Happy Valentine's Day & 14 months

Well, Valentine's Day has come and gone. And we have officially been waiting 14 months since we were logged into China on December 14, 2005. We actually started the whole adoption process back in July of 2005!

How much longer? Who knows! Looking at the rate of referrals we probably have about 4 more months before we see our daughter's picture.

Happy Valentine's Day & 14 months

Well, Valentine's Day has come and gone. And we have officially been waiting 14 months since we were logged into China on December 14, 2005. We actually started the whole adoption process back in July of 2005!

How much longer? Who knows! Looking at the rate of referrals we probably have about 4 more months before we see our daughter's picture.

11 months

Well, as of tomorrow (November 14th), we will have hit the 11th month of our wait. How much longer? Who knows!

The CCAA has filled referrals up to August 25th of 2005.

Kim and I have had our last Hepatitis A & B shots. So we are good with that. Unfortunately, we now have to redo some paperwork. And that means repay for them! :(

We were refingerprinted back in October because our fingerprints had expired. Go figure, your fingerprints can expire!

We'll check everyone posted.

Keith

Review Room

Well, we are out of the review room! For those of you who do not know, the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) must review your documents. At this time, they may ask for more information, clarification on some items, or just flat out deny your request to adopt. With that being said, we have made it out of the Review Room!

So, now we wait to be matched with our daughter! How long will that take? Who know! CCAA has fill referrals for people with a log in date of August 9, 2005. Our log in date is December 14, 2005.

We'll keep everyone posted.

Still Waiting

Well, the CCAA has sent out referrals for people with a log-in date of July 13th. We are still holding onto the hope that we will receive our referral in December! God will!

Not much new here. Kim is about to start another school year. She's going to be tired for a few weeks! Oh, the house we are building is coming along. Hopefully, it will be completed, so we can decorate Kinsley room.

In the time being, check out a video at Youtube.com.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=flJI_IW5-jM

These two little girls are cute! ! !

This kinda makes us wish we had asked for twins!

Gotta go!
Keith

Still Waiting/Fundraising Update

Not much to report. The CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) has sent out referrals (matched families up to babies) for people logged into their system by June 28th of 2005. Remember, we were logged in on December 14, 2005.

We are hoping to get referral by Christmas this year! That would put us traveling around February of next year.

On the fundraising side, we are getting pretty close to having what we need. Unfortunately, with the longer wait time, we will have to have some documents updated, so this actually adds to the overall cost of adoption.

If it's not one thing, it's another! Oh well!

Happy 4th of July!

Shower Cake

Kim's students threw us a baby shower around the end of the school year. We got a lot of cute stuff! It's funny because we don't know what we will need but the gifts we got sure look like they will come in handy!

One of the parents made us a cake for the shower and it was adorable! Now, keep in mind that this parent has had no formal cake training! Everything on the cake was edible except for the little baby (who is Asian). The funny part about the little baby is that when the covers were removed, she was wearing pink pajamas and her little bottom was showing!

Kim was glad that her student's didn't see that or she would have lost control of her class from all the laughter! ! !

6 Months Down

When we started the adoption process last July, we were told that it took 5-6 months from LID (Log In Date) to Referral. If that was still true, then Kim and I would be getting our referral this month! But alas, China has slowed down. Our LID was 12/14/05. CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) has only given out referrals for people with an LID of June 15, 2005.

We are now hoping to get our referral in November or December of this year. That would make our wait from LID to referral be about 11-12 months!

With the longer wait, Kim and I could actually do another 1/2 Marathon!

Marathon Complete!

Well, Kim and I finished the marathon! We were shooting for a time of 3 hours and 20 minutes. We finished in 3 hours and 6 minutes! ! ! That's almost a 14 minute mile!

Here we are about to start the marathon!

We got to the Titan's Colesium at 5:30 am the morning of the marathon. This was where the marathon ended. We took a shuttle to where the marathon was going to start. There was tons of people around everywhere! It was like a sea of people! Of course, I had to hit the port-o-john. I waited in line for a long time!

With that out of the way, we got in our corral and waited for the start of the race. Finally it was time for our corral to start the race! It was a bit surreal-here we are about to walk 13.1 miles!

If you have never walked a 1/2 marathon, then I highly suggest it. It was a lot of fun! There were people cheering us on. They would hold us signs to encourage us. Here are some of the signs I remember:

"We know a shortcut!"
"Think you're sore now, Wait until tomorrow!"
"Fart, it makes you run faster!" -------(this was my personal favorite! ! ! !)

The runners/walkers were just as fun. There was one girl who stayed around us for a while who wore a large colorful sombrero the whole way! There was a group of guys running with a small cooler filled with beer! Their shirts said, "Miles ran...Beers drank." I don't know how many beers they consumed or if they even finished the marathon! ! !



Kim was doing great but it really hit me at mile marker 10! I felt like I could not push any harder and I just wanted to stop. But Kim keep me going! As we were coming to the finish line, Kim and I held hands and finished the 1/2 marathon!

My legs felt like lead! Kim, I believe, could have walked more! ! !

Oh, we did see a little Chinese adopted girl (about 3 years old) standing on the side of the street with her father, watching the marathon. I looked at her and gave her a smile and waved and she smiled and waved back! My heart about melted! ! !

Talk about motivation! ! !