I was hoping for an update from our agency, but nothing yet, the main Vietnam coordinator is back from vacation, but I'm sure she is extremely busy catching up on everything; so maybe we'll receive an update by the end of the week. Not too much has been going on; I have been on vacation this week. I got some gardening done and planted a bunch of annuals and a couple more perennials. I have a few more to plant and I definitely will be glad to be done, I just do not really enjoy all that digging in the dirt and getting dirty, but I do enjoy the pretty flowers later on, so I guess I just have to put up with the dirty work at the beginning.

I finally found a great way to break my Starbuck's addiction. I have discovered McDonald's iced coffee. I can get almost twice as much for nearly half the price. So for a little over $10, I could get one every work day if I wanted.

I just wanted to give a shout out to my bloggy friend, Amanda who is currently in Vietnam with her husband bill picking up there baby girl. You can follow their trip or just see some great pictures of their little girl at Aloha, Baby Moore.

Potpourri

Haven't posted anything in quite a while, but nothing much is happening adoption-related. We did move up a few spots on the waiting list, but that now makes us #156 overall and #93 for those open to a boy. The lady in charge of Vietnam adoptions for our entire agency is on vacation, so we have not received an update and she is off for the rest of the week. If any referral or travel dates, etc. come in they get sent to the designated people, but no updates will be sent until sometime next week.

We also sent in our largest fee so far; we shouldn't have to send another fee in until we actually are told to submit our dossier to Vietnam, which may not be until the end of the year at the soonest. It all depends on how quickly the waiting list moves, so please pray that lots of referrals are received. The fee at time of dossier submission is pretty small, compared to this last one we sent in or those we'll be sending in once we receive a referral and as we wait to travel.

I'll be on vacation from work next week. I'm not going anywhere, but just having some time off will be great. I really need some time; my last week off was right between Christmas and New Year's.

Today was our 1st 90-degree day or close to it. The temperature this spring has been all over the place; just a few days ago, it was near frost conditions over night. Any day now, the 17-year locusts should be hatching and will be visiting for the next month. Some parts of Chicagoland are already seeing them, but most people I know still haven't seen them yet. Hopefully, that month goes by relatively fast and we won't be seeing them again until 2024. At the same time, I don't want to see the warm spring and summer weather go too quickly.

Chicagoland is blessed ... or should I say cursed, with the highest gasoline prices in the entire United States. Some areas of Chicago are in the $3,90's!!! And it is not even summer, yet. Plus with the holiday weekend approaching, I'm sure they will only increase as we get closer to the weekend.

Weirdology

I was tagged by Kelly of Snips & Snails

FOODOLOGY
What is your salad dressing of choice? Italian

What is your favorite fast food restaurant? Steak 'n' Shake

What is your favorite sit-down restaurant? I'd have to afree about Red Lobster!

On average, what size tip do you leave at a restaurant? 15-20% depending on service

What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of? Chocolate chip cookies from Subway.

What is your favorite type of gum? I'm not a gum person.


TECHNOLOGY
What is your wallpaper on your computer? A picture of A photo of a friend's baby.

How many televisions are in your house? 4, but only 3 work for television shows. The 4th is mainly for Playstation.


BIOLOGY
What’s your best feature? I'm not sure, either my eyes or my hair.

Have you ever had anything removed from your body? My wisdom teeth and a toenail that was ingrown.

Which of your five senses do you think is keenest? Not sure, but maybe taste; I can detect when they have used peanut oil in a recipe, and I hate peanuts.

When was the last time you had a cavity? several years ago.

What is the heaviest item you lifted last? Last weekend, Kevin and I tried to lift some landscaping timbers, but we ended rolling them to where we wanted them.

Haveyou ever been knocked unconscious? Nope.


BULLOLOGY

If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? Definitely not!

Is love for real? Weird question!!

If you could change your first name, what would you change it to? I've had this name for 38 years, so I am keeping at this point.

What color do you think looks best on you? Purple or red.

Have you ever swallowed a non-food item by mistake? I'm sure I have, but can't think of anything at the moment.

Have you ever saved someone’s life?Not that I know of.

Has someone ever saved yours? , I guess, the doctors and medical staff at Loyola when I had viral encephalitis at 13.


DAREOLOGY

Would you walk naked for a half mile down a public street for $100,000? I highly doubt it!

Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100? Well, you're not saying on the lips or anything like that, so sure, a peck on the cheek wouldn't hurt.

Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000? I kind of am fond of all ten of my fingers, as well as any other body parts.

