In CCAA's Hands Now

More good news from our agency:

From: CCAI Dossier & China Departments



Congratulations! Your dossier has been delivered to the China Center of Adoption Affairs.



We will notify by email as soon as we receive your official log-in date (LID) from CCAA, and then you can go to the CCAI website to download Dossier Log-In Date Packet. This can take approximately up to 6 weeks from now.




Sincerely,

CCAI Dossier & China Departments

DTC!!!

Guess what??!!! I got the following email from my agency this morning:

CONGRATULATIONS, T & C,

Your dossier was sent to China yesterday afternoon (5/24/2006)!


WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! I can finally say we are PAPER PREGNANT!!!!! I'm so excited I can hardly stand it!


Yeah!!!!!!

Hillbilly

My Hillbilly Name Is...

Lil' Dixie West

Hillbilly Name Generator

I saw this on another blog and thought it was cute. What's your hillbilly name?

Lazy Weekend

What a great weekend we had. Little T made Jr. Legion baseball again this year, it was homecoming at church, little J graduated from pre-school, and the weather was just beautiful!!



I pretty much was lazy all weekend. Same old thing - vacuum, dust, dishes, laundry. When does a girl ever rest? Big T cleaned the pool and reminded me for the millionth time that he hates the pool. L & Little T went to a church competition Friday night. T came home that same evening and L got back Saturday night. Big T and I had a night to ourselves Friday night. Did we go out to dinner? See a movie? Have some fun? Rent a movie? Go to a nightclub? NO!! We just sat around the house, made a pizza bake, and enjoyed each other's company. Aren't we romantic??!! Actually, it was very nice. We talked about baby T, the boys, the future, and then just zoned out.

Our dossier has been in translation since last Thursday. I am ever hopeful that it will be sent to China this week. How I would love to finally announce that we are DTC (dossier to China!!)



Big T's mom was asking if she will be home in time for the family reunion next year. That would be great if she is. With the current timeline we can expect a referral next May and then travel in July. Usually the reunion is at the beginning of July but T's mom said that they could move it to the end so everyone can meet her. That would be so exciting. Maybe CCAA will shorten the wait time again - who knows what their plan is!!!

Jump!!

JUMP!! JUMP!! JUMP!!

People are jumping ship. The wait times have crept up to 12-14 months so a bunch of people are switching countries. Our daughter is in China. I knew this over a year ago. Yes, a year is a long time to wait but think about this. It is already the 19th of May. Half the year is almost over already!!! Between baseball, football, wrestling, church, and work time will fly by!! JUMP PEOPLE JUMP!!!! 'cause the more people that jump off, the closer we get to our daughter!!

In the meantime we'll just relax and take the slow boat to China. We'll be patient and wait for our little munchkin. This will happen - all good things take time.

This is so funny!!!

check it out!!

The Evolution of Dance

Yes!! We are in translation folks!! That means we will be DTC this month. Can you tell I'm excited?

How should we celebrate?? Hmmm....both boys are going to Asheboro for a church youth competition and will be back Saturday. T and I should go out, maybe to dinner and a movie. That would be nice. We'll see. I'd like to see the Poseidon Adventure but I've heard it wasn't that good.

Dancing my way to China!!

Nothing...nothing in email, nothing left on my answering machine, nothing sent in the mail...I'm going nuts!!!! I think I might needs some more retail therapy!

I saw this on another blog and decided that since we are adopting from China we could also adopt a "lil'monster". Check out the egg under "China Weather". This will hatch on June first. Wonder what the monster will look like?

Mother's Day was wonderful. The boys surprised me with a card and a dozen red roses. Even Big T didn't know that they got those. How sweet. Big T cooked my favorite Tuscan chicken and I pretty much was lazy the entire day. I had hoped this would be my last mother's day without little T but I guess that is not meant to be. I love my boys and I'm so grateful to have all 3 of them in my life. Our boys are growing up into fine young men!!

On the 11th I wrote that it had been almost a week since I sent in my dossier to my agency. In reality it was over a week!! They received it on May 2nd. Today is May 15th!! I haven't heard anything and I'm going nuts!! I so want to be DTC and LID this month...it's so hard to not have control over this.

Ok...it's been almost a week and I haven't heard ANYTHING about how the dossier looks yet from my agency. I'm going crazy wondering what in the world is going on..is it acceptable? is something wrong? is it all there? do I need to redo some paperwork? ugh!!

