Dossier's On The Move!

Well, the Fed Ex storks are on the move again! The CCAA has sent out another batch of referrals! Congratulations to all of you receiving good new from afar! Those of us who still have a long wait ahead will now begin our search for new little faces on your blogs! (It's what keeps us sane) :)

Precious Gifts

I hope everyone had a very filling and relaxing Thanksgiving Holiday. I have thoroughly enjoyed mine. We had a great time at Dan's family gathering which included playing Bocce Ball (lawn bowling) and visiting with family and playing with my baby nephew Nicolas. Friday we met Steph and Drew Wise in Prescott, AZ. and had a GREAT time! What awesome people! Saturday we had Thanksgiving with my side of the family and had such a fun time. Watching my nephew Gavin grow up before our eyes! He said my name for the first time! Ugh, your heart just melts! :)

I bought a new camera as well, since my other broke. Pictured here are the other gifts my awesome secret pal got for me this month. The chopsticks have little bunnies on them! I will cherish these gifts forever.

This posting is titled "Precious Gifts" because that is truly how I feel about my family, friends, and life...I am so blessed.

The Summit Challenge Was Awesome!

We are so sore we can barely walk, but we had so much fun! :) We conquered seven summits! The weather was beautiful and hanging with new friends was a lot of fun. Since I broke my camera I am sending a few pic's from others. Don't look for me, because I'm not in any of these. I will send some of our group later. The whole thing was timed and we had 30 minutes to get to our last mountain and I felt like we were on the Amazing Race show. :) We sped up to the parking and ran to the ranger to be checked in at 3:25 we had until 3:30. He said, sorry, You've missed the cut off. We said, oh no we didn't! We showed him our paperwork and he said to go ahead he had thought the cut off was 2:30. We than had 30 minutes to get our passports stamped at the top. We went up just in time. Yeah! We saw some pretty crazy hikers on our way, some with blood coming down their nose and arms and legs and hiking ahead in a daze...I thought, gosh, this isn't the Olympic Trials! Our group just had fun. On the second day Dan and I duck taped our feet to cover the blisters, it worked really well and was cheap. Just and FYI for the hikers out there. :)

Well, I haven't posted much lately and just wanted to post a little about what I've been up to. Dan and I said, this was our Great Wall training! :)

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Thank You to My Wonderful Secret Pal!

My Secret Pal is simply the sweetest, most thoughtful secret pal in the world! :) I came home tonight to find these wonderful gifts in the mail. I received the gifts pictured above and also a pink, extremly soft, blanket with "I Love Mommy" embroidered on it. I also received a pink, ceramic bowl with bunnies on it and a pair of little chopsticks with bunnies! She also sent the most beautiful handmade card!

I only wish I could include pictures of these as well. I was taking pictures of all my wonderful gifts and I dropped my camera... and it broke. :(
I am so bummed right now. These may be the last pictures I take with my first digital camera! Dan is going to take it to Best Buy and see if it can be fixed.

By the way, sorry it's been awhile since my last post. I've been working long days and life is staying pretty busy! We do the Phoenix Summit Hike this weekend! I was hoping to post pictures...bad timing for the camera to break!

Thank you so much Secret Pal. I really appreciate all your gifts. They mean so much.

It's Anniversary # 8!!

Wow, this last month has flown by! I actually had to be reminded by Stephanie that it's our 8 month LID Anniversary today! Yeah!

Starbuck's In China!

I was just browsing blogs of families who are in China now and came across this picture. Yes! They have Starbucks in China! I feel so much better about the trip now. :)

A Little Hiking With Friends

Phoenix Summit Challenge


Oh my gosh...my husband is trying to kill me. Of course, not literally, but he has signed us up for this Phoenix Summit Challenge. He introduced it to me a month ago as, "Do you want to go hiking with some friends as part of this REI trip? You climb 7 mountains over 2 days." I thought, sure, I love to hike.

Last weekend he mentioned how our friends (his co-workers) had been training for this Summit Challenge. I say..training? What do you mean training? He says oh, nothing, they've just been meeting and doing some small hikes to get ready. I then started to question this little hiking weekend. I asked him to bring home the information they gave him. I hadn't seen that information yet, so I went online and researched myself. .....It's a TIMED 7 Summit Challenge with meetings in the mornings and "debriefing's" at night! Holy Cow!! We get passports that we have to have stamped at each summit. The first mountain is 7 miles followed by 2 others that include straight up 1 mile jaunts. Then we start out again the next morning at 7 a.m. for 4 more! I have to work Monday morning. :0 aggghhh!

So, last night we went for a hike at one of the mountains. Now, here is where the killing thing comes into place. We are already training for a Marathon. My legs are very tired to say the least. So, I start to go up this mountain fast because I want to see if I'm going to be able to stay up with my group who has been training. I was almost to the summit and seriously..almost passed out. I had to sit and put my feet up! I was seeing black spots! This has never happened before. I am now nervous as heck for this Challenge that is only 2 weeks away!

So, tomorrow, we are setting out again to do another one of the mountains. Please pray for me!! :)

Oh, and next Friday, we are going on a two-hour horse-back ride with another group from his work. He informed me of this last night. I am just laughing now. I really can't wait until he is a stay-at-home daddy. :)

P.S. please don't read this out of context. I love my husband dearly, he is my best friend. He just cracks me up sometimes. :)

Unswervingly

The wait can be deafening at times. Some days I am totally fine and other days doubt creeps in. I was reading a China-research article the other night about the Hunan baby trafficking that occurred and after reading it, I felt really confused about what we were doing. I was questioning whether we were on the right path, etc. etc. I then went to bed and as my head hit the pillow and I stared at the ceiling I asked God, "What am I doing? Am I doing your will?"

I then picked up a devotional book on the nightstand. I opened it and the page automatically fell to a page I had marked earlier: "4/4/06--regarding adoption, finances, the future. I claim this verse." The verse is as follows:

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23.

I had underlined unswervingly twice. :) I just smiled and knew my answer. Yes, we are on the right path and we must stay unswervingly to that path!

New From Our Agency

The following is more information regarding the recent referrals sent out. Two sets of twins! Wow! Here is what Marianne, our AZ. agent said:

Children’s Hope International (CHI) is proud to announce that we received 28 China referrals on Thursday 11/2/06 for 26 CHI families with 8/11/05, 8/18/05 and 8/25/05 log in dates. One of the referrals is for a Chinese expedited family with a 1/6/06 log in date. All the referrals are little girls including TWO SETS of twins!! The referrals range in age from 7 to 12 months, one 14 month old, one 15 month old and one 3 year old. The children are from the Guangdong and Jiangxi provinces. Four of the referrals were for AZ. families. We expect the families to travel in about 8 weeks.



This batch of China referrals were from August 10, 2005 through August 25, 2005 log in dates. For these families, the wait from log in date to referral was 15 months.



Congratulations again to these blessed CHI families and everyone who moved up in line for referrals!

So, our wait is officially up to 15 months now. We are 7 months into that wait.

The Silence is Over

Congratulations to all of you who will be receiving your referrals very soon! Yeah!!