Would you never blog again for $50,000? Well, I could still read blogs and post comments.

Would you pose nude in a magazine for $250,000? No!

Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1,000? No.

Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000? Now what kind of sicko would say yes to this! Definitely not!

Would you give up watching television for a year for $25,000? Does watching Netflix on the computer count?

Give up MySpace forever for $30,000? No problem,; I don't like Mypace.

DUMBOLOGY:

What is in your left pocket? Nothing, maybe fuzz.

Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie? Never watched it.

Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house? Both

Do you sit or stand in the shower? That's kind of personal, but stand of course!

Could you live with roommates? Other than living with my own family, no more roommates.

How many pairs of flip-flops do you own? None.

Last time you had a run-in with the cop? The only time I can think of iswhen we got fingerprinted.

What do you want to be when you grow up? A mom

Last friend you talked to? Does my husband Kevin count?

Last person you called? Kevin

RANDOMOLOGY

First place you went this morning? I went out to thebackyard.

What can you not wait to do? Go to Vietnam to get our child.

What’s the last movie you saw? Blow out on DVD last Saturday, which was apretty bad movie. At the show, we saw Night at the Museum about 2 weeks ago.

Are you a friendly person? I try to be, yes.

Now, I need to tag 3 people, so I tag, Stacy of Our Ethiopian Adoption Journey, Jess of Our Golden Child, and Amanda of Aloha Baby Moore

Lucas Needs Your Prayers!!

I recently became aware of this blog http://burakaeyae.blogspot.com about Lucas, a little boy who was burned last week. His mom & dad both have blogs about their family (they recently brought home their two Ethiopian children and have two biological children) where you can read more about it. I have been following his mom's blog, but have been having computer problems whenever I try to view his dad's. His mother's blog is great, so much faith; a real inspiration.

Televison Fun

I saw the following game on someone's blog and thought it looked. I am to go to www.imdb.com and choose 10 shows that I've watched, past and present. You are supposed to guess what shows it is from the key words listed and I'll post the answers in a few days. Here goes:

1. Cat, Space, Family
2. Rich Kid, Graduation, Brother Sister Relationship
3. Competition, Voting, Betrayal
4. Cellmate, Murder, Brother
5. Roomate, Elderly Dating
6. Advertising, Deception, Manipulation
7. Jock, Nerd, High School
8. Hospital, Doctor, Chicago
9. Teacher, Student, Race Relations
10. Terrorism, Federal Agent, Conspiracy

This was harder to do than I thought and I was a TV Junkie until recently. Have fun guessing!

Impossible Question Answer

The question was:

The average American uses 4200 of these in their lifetime.

All of these were great answers! Actually, I can't actually give credit to anyone in particular, but anonymous answered correctly with rolls of toilet paper.

A Mother's Day Vignette

This is a submission to a contest (Favorite Mother’s Day Moment) from a viewer of The Ellen Show:

So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who just recently died. Jack was a great cat and the kids would carry him around and sit on him and nothing ever bothered him. He used to hang out and nap all day long on this mat in our bathroom.

Well, we have 3 kids and at the time of this story they were 4 years old, 3 years old and 1 year old. The middle one is Eli. Eli really loves chapstick. LOVES IT. He kept asking to use my chapstick and then losing it. So finally one day I showed him where in the bathroom I keep my chapstick and how he could use it whenever he wanted to but he needed to put it right back in the drawer when he was done.

Last year on Mother's Day, we were having the typical rush around and try to get ready for Church with everyone crying and carrying on. My two boys are fighting over the toy in the cereal box. I am trying to nurse my little one at the same time I am putting on my make-up. Everything is a mess and everyone has long forgotten that this is a wonderful day to honor me and the amazing job that is motherhood.

We finally have the older one and the baby loaded in the car and I am looking for Eli. I have searched everywhere and I finally round the corner to go into the bathroom. And there was Eli. He was applying my chapstick very carefully to Jack's . . . rear end. Eli looked right into my eyes and said "chapped." Now if you have a cat, you know that he is right--their little butts do look pretty chapped. And, frankly, Jack didn't seem to mind. And the only question to really ask at that point was whether it was the FIRST time Eli had done that to the cat's behind or the hundredth?

And THAT is my favorite Mother's Day moment ever because it reminds us that no matter how hard we try to civilize these glorious little creatures, there will always be that day when you realize they've been using your chapstick on the cat's butt.