I brought KaCee to the vet yesterday for her annual heartworm check. We noticed a bump on the inside of her ear so I had the vet look at it. He said it was a hematoma. She is 3 1/2 years old, weighs 85 pounds and has never spent the night away from us! We take her and Jasmine everywhere - the lake, NY, the mountains. KaCee is even afraid of the dark! Anyway, the vet said that she would have to spend the night so he could drain out the blood and then bandage it up for 12 to 14 hours. Poor puppy - had to sleep in a cage...no one there to love on her and give her treats or play with her. I think that we, as a family, are more traumatized that she is!! I'll go pick her up tonight after work and I'm sure she will be even more spoiled when she gets home than she usually is.

My youngest son is driving me crazy - he is into playing this game on-line - which is fine. But, when you ask him to get off it will take him 30 minutes! He said he needs to finish a deal, say good-bye, etc. I've started to ground him from it and he's done better - except for yesterday. It was time to get off and get ready for Church, well he got mad and started running his mouth. I cut him short and said he was grounded from it for a week - that made him madder and he started slamming around his room. I ignored the little punk and told him to meet me in the car. When he came in I looked at his shorts and they were FILTHY!! I asked him to go change and he slammed the car door, kicked the pool table, slammed the screen door, slammed the kitchen door and stomped into the house - so I just left!! He enjoys the youth group at church so he didn't get to go. I was so mad at him! I went to Wally world for some retail therapy and found this:

Yes, I know - I already have 4 blankets for little T - but I just couldn't resist. I called J and went to her house to borrow her sewing maching. I'll post pictures when I'm done.

***UPDATE*** - I've finished sewing the blanket and now I'm cutting it. Ugh!!!! What a PITA!!!

Back to L - when I returned home from J's he was in his room and didn't say boo to me the rest of the night. He is only 13 and he needs to control his anger so no internet for 2 full weeks and no going to Bean's house either.

That's pretty much the happenings around this place for the past few days. Not too much excitment in hicktown USA!!

Guess what a fruitcake I am!! Yesterday I went to the post office to send in our 6 passport photos. I was so proud of myself getting those out right away. So I'm home in bed - it's a sleepless night and I'm starring at the ceiling thinking. I bolt up and say OH MY GOD!!! What a dumb arse!!! I sent the pictures with NOTHING ELSE!! No explanation of what they were let alone who they were of. And if their mail department is anything like ours, they'll open the package and throw away the envelope. I quick like email my agency first thing this morning and they said not to worry - they'll match them up!!

Whew....not only was I thinking I would have to shell out another 32 bucks but then I would be wasting another day when our dossier could be sent to China.

OMG...my oldest son is growing up so fast! This is his girlfriends Junior prom - his will be next year. Doesn't he look handsome??

Here's a picture of T & T ready to go to the prom. Aren't they a great looking couple??!!

Yes, I'm bored. On one of the forums I'm on it was suggested that while we wait we write down what we have done everyday. This way we will know what we were doing when our daughter was born, etc. So, even though we are not even DTC yet (should happen next week)I'm going to go ahead and start this. Since we would like a girl who is around 15 months there is a very good chance that she is already born! Wow...our daughter could already be born, sitting in China just waiting for us to come get her.

So this last week went by very quickly:
Monday I had to take L to the doctors for his eye. The school made him leave because they though he had pink eye. We tried to tell him he didn't, that his eye was just irritated from his contact but for safety reasons they said he had to leave. Well of course he didn't have pink eye but the nurse gave us a script for antibiotic for a sty he has on his other eye.

Tuesday T had a ball game and his team did not do well at all. He went 2 for 3 with a nice double but they still got beat by the mercy rule (10 run lead).

Wednesday I took L to the eye doctor for his yearly eye examine. What a fiasco that was!! They had a problem with big T's insurance and it took me forever to get it straightened out. Once we got back to see the doctor she examined him. She asked how long he kept his contacts in and I said too long. Well, sure enough, his corneas are swollen so she couldn't get a good read for his new contacts. He is out of contact for at least 2 weeks. Oh, and the sty...it's not a sty at all. She said it is a pore that is blocked, sort of like a pimple - but it's something else. Anyway, she tried to excise it but couldn't. He has to put hotpacks on his eye 3 times a day and if it doen't go away he will have to have it surgically removed! Oh joy!! We went out to dinner after that because big T and little T were in Wilmington for another ball game.

