August is out of review!!

This means we are for sure in the review room! Prayers that our paperwork gets through review without having to redo anything. This is a case where "no news is good news" and hopefully the only thing we'll hear is when the CCAA updates their website saying that they have finished review of Sept. 2006 LIDs...hopefully in the next month or so!!

Have a great weekend!!

Happy Belated Moon Festival!

Oops, yesterday was the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival...and we sort of forgot, guess you could say we weren't feeling quite as "moony" as we were last October. This time last year we celebrated with our moms by enjoying some good Chinese food and some not-so-good mooncakes. We'll mark our calendars for next year and go with moon pies instead of mooncakes!!!

We're both on vacation this week and just enjoying some downtime! We went to a matinee yesterday and saw 3:10 to Yuma - it was really good! Basically we're just doing a whole lot of nothin' and loving every minute of it!!

Welcome baby Emma!!

Congrats to Kevin & Mandy who welcomed their first child into the world yesterday morning! Little Miss Emma made her debut at 9:08 in the morning, weighing 5lbs. 14oz. Our Sunday school class has gone baby crazy...it will be so much fun for all the kiddos to grow up together!

On a separate note - Programming Reminder: Survivor China premiers tonight at 7pm!

Hope you all have a great finish to the week!

Wii for Wednesday

Okay, so we don't have a Wii, but we love the song on the commercial. Here are the actual musicians behind the song. Wii love this song.

Happy Friday

Has this been a long week, or what!?! We hadn't seen much of each other this week, so last night we had a great evening at home consisting of carry-out sushi from Haruno (we're convinced we could live on the Miami Roll!!), a walk with the dogs, an ice cream run, and catching up on the last 2 weeks of Top Chef. It was nice to see each other for a change and have a relaxing evening at home!

Here's your Friday Fun Video. This is pretty much the cutest thing we've ever seen... What a little actress!

ONE YEAR!!

As of today our dossier has been logged in one whole year! It's funny how your perspective changes...last summer we could hardly imagine waiting a year (remember we thought we'd be traveling this fall), now we've conquered a year and are preparing to take on another one or two.

To give you a sense of how much things have slowed down on the China adoption front, the CCAA has completed only four months of referrals in the past year. Also, September’s referrals arrived earlier this month, and they covered a measly four days worth of dossiers (November 22-25, 2005). That means the folks who just received their referrals waited a little over 21 months. There are a little over nine months of dossiers ahead of us.

On the brighter side, July 2006 LIDS are out of the review room and August 2006 LIDS are being reviewed by the CCAA right now. This means our dossier will be entering the review room in the next month or so. Hopefully, we’ll get past review in the next couple months without needing to redo any paperwork . The danger is that depending on the nature of the paperwork, having to redo stuff could mean losing your place in line by a month or more. Our dossier should be in good shape though, our agency does a very thorough review before sending it to China.

Greg has class tonight, but we're planning on some serious sushi eating tomorrow night to celebrate reaching the 1 year mark. Yes, we know sushi isn't Chinese, but we extend our celebration dining to all kinds of Asian cuisine. :-) Hope you all have a great week.

Love,

Greg and Laura

Aunt & Uncle Times Two!!

Introducing the newest addition to the family, Katherine Elise, who came into the world on Wednesday, September 5th. Greg's sister, Julie, gave birth to this beautiful and very healthy 9lb 4oz baby girl at 7:45 in the morning... just in time for breakfast!

Mother and baby are doing well, and are due to come home sometime on Saturday. Congratulations to Brad, Julie, and big brother Nathan!

Uncle Greg with Baby Katie

Nathan doing his best "baby crying" impression,
as he tells Aunt Laura about his new little sister