This reminds me of a story my mother told me. Before my parents had children, they had a little fur baby (dog). One day my mother found the dog eating of all things, rabbit turds, Well, she gently scolded the dog telling her not to eat those yucky things. Well as my mom squatted down over her, the dog leaped up and gave my mom a kiss, not even quite on the lips, but more on the tongue; my mom ran inside, making funny noises while keeping her mouth open and trying not to swallow. She brushed her teeth , tongue and mouth forever trying to get rid of all the germs from our dog who had just eaten rabbit poop. Gross!

Of course, there was the time when I pooped in her hand when she was changing me and the time my brother squirted her right between the eyes and no, it wasn't with water!

Just Adorable Bedding!

I would love to do a farm theme for the nursery and this crib set is the cutest, I have seen!

Impossible Question

The average American will use 4,200 of these in their lifetime. What is it?

I will post the answer this coming week. Please post your guesses.

We're Officially on the Waiting List!

We have been added to the long waiting list with our agency. Overall on the list, we are about #159; but for those requesting either a boy only or a boy or girl, compared to those requesting a girl only, we are #95, approximately. The number looks undauntingly large. If I am understanding the numbers correctly, than only about 64 families a head of us on the list, are requesting a girl only. This may mean we stand a chance of possibly getting a girl, but usually more boys are available than girls, but there is always a chance, so we most likely won't have an idea until the moment we get our referral. Once our agency feels we are much closer to getting our referral, we will be told that we can work on gathering our dossier, which will be sent to Vietnam.

Approval is Finally Here!!!

In today's mail, we found an envelope from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. I had expected a much bigger envelope, but once we neatly opened it, I read the printed words that "It has been determined that you are able to furnish proper care to an orphan or orphans ..." Of course, we knew we would be able to furnish the proper care, but we needed the government to let us know that they deemed us as capable in their eyes. And this little paper officially declares this. We can now be added to our agency's long waiting list and do what else, but wait for a referral. As far as I know, we will have to wait 12-15 months from when we are added to the list until we receive what they call a referral. We will get a few pictures of the child, his birthdate, and some medical information.

Just yesterday, we received an update from our agency that they had received a healthy infant boy referral, who was currently 2 months. They are also expecting more referrals shortly.

My First Purchase

I finally decided to make an adoption-related purchase. Knowing it is early in the waiting process, I decided to purchase a shirt for me from www.adoptionmama.com.

In case it is hard to read, it says "Pregnant with Love for My Child from Vietnam". I believe it should be here early next week. Hopefully that immigration approval will be here so,on so we can get on the waiting list!! I am waiting not so patiently anymore!

Weird when I was at my blog, Saturday morning, my web tracker/counter had disappeared off my blog and when I even went to the host site, nothing was showing. But by evening, it was back. When I did check on the traffic to my blog, there was a large gap of time, where no one had visited, but since it was such a beautiful day, it is possible that no one happened to stop by.

No CIS approval yet in the mail. Positive thoughts, wishes, prayers, whatever that it comes this week.

On Friday evening, Kevin and I finally were able to go to this Vietnamese restaurant on the far northwest side of Chicago. Last week, we tried going for lunch after the waiting families meeting and it turned out they were no longer open during lunch time. The food was really good! Although the name of the meals were in Vietnamese, there was a good explanation of each of the meals in English. Kevin ordered one of their daily specials, Con Chin Chin, which is fat noodles with shrimp, chicken, bean sprouts and green onions with roasted peanuts. I thought of also ordering that, but the roasted peanuts kept me away. I just can't stand peanuts. It turned out there was just a few peanut shavings sprinkled on top; next time I think I'll order it and ask them to hold the peanuts. I ended up ordering something called Mi Xao Thap Cam, which is shrimp, chicken, & BBQ pork stir fried with assorted veggies and pan fried noodles. I found it very good; sort of similar to Chicken Chow Mein. We ended our meal sharing a dessert of bananas in a tapioca pudding with coconut milk served very hot; almost like a soup. Boy was that delicious! We can't wait to go back or try one of the other Vietnamese restaurants in Chicagoland. Unfortunately, there isn't anything right near our area, but we don't mind the drive. Now that it is getting warm, it will be great to go to the Vietnamese area of Chicago, where they have lots of Vietnamese restaurants.

These weeks go by so quickly. It's been almost a week since I last updated the blog. Of course, nothing extremely newsworthy happened. We are still waiting for CIS approval, so we can get on the waiting list. It should be coming in the near future; the sooner the better, I say. The waiting will really be long, but at least we'll be on the actual waiting list, right now we aren't even in line for anything. Our social worker e-mailed me to make sure we had not heard and not let her know. Now, she will be possibly the first I contact. Since I don't get to check the mail for the anticipated envelope, until I get home from work, I may very likely be e-mailing our social worker, while I call Kevin with the good news. He also has started asking nearly everyday, if we've got it in the mail. One of these days (and hopefully soon) I will be able to answer "YES" to his question.

