Shenzhen, China.

What was a tiny fishing village on the border of Hong Kong in 1970 is now a buzzing metropolis of over four million people. With 13 buildings at over 200 meters tall, including the Shun Hing Square (the 8th tallest building in the world), Shenzen is a marvel of lights after sunset. You can’t help but ask yourself if you are in a video game or in a real city.
Metro/Urban Population: 4.2 million

Guangzhou, China


Guangzhou

Guangzhou is a very modern city, yet it is called "the City of Flowers,” as each of its spectacular skyscrapers is surrounded by grand green spaces and flower beds. Although it only has six structures at over 200 metres tall, there are plenty of other high-rises, each displaying a design that stands out in its own respect. This includes the 391 metre, 80-floor, CITIC Plaza which appears transparent against the (usually) clear blue sky!
Metro/Urban Population: 4.1 million

Shanghai, China




Not to be mistaken for a space station, Shanghai is a real city! China's biggest and most advanced city, Shanghai was said to be the most cosmopolitan city in the beginning of the 20th century, but lost its glory during the “Mao era”. It is now quickly regaining its position as one of the biggest economic powerhouses in the world as well as a showcase of modern architecture. In Shanghai you’ll find 25 structures that are over 200 metres tall, one of which is the insanely tall, the 468m downtown Oriental Pearl TV Tower.
Metro/Urban Population: 13.1 million

And finally Hong Kong




Hong Kong is number one on my list for many reasons: Hong Kong has a whopping 43 buildings over 200 metres tall, 30 of which were built in the year 2000 or later!!! It also boasts four of the 15 tallest buildings in the world… that's all in one city! Hong Kong’s skyline shows a large selection of distinct sky-reaching towers, with beautiful night lighting and reflection. This city exemplifies the post-modern skyscraper and skyline. Finally, the mountain backdrop makes this skyline (as you can clearly see) the greatest on the planet!
Metro/Urban Population: 6.9 million

I got the first picture from My Chinese Dream. Her daughter Mali is beautiful. Check her out and while you're out surfing around check out the other skylines at Top 15 Skylines.

Another dossier photo. We have to have 8 family photos and 3 couple photos. I also have a family reunion photo from last year we are going to send. So, that's 3 family so far. I have another picture of just the 2 of us from a friends wedding a month ago. That will be 2 couple photos. Jeez...who would have thought getting pictures could be this difficult??

Hmmm...maybe....the picture is off balance but it might just do. Everyone has a nice smile on. I had to crop the picture because you can see all the stuff on the deck by the back door and it looked kind of messy.

Waiting...waiting....waiting....we are waiting on the Assistant Stork to finish up with authenticating our documents so we can send everything to the agency. That should happen next week. So that is about all that has been happening around here. The boys are on Spring Break so there isn't any baseball (yeah!!). Work is still work and will always be work!
Here's a great picture that J sent to T of his parent's wedding day. Wow!! We've never seen this one before. Thanks J!!

I've been reading other blogs and noticed a trend. Quite a few of them have names without the word "Journey" in the title! I can be creative when I need to be (come on folks, I'm a programmer....Creativity is not needed, just logic!) "T for Two...Double Happiness...Grouchy LadyBug....little hugs...The Cady Chase...Wandering Child"...and so on are different blogs that I read. Ok, lets see. I have 3 wonderful guys in my life, 2 dogs, and a cat. We are a sports (ugh!) oriented family who is adopting a daughter and sister from China. What about "3 Guys and a girl" - nah...too corny. "Baseball and Ballet"..."Cleats or Pointes"..."Chopsticks vs Forks"..."Puppydog tails"...."To the Moon and Back"..."Jump Rope"..."hopSCOTCH"..."T For Me and You"..."The Maddening Chase"..."Chopstick Dreaming"

Tell me what you think!!

Well we have seen another snafu in the great paperchase of 2006! Our marriage certificate is FAKE!!!!!!!!!! Haha...just kidding. I did have to send it back to the county clerk for them to certify though. Here's the scoop. Sent the mc to Albany to be certified, they send it back and say it needs to be done at the county level. Ok, sure...sent it to the county clerk in Wampsville. They send it back and said it needs to be done at the town level. Um....ok. Sent it to Chittenango...guess what? They called and said it was already certified but they would go ahead and get me another copy with a notary stating it was a true copy. Sounds fine. WRONG!!! When I got it back I got nervous because all of the other documents that have been certified had the certificate attached to the original document. This one did not. So, I email my agency and they confirmed my fears. Sh......!!! So I called the Department of State and spoke to a very nice woman. She said that yes - the marriage certificate needs to be "County Certified". I explained to her what happened and she laughed and said they have no clue. Now look lady - this is no laughing matter - this is our daughter!! I next called the county clerk...she had NO CLUE what I was talking about!! She said "You need to send it to the town". Oh Lord...here we go, I opened up my can of whoop a$$!! I then said the magic words of "County Certified". Aha!!! The light bulb goes on and she says "Oh..yeah, we do those. Send it with $3.00" OMG!! So, I sent that off and should get it back next week, then it has to go back to the DOS so they can certifiy that the county clerk that certified it is certifiable....I don't know about that, but I sure am!!!