Thursday was a run around day. When I got home I had to take L to get his new glasses and little T to get his Tux for prom this weekend. OMG!! He looked so good in that tux! I can't wait to get pictures today!! We also went to our neighbors house for D's 1 yr old birthday.

Friday I relaxed - well almost. My neighbor called and asked if I could watch her youngest. No problem!! He is such a cutie patootie!! He hadn't had a nap so he was pretty tired and just a little bit fussy. At 8:30 I gave him a bottle and he was out like a light. Around 9:30 or 10 I brought him home. His sister was in bed already watching Buzz Lightyear and his grandma was drinking coffee and watching tv.

And you all know what I am doing today - Saturday. Working!! yuck...

It's 10:40 on a Saturday morning. I should be at home, just getting up from a restful sleep...but nooo.....I'm at work and have been since 9 this morning!! What am I doing blogging? Well, we are doing an upgrade and waiting for our vendor to finish it. They should have been done first thing this morning but of course they aren't. That means we sit here and twiddle our thumbs - not much else we can do. I've filed some, moved some files around...was a little bit productive but I've decided to take a break.

The bad thing about this whole deal is that today my oldest goes to his first prom. (Let me hear it...awwwwwww....)He goes for pictures at 5, has a dinner reservation at 6:30 and then off to the prom. I want to be there but it will take four hours or more to do testing and I'm almost an hour away from home. We won't be able to test until 11:30 at the earliest. You do the math. If I make it home it will be just in time. This makes me sooooo mad!!!

So it goes in the Saturday morning rut for C!! Oh well...I'll talk to my boss and see if I can't skate out early - we'll see what he says.

I received a comment from a reader about how she and her husband have talked about adoption. We too have talked about adoption in the past in fleeting moments. I even called to talk to a social worker about foster care but never followed up with it. The seed for adoption was planted years ago in both of us - it just bloomed quicker for me. For me the decision to adopt was easy, but for my husband it was another story. He wanted nothing to do with it for an entire year!! I cried, begged, pleaded, and prayed and still he said no. I don't know what turned him around - I asked one day on the phone and he just said "Fine - call my company - find out what they give as benefits - lets do it." I just about fainted!! We talked some more that evening about this life changing decision, about how it would affect the boys, us, our marriage and especially how it would affect her, our daughter, to come into this family, to America, away from everything she has known her short life. We of course went forward with it and we are looking forward to seeing her beautiful face next year.

If the seed of adoption has been planted in your heart, let it grow. It's a journey you'll never forget nor regret.

Tracking number 8XX4055XX34X
Signed for by T.KRIER
Ship date May 1, 2006
Delivery date May 2, 2006 10:22 AM

Delivered to Receptionist/Front Desk
Service type Priority Pak
Weight 2.0 lbs.

Status Delivered


That's right folks....our package has arrived. Now the agency does their critical review and then it flys off to China.

Tracking number 8XX40XX78XXX
Ship date May 1, 2006
Estimated delivery May 2, 2006 10:30 AM
Service type Priority Pak
Weight 2.0 lbs.

Status On FedEx vehicle for delivery

Tracking number 8X74XX578X47
Ship date May 1, 2006
Estimated delivery May 2, 2006 10:30 AM
Service type Priority Pak
Weight 2.0 lbs.
Status In transit

Details

May 1, 2006 7:38 PM

Left origin GREENVILLE, NC 8:44 AM
Picked up GREENVILLE, NC

My little brother is starting his own business cleaning up the debris after natural disasters like wild fires and hurricanes. His company is called Leve1dmc. I've put a link to his website on the side bar. He has also put some of the pictures he took of the California wild fires up on the site. I've included a picture here but you gotta go check out his site and look at all the other pictures.



Firestorm

DONE!!!! We are finally done with the paperchase. What you are looking at is the FEDEX shipping document. CCAI will receive our dossier tomorrow morning by 10:30. It then goes into critical review where they make sure everything is correct, mount the pictures and bind the whole thing together. Then they will send it to China which will be our DTC (Dossier To China) date. When China receives it and logs it into their system we will get our LID (Log In Date). Yeah!!! This is a huge step closer to our daughter. Now the real wait begins.