The waiting families meeting last Saturday was pretty interesting. There were a total of 6 families, who spoke about their travels and adoption. Two were from China, two from Russia, one from Colombia and one from Vietnam. Being that several different countries were represented, perspectives were of course different, especially depending on the country and length of the trip(s) in the country. Having a family speak from the perspective of a family recently back from Vietnam was most beneficial.

After it was over Kevin and I decided to go to a Vietname restaurant for lunch, which is only a few miles from where we were. Well, we get there and finally find a parking spot (it's street parking near a residential area of Chicago) and drop our quarter in the meter and wouldn't you know it there's a sign on the door that they are no longer opened for lunch starting on May 15th, 2005!! Yes, you read that right 2005!! (And the hours I find online at Metromix, still has not been updated. I'm hoping that maybe tomorrow (Friday night) we can go for dinner. I'm wondering am I making any sense with this post; I think I am just going to head to bed and go to sleep.

Has Spring Finally Sprung?

Finally, a beautiful spring day! It hit 67 degrees and this weekend should be in the 70s! i'm so ready for nice weather and our gas bill could use a reprieve. Although that means with a lower gas bill, it won't be long until the electric bill inches upwards.

Other than yesterday, I have not posted much. Back on April 7th, Kevin was rear-ended and pushed into another vehicle while he was stopped for a red light. How you do not see a yellow car is behind me, but maybe it was that the guy was bending over picking something off the floor or at least that is according to what the driver in front of Kevin saw. The guy pleaded with Kevin not to call the police, but Kevin did and it turns out this guy had been in another accident just 5 days before for the same thing. Kevin was a little stiff and sore for the first few days, but seems to be fine now. We are just waiting for the other driver's insurance company to okay the cost of the repairs and then he'll get a rental car and the car fixed. the repairs were estimated at about $1500, but the majority of it is labor; he does need both the front and back bumpers replaced, though.

Last Saturday, Kevin took a friend's daughter to her school's Daddy-Daughter dance; her mom is single mom, who adopted from China back in the late 90s. He had only met them once before last summer, so we ended up going over to their house the week before for pizza. Since cances are good, we will adopt a boy, this may be the only time that Kevin goes to a Daddy-Daughter event. They both had a good time and I am looking forward to seeing the picture the mother took of them before the dance.

On the adoption front, we are still waiting for the 171-H from Immigration that approves us to adopt a foreign orphan. It has been 4 weeks, since the homestudy was sent in and about 5 1/2 weeks since our 1-600A application was received. I haven't heard awhat the current wait time is for people receiving their approval, but we were told to expect 6-8 weeks total and possibly as many as 12 weeks. They have sped up in the past half a year, so hopefully 6-8 weeks is realistic, but is it 6-8 weeks from when they received the initial application or from when they received the homestudy is anybody's guess. I'm expecting (hoping, praying for) mid-May, but if it takes longer, I wouldn't be surprised, but if it is earlier than mid-May, I will be surprised.

Our agency sent us all an update, they just received a referral for a 3-month old boy and are expecting more referrals in the next few weeks. 7 more families will be leaving at the beginning of May for their children. Currently, there are 33 families waiting for to travel, 133 families are on the dossier waiting list, and 203 families who have applied and are working on their homestudy or waiting for their 171-H. We are one of those 203. The waiting list is not separated out for those who only want girls, are open to either sex or want a boy, or want a toddler or older child compared to an infant. Fast forward 12-15 months after getting on the waiting list, imagine that we are #14 on the list, of the other 13 families waiting for a referral if 10 of those families are only open to a girl (Remember, over 95% of adoptive families want a girl), and 3 want a toddler or older child. If they get in a referral for an infant boy, then since we are open to a child of either sex, we would get that referral. So even though, we may not be #1 on the list, we may get a refferal for a child before the actual family, who is #1 gets their referral.

Tomorrow, our agency is having a waiting families forum. They are having several adoptive parents, who recently adopted speak. It should be interesting and I am hoping to see one of the couples, we met at our education class and again at the adoption seminar last month, since I lost their e-mail address and would like to better keep in touch. Well, since this is a rather long post I'll go post it and talk to you all again soon.