We are headed to NY for Easter this year. We will leave on the14th and return on the 18th. Quick trip. I think if I get that mc back before we leave I will hand carry it to Albany, even though it is a 3 hr drive from the house. Then - if T will let me....we could hand carry the documents to be authenticated in DC since we go right by it on our way home.

Latest rumor - China only referred PART of May 31st and not the whole day...I'm not listening anymore to rumors!! *LALALALALALALALALA**

All we have left to do now is to authenticate our home study, marriage certificate, I171H, and adoption petition. I'm going to send them to the Assistant Stork who did our other documentation. She hand delivers them to the State Department and Chinese Consulate in Washington DC. We are going to pay the extra $20 per document to have a 24 hr turnaround. That means that we should get everything back by Tuesday at the latest and then we can send everything to our agency CCAI.

Check out this video!!


Faith - the dog with 2 legs

IT CAME!!!!! IT CAME!!!


I'm am running around this office doing the happy dance!! Our 171 came today. This means WE ARE DONE!!!!!!! Wow - finally - we are done!! I have to get this notarized, certified, then authenticated, take some pictures, and fed ex everything to CCAI. OMG!! I'm soooo excited. The wait for our daughter will be long - but it will be so worth it! We are one major step closer to getting her.

No news...no news...no 171...this is sooooo frustrating!!! When is that little piece of paper going to come? We want to be DTC as soon as possible. With the wait times now pushing to 12 - 14 months, the sooner our paperwork gets to China, the better.

China closing it's doors to international adoption? Wait times of up to 14 months? Ok, wait just a minute here. I don't mind reading rumors, because, hey, they are just rumors - but when they start saying that China is going to close the doors to adoption and the wait times are going up and could reach 14 months, I start to get nervous!! Most of the time I don't pay any attention to them but these 2....jeez...I dunno!! So, I did some research, emailed some people, and was reassured that China is NOT going to close their doors anytime soon. Whew!! Now the wait time, who knows. It has taken them (CCAA) 3 months, yes 3 months, to get through the month of May. If this keeps up we might see our daughter some time in 2008!! I don't think that will happen. What I'm praying will happen is that people will start jumping the ship, switch countries, and then the wait time will go back down to where it was last year - 6 months. If you want to see some rumors check out the Rumor Queen blog under Fortunes Can Be Funny.

We still haven't received the I-171 yet. But today is another day!!

APC is stilling raging over the Washington Post article and some of them are reminding us "newbies" that our daughters will be just miserable here in the US because we ripped them out of their home country. They will be sad and hard to bond with. Good God people!! Of course she'll be sad - jeez we are taking her from the only thing she has ever known. Then we are going to fly her half way around the world to a place that looks and smells completely different. We expect her to experience some grief over this. And yes, our daughter will have to put up with some bullies at school, she'll have to put up with stupid remarks by strangers, she'll have to put up with sideway glances....but guess what? Don't we all put up with this in one form or another? At some point in our lives have we not all been made fun of, bullied, looked at strangely, ignored, etc? How did we handle this? Are we "Unhappy Adults" because of this? Don't think so. Our parents helped us through those times and taught us how to handle these situations. We are now teaching our kids - this is called parenting folks...seems to be a big word for a bunch of peeps.

-sigh-

Ok - off the soap box now - sorry folks. Adoption news - the homestudy agency has received THE letter and will mail the new homestudy to BCIS this week. That means we should have our 171 within a few weeks. Once we get that then we can send the homestudy and a copy of the 171 to be certified and authenticated. The last step will be to send the paperwork to our agency, CCAI. They will review it and send it to China (DTC - Dossier To China). After that...the long, long, long wait. 10 - 12 months from the LID (Long In Date). All this paperwork and the longer wait times are worth it though. Our reward at the end will be Tiana.

Pretty neat - this is a word cloud. You can create one too...just go here


Thanks for the neat site Karen!!

My neighbor has a 10 month old cutie pie little boy named Jason Jr. and a 3 year old little girl named Hope - which is one of my "red threads". Last night I was visiting and she gave me a bag of clothes that Hope can't wear anymore. It contained some 3T's, 2T's, 18 month and 12 month clothes and a pink pair of sneakers. Yeah!! All of them are in great condition so I'm going to keep them. I've got to get to Target and buy some containers so I can store them until T can wear them.

