshop for our adoption agency. We wanted to finally get a chance to meet her; so we attended the workshop and made plans to have lunch with her afterwards. It turned out to be such a nice day because in addition to getting to meet Pam we also got to meet some other waiting families in our area. We decided with the help of our social worker, Donna Bradley, who was also at lunch that we would start a waiting families support group in South Florida. Donna will send us info on how to start one. If today was any indication; then having such a group to belong to will be awesome. When you are in the process of adopting internationally it is so great to meet people who truly understand what you are feeling. It will be great to come home from China and have a group of friends that have children that are from the same place as Katie.

No, you may not date until you are 35

Well, I must give credit where credit is due. Last night I was was viewing another adoption blog, www.babyshanahan.blogspot.com and I found this audio link in mandarin which translated means - No, you may not date until you are 35. Here it is: http://www.wku.edu/~yuanh/AudioChinese/AuChSnd/parent/35date.mp3
The website itself is awesome and gives many useful phrases that will be useful once we get to China. We will also share some more with you along the way.

It's a bird...It's a plane...NO it's our livingroom!!

OK... I know that is a weird title but our living room and kitchen are even weirder right now because we have several blowers and de-humidifiers noisely doing their job in our home. The mitigations specialists found that the moisture level in our walls after the flood was 100% in some areas so now we are living in a wind tunnel. Oh well....you gotta do what you gotta do!!

Also on the home front Justin Bennett is home from school in between semesters and boy is it GREAT to have him under our roof if even for a short time!

On the adoption front...the dossier left the good ol' USA today for our daughters homeland of China.

Finally today, I would also like to thank everyone that contributed in solidarity to The Half the Sky Foundation's walk to benefit the Chinese orphans. It was such a wonderful event. We have not heard the final money count yet but I am sure that their goals were exceeded. We were able to meet several families who have either adopted or are in the process of doing so as well as wonderful people with no connection to chinese children other than their need to make a difference in the world and in a childs life. Watching the children greet each other and play on the playground brought tears to both of our eyes. It was a magical way to spend my birthday.

Well goodbye for now and let me say that now that the weekend is here and we are DTC...let the shopping for Katie begin!!

WE ARE DTC and PAPER PREGNANT!!

Well it is official. Lacee from Great Wall Chinese Adoption, our agency, called to say that we are DTC tomorrow. Our dossier will be going out with a group of other adoptive families dossiers to China tomorrow. This means that the paperchase is officially over and we are paper pregnant. Now we can start the wonderful process of BUYING THINGS for the baby. Yeah!!

Bad new and good news.....

First the bad news.... Marc was working from home today and had gone out for an hour. He came back and found that the front part of the house was flooded. All the way from the kitchen to the front door. It seemed at first as though a pipe had burst somewhere around or under the house because as fast as he would wet vac and mop it up, the water would be back just as high. We called the plumber who had just been there 2 days before to change our toilets. He came within an hour (thank goodness) and found that the water line into the refrigerator was leaking in the wall and the water was escaping to anywhere it could find to flow. When he pulled out the cabinets he found that the builder had put a screw through the water line and all of these years (11) the screw had sealed the hole but began to rust and finally this morning it gave way in a big way. Now all of the cabinets need to be replaced as well as the drywall behind it and possibly the floor because so much water got under the tile. Ughhhhhh! The plumber will be back tomorrow to replace the line and then we have to deal with the insurance company.

Now the good news that puts it all into perspective. Today all of our adoption documents are done and Pam is sending them all to our agency. I am hoping that the case manager will ship them to China with this weeks batch but it may have to wait until next Friday.

Also, Justin will be home this weekend for a week between his two terms and we are so looking forward to seeing him!

I will tell you about the walk-a-thon on the next post because this one is already a little long winded. Bye for now...