Tet

Since Tet is upcoming, I have been wondering how we are going to celebrate it as a family. There are different festivals close to our house that we can go too also I think our agency is having something to celebrate the new year.

So, I'm wondering, do you plan on celebrating Tet? What types of things are you planning on doing?

Looks like Vietnam is already starting to get busy for tet.

whew, what a busy day. I had to give a demo at work today, so I was a little nervous about that. It went fine, nothing to worry about, yea! I hate doing presentations but the more I do them the more confident I feel in doing them.

Nothing new on the adoption front. Lately my heart just aches for any news on our paperwork.

We got our updated fingerprints :) so we are good until May 2007.

wonderful weekend

We had such a great weekend. The sun was out all weekend long, so we got some gardening done, worked around the house and went to a movie. I'm sure it will be the last movie in a theater we see in a long time. We saw Children of Men. If you like Science Fiction, type of movies it was great. I really liked it.

Thanks for all your thoughts on the last post, you guys are the best :)

I got an email about the pictures, I guess we are a little disappointed. We didn't get a reason why, just that we didn't get pictures, and we just got them a few weeks ago. The tone of the email didn't leave us with warm fuzzies either. I understand we just got pictures two weeks ago and don't get me wrong I really appreciate that, I know some families don't always get updates. BUT, why would they go to the exact orphanage and take pictures of one child and not the other, it just doesn't make sense, that family also got pictures two weeks ago. The girls where probably in the same room. So, we will just keep on waiting and stay focused on bringing our daughter home, and our extremely grateful for that.

mood swing

ok, remember how I was just saying I have been on a constant mood swing. Well here it is.

I'm really annoyed and sad. Another family from our orphanage got updated pictures yesterday. I don't understand why we didn't get any updated pictures. There are only 3 kids there for our agency. Why would they do that? Did they forget, that's sad. How could they forget to take pictures of our daughter? This is just makes me really upset.

Sun in Seattle, what?

There must be something wrong, it's friday, I have the afternoon off and the sun is out! I haven't been outside much lately so I've been doing some cleaning up and gardening today.

We got updated pictures last week, it had been a month so I was really really happy to get them. She is so cute, I cannot wait to go. This is such a emotional roller coaster. I feel like I'm in a constant mood swing. Overall I cannot wait until we go and am happy. I'm counting the days.

But who knows when we are actually going. Our agency keeps things really hush hush. I don't even know if we are in step 3 or not. I ask and am only told expect to travel in 4-5 months after referral. So, that's March - April. I'm ok with the beginning of March but I'm a little worried that there will be a huge backlog from Tet and we will be delayed. :(

I'm looking forward to the weekend, granted I cannot remember a time I wasn't looking forward to the weekend. But I'm really looking forward to this weekend! I think we are going to go to a movie and maybe some packing for Vietnam.

annoying waiting mommy emails

Ok, I have been stalking our agency director. I have been trying not to email her too much but I broke down and just sent a email, darn it. I couldn't take it any longer. Mind you, I just emailed her yesterday, darn. urg.

Gosh could you imagine being a social worker at one of the bigger agencies you must get sooo manny email all asking the same thing. I have to say I'm probably not the most patient. So hopefully she will forgive me.

btw, I was asking when we where going to get updated pictures. I have to laugh, I actually almost wrote "if you have any news on our paperwork I would be interested in that too". But I stopped myself, and didn't ask that :)

ho hum

Nothing really new to report. I've decided I need a new car, the hills in Washington mixed with snow are making it incredibly difficult for my poor little car to get home. Maybe later this year when I'm back to work after my leave I'll consider getting a new one, who knows.

I'm getting really unmotivated at work, this is a bad thing. I know my mind is else where but considering it will be a couple of more months before i go on leave I need to try to focus!