Here's an update on our paperchase. We finally got the letter from NY - jeez, what took a month to get should have only taken a week. I've sent that to our home study agency and need to send one more item which will get done today. Once they receive that then they will send our new homestudy to BCIS and we should get our 171H within the next week or two. Ok...so goodbye March DTC...hello April DTC!! We will get there eventually!!

By the way, there was an article in the Washington Post titled "Stealing Babies for Adoption". If you would like to read more about this article and some of the issues behind this report go here. Scott has an adorable little boy he and Tina adopted in September of last year. Or you can go to Brian Stuy's blog (which is also linked from Scotts blog) here.

Why adopt from China?

Watch this video and you will understand. This is just a taste of the lives of these young children. The young man in the video has started China Care and is making great strides in the poorer orphanages. Get some tissue ready and enjoy! This is just one of the many many reasons we have decided to adopt our daughter from China

http://www.chinacare.org/ChinaCareVideo-HiRes.html

Totally weird and proud of it!!

You Are Austin

A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll. You're totally weird and very proud of it. Artistic and freaky, you still seem to fit in... in your own strange way. Famous Austin residents: Lance Armstrong, Sandra Bullock, Andy Roddick

What American City Are You?

Shopping

Big T and I were talking this weekend about taxes and what we were going to do with the refunds. Guess what he wants to do? PAY BILLS!!! Imagine that!! I asked about a new vacuum cleaner and he said I could spend up to 500 on one. That should get me a nice one - at last!! I think that we have spent over that now by buying the cheap ones that just don't last over the years. Anyway, while we were talking I mentioned that I haven't bought anything yet for our daughter. He asked what she needed and I said I didn't know, maybe some clothes, shoes, toys, etc. He mentioned the thrift shop and my neighbor for hand me downs, then chuckled and said I could buy our daughter what she needs just to not go overboard! Yeah!!! I've been given the okay to shop! So, while I was at Wally world (listening to commercials/music in spanish - but that is a different post!) I found this cute hooded towel - and it was a ladybug!! Now, don't get me wrong here folks, I don't really buy into this "ladybug" thing that a lot of people believe in, but it was so darn cute I just had to have it!! That towel was the only thing I bought for her, but I was excited just the same. I also got a plastic tub to start storing her items in. I've put the gifts from the cyber shower, the ladybug towel, the 3 hats I've made, and the blanket I've crocheted in it. This way I can keep everything together. My neighbor is going through her daughter's clothes and the ones that don't fit her she is going to give to me. I'll probably buy more tubs as I gather different size clothing. I'm not sure how old she'll be or what size but I feel I can buy 16 month on up clothes and be pretty safe. Time to keep my eyes open for sales!

I was surfing around the net today at lunch reading up on some of the other blogs I follow. One of them had this in it....cute. At least I haven't lost all of my "northern talk"!!

Your Linguistic Profile:

70% General American English

15% Yankee

10% Upper Midwestern

5% Dixie

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

I called on Monday the 27th to see if the commissioner had mailed out the needed letter. His secretary had no clue what I was talking about. I called them 3 weeks ago and nothing had been done. I once again gave the secretary the needed information and she said she would look into it. I called back yesterday....nothing had been done!! Huh??!! Don't these people know this is holding up our adoption?? So I explained once again the importance of this and she said she called the clerks office and was waiting to hear back. She then did a search and couldn't find anything!! OMG.....it's like I'm banging my head against a brick wall!! She gave me the clerk's number and I called her. Guess what? The chick at the commissioners office had just called her about a half an hour before I did. Hmmm.....someone isn't telling me the truth! Anyway, she said that she will have to go down to the basement. She isn't even sure she will find anything. She (Debbie) will call me back if she does. If I don't hear from her by Monday I'm to call her. I then called our home study agency and spoke to Helene. She is so helpful! I explained what was going on and she said just write everything down. If we don't get the needed letter then she will put in the home study what we did and that will be just fine. whew!!! I've been sooooo stressed over this!! I just wish they would fax that letter to me so this part of the paper chase will be done.

KISSES IN THE WIND


I hold you in my heart and touch you in my dreams.
You are here each day with me, at least that’s how it seems.

I know you wonder where we are… what’s taking us so long.
But remember child, I love you so and God will keep you strong.

Now go outside and feel the breeze and let it touch your skin…
Because tonight, just as always, I blow you kisses in the wind.

May God hold you in His hand until I can be with you.
I promise you, my darling, I’m doing all that I can do.

Very soon, you’ll have a family for real, not just pretend.
But for tonight, just as always, I blow you kisses in the wind.

May God wrap you in His arms and hold you very tight.
And let the angels bring the kisses that I send to you each night.
— Unknown