Saturday, August 25, 2007

Since I last posted on Tuesday, we had even more rain on Wednesday and Thursday. The worst was on Thursday with lots of areas flooding, lots of downed trees and lots without electricity. Luckily, we were fine, but it took me over an hour and a half to get home on the train and Kevin over 2 hours driving and it usually takes about 40 minutes. The rain was so bad on the roadway.that Kevin put his arm out the car window and it was well past half of his forearm. When we got to one of the train stations; a couple of the parking lots were submerged with water between the door handle or higher. The Fox River a few blocks from our house has gone over its banks, Here's a couple photos that I took this afternoon.



The playground is usually a ways away from the water.


None of these trees should be surrounded by water

Those are young kids who ventured out into the water. The picnic bench behind the guys is usually several feet away from the shore.

None of the homes around here that I know of were affected, but there were many homes that were in other suburbs.

Yesterday (Friday), one of my cousins got married in an outdoor ceremony. Unbelievably, it was dry and not really even humid. The wedding was very nice and the weather was just about perfect for August. I had heard the reception was going to be outside under a tent, but it turned out it was inside in a very nice room in the banquet hall.

High school football has officially started; yesterday was actually suppose to be the first game, but with the weather as it had been with more rain expected last night (although it did not happen), the game for the local high school was postponed until tonight. Kevin was quite glad it was rescheduled, since he loves attending high school football games and the neighbor, some friends, and him try to go to all the games. They were undefeated the last 2 years until the quarter finals. A very interesting bit of trivia, the founder of Jimmy John's graduated from the high school.

One more bit of news; this one adoption related. A waiting child was placed, so we move down another slot on each of the list. We are now about #130 overall and #77 for those open to boys. There are also 3 families traveling to Vietnam this weekend to get their children.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Rain, rain, stay away

We have had so much rain since the weekend. In less than 48 hours we probably had 3-4 inches; luckily today, has been dry, but the humidity is definitely back. It is suppose to possibly rain on and off the next three days. I definitely hope not, especially not on Friday, since my cousin is getting married. It is to be an outdoor wedding and reception, so it would definitely be nice for it to stop raining a day or two before, so the ground can dry. In addition several areas of Chicagolandare experiencing flooding. More rain is the last thing we need right now!

We had our work outing to a Chicago Cubs game. The weather was beautiful. It did not rain at all as they had predicted for the morning. Because of the prediction of rain, the picnic we were going to have in Lincoln Park was instead held in our office lunchroom. It almost turned into a catastrophe of sorts, because we had all the pop and chips and Subway sandwiches on this one table. Well, what haappened was one of the legs broke and everything started sliding down the table. Luckily, the soda had not been opened, otherwise we'd really have had a mess. It seemed to happen in slow motion and everyone just stared increduously while it happened. Luckily, we only lost a few sandwiches and the rest stayed on the platters. The game was great. We played the Cincinatti Reds, who we had already 2 games of the series to, but we started with 4 runs in the 1st inning and by the end of the 7th inning, we scored several runs again in a row and won 12 to 4. I left after the 7th inning in hopes of making my usual train. Iended up having to run a good part of the 8 blocks from the subway to my train station, but I made it. And a good thing I did, because one of the trains after mine hit a pedestrian or bicyclist and some trains were delayed 3 1/2 to 4 hours.

The next day I was off work, so I decided to take the train downtown and go to my parents, where Kevin would meet us for dinner that evening. Well, as I was walking to the train. There was a bunch of police officers and emergency personnel gathered down near the tracks. It turned out that one of the train engineers from an earlier train had reported a body near the train tracks and it turns out sure enough that someone had been hit by a train earlier in the morning. What they were doing at that section of the tracks is questionable, since there isn't a crossing right there. An investigation is still ongoing whether it was a suicide or an accident or what. But the victim's car was found in the parking lot nearby, so I think it looks like it might have been suicide. It turned out the train was only a little over an hour delayed, so I did end up getting on a train, just a little later than expected.