Oh, I almost forgot. We met another couple last year that was adopting from Vietnam, this weekend we met them for coffee and got to meet there little boy. He was so cute! It was nice to see someone who has made it through the whole process and has there little one at home!

winter

Do you like our new winter chair :)

Insanity at INS

Yesterday we went to INS to get our fingerprints updated. Yes this will be the 4th time I have been fingerprints, but who's counting. We got there to find out we had to pay 5.00 to park, slight irritation. Our appointment was for 9:00 we promptly arrived at 8:45am. We made a couple of big mistakes, so listen up for all those who need to do this. First, get coffee before you go, no they don't have coffee machines or anything that resembles coffee anywhere close by. Second take something to read, I know this sound like a no brainer but we didn’t think about it, dugh. We where there from 8:45-12:30 with an appoint. URG, I feel bad for people who have to deal with ins on a regular base. Oh, the best part. They spelt my husbands name wrong on the paperwork, so I went to the desk to ask who could fix this. The guy raised his voice and said "mama you have to make an appointment for that" I said I do have an appoint, he said I would have to make a separate appoint to get the name corrected. Mind you it was only an extra t in his name. Oh boy. We got it straightened out but boy oh boy I feel bad for all those dealing with INS. While we waited it was interesting to see all the different people, I just wanted to ask everyone where they are from and how they ended up in Seattle. But of course I didn't. I bet there are some really interesting stories there.

Later that day we went to babies-r-us and got one of the car seats we need, and bottles. This is one of the last big things we need so I'm happy to have it. We decided on the Eddie Bauer 3-In-1 Elite in pink of course

are we there yet?

I found out today our daughter paperwork is currently being reviewed in HCMC at the justice department. So, this is good. Does anyone know how long that takes?

Also, after that they 'send it back to Hanoi' does this mean physically mail it back or fax something? I'm just trying to get an idea of how long this takes.

I'm excited because really it's not that long until Tet and then we get to go :)

This weekend wasn't too exciting we worked on the bathroom, still and did some other things around the house.

March

I got this today, "You won't be traveling before Tet, we are pretty sure of that."

So, March. Some good things about traveling in March are, better flights, cheaper airfare, being in Vietnam for my birthday and getting to spend my time off closer to summer (better weather)

Anyone else looking at a March travel?

bathroom tiling

Tonight we (or should I say my husband, hehe) finished tiling the floor in the bathroom. Actually he's still up there, humm should I feel a little guilty for being down here not helping... nah

So, here's a sneak peak of the bathroom, takin from the mirror so not the best picture, but you can see the shower tile and the new bathtub. We still have to put the grout in but almost done, yea!



and just because he's too cute, a picture of my dog with his favorite stuffed animal.

are we there yet?

Still waiting, no updates. I need to get use to the idea of waiting until after Tet to travel. There is nothing I can do to make this change. So there it is, not I need to soak in it for a bit.

Last night I paid the deposit for daycare. I thought it was going to be a quick drop in and leave a check, I was there for 1 hour! It was really nice they gave me another tour, made a list of things I need to bring and answered a lot of questions. I was really happy to see there was even more diversity in the children then I had seen in our first visit. All the kiddos are so cute!

Since we are first time parents we are new to the whole parenthood club, and let me tell you I feel like an outsider. I seem to be clueless and a bunch of things and think everyone we meet knows we don't have kids yet, so automatic disassociation. I'm sure we will get past this initiation period and join the rest of you in parenthood bliss. I also hope it will be easier to meet people wants we are in the parenthood club.

new image, yea or nay?

OK, I must be really bored. I haven't really like the image I have been using for my profile, so I messed around a bit and came up with this:




so, what do you think yea or nay?

Did you notice? Look a little closer, to the right. 2 months down, yes we survived 2 months of waiting to travel. I don't know how we did, some days where easier than others. And now as we get a little closer it gets harder and harder. We have gotten no updates on our paperwork or travel news. I'm hoping we are closer but you can never tell. Some families from our agency got travel news with only 9 days notice to travel! That's really hard to prepare in 9 days! wow. I also think as we get closer and closer to Tet the airfare and flights will get more expensive and harder to find.

Rachel's family got provincial approval this week, yea!! So, if you haven't go congratulate them. It's really great to see families progress, what an amazing process.

Over the weekend my husband and I where very busy, we tiled the bathroom shower, almost done with the tile on the floor, picked up, put some items for sale on craigslist and my favorite picked out some clothes for our baby for when we travel. I know, I know the excitement never ends at our house, watch out! :)