The rest of my weekend was pretty much uneventful, except for all the rain that fell from Saturday night through Monday. On the adoption front, we did move down the list one place. A referral was received for a healthy 9 month infant boy. Our agency also received referral for a few waiting children, a healthy 12 year old girl and 2 healthy brothers, 8 and 14. A family is reviewing the girl's information, but so far the brothers have been placed on the waiting children's page, since no agency family is requesting this age group. They are really cute boys, so hopefully someone will decide to adopt them. We now are #131 overall on the list and for the list of those open to a boy, #78. So we are slowly moving on the list. Hopefully, there will be more referrals over the next 2 weeks. A few more families received travel dates, so their should be 3 or 4 families traveling next week.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Our Flower Garden

On the other blog last year, I would post updates of our flower garden. This year I haven't done that and fraankly, I think it's better this year than last. We have a couple more varieties and last year actually was our first year with a garden. Because although we moved in here in May 2005, there was no time to really do much planting. So here's a shot of most of our petunias.


Our rabbits ear and if anyone knows the name of deep purple plant, I'd love to know! Even my mom who is quite the gardener has never seen it.


Our mum has just started blooming in the past couple weeks and there are many more buds waiting to bloom soon.


Our begonias.

And a cropped shot of our entire flower garden.



Well, today is our work summer outing. We are going to go to a Chicago Cubs game! We were suppose to have a picnic in Lincoln Park, but they have been saying morning showers all week on Thursday, so they ecided to have the lunch in the office and then go to the gasme. This actually works better for me and probably several others who live in the noth and west suburbs, because to reach that area at leat I'd have to end up taking a bus. Instead I can just take a train into the city, stop at the office for lunch and then walk to the el/subway and take it straight to the ball park.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Simpsonized

You too can Simpsonize yourself at www.simpsonizeme.com, I think. I don't think I look too bad Simpsonized.


3 New Referrals!

Good news now that the visiting Vietnam officials are back at the IAD (or is it the DIA; I.ve actually heard it referred by both names). O our agency received 3 referrals: a 14 month old boy, a 3 and a half year old boy and a 4 and half year old boy, so we have moved up three spots on both of the list . We are now # 132 on the overall list and #79 on the list for those open to a boy. Just to memind you when we started out we were #159 and #95 on each of the lists. So not bad for a little over 3 months. They are expecting more infant referrals in the near future. We have one family traveling from our agency and their website is under my traveling links under The Needhams. Also, our agency's 1st Ethiopia adoptive family should be on their way back to the United States, with another family leaving for Ethiopia this upcoming week.

Vietnam Provinces

Can't remember if I ever posted a province map of Vietnam. Our agency is in 3 provinces, Kien Gang, Vinh Long, and Ho Chi Minh, which are in the very southern part of Vietnam (all of which are in pink).




Monday, August 6, 2007

3 Month Anniversary

Well, it has been 3 months since we were added to the agency's waiting list on May 7th. If all goes as they predict, we can expect a referral in 9-12 months. I guess this means we should start getting busy preparing for our son. Several months ago, we started removing some wallpaper in what will be the nursery and discovered at least 3 layers of wallpaper. Well, we got vwhat people recommended we use to remove the wallpaper, but with so many layers, we are having a heck of time with it. We have decided we will hire someone to remove the wallpaper, who has experience doing things quickly. One of the couples at work has a son who has a decorating business, so we will go with him. We will do the painting ourselves most probably, but the wallpaper will be someone else's job. Hopefully, we can get this done in the next month or so and then paint before, it gets too cold where we don't want to open the windows.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Don't Know If Any One Noticed...

But we have moved somewhat on the list. We are now #135 overall and #82 for those open to a boy; the wait is still 12-15 months from when we got on the list. We got on the list back on May 7th, so we have about 9-12 months if their prediction is right. You never know, but hopefully it will be!