A Neat Blog to Pass the Time...

No, there's no news. But I came across a really great blog. A Chicago Tribune reporter is currently in China adopting her baby. You can check out her blog at www.chicagotribune.com/adoption. For those of you wondering how the whole things works, this is really well written blog. Hopefully some actual news by the end of the week...

LID Anniversary

So, yesterday we hit the nine month mark in our wait. Blech. Elephants have shorter pregnancies than I'm having.

Anyways, I've been trying to figure out a way to mark our LID anniversary each month. Something that's fun and helps with the wait. One of my online friends buys a new outfit each month, another buys something for the nursery each month. The best idea I heard was going to a movie each month on your LID anniversary. It's hard to wrap your brain around waiting for 12 more months, but going to see 12 movies sounds a little bit manageable. So I'm marking our LID anniversary by buying a Disney DVD each month. For this month, I bought "Robin Hood." A great movie, and a special movie for me and my dad. (he used to take me to see all the Disney movies when I was little) I'm glad that I'll have a great library of movies for our daughter (and yes, I'm going to enjoy them until we bring her home!), and buying 12 more movies seems like something I can do.

Inching Ever so Slightly Closer...


So a little bit of good news...referrals came out this week for those who were logged in on or before September 27, 2005. The CCAA got through 18 days of LIDs this month...a few more than the past few months. So this could very well be a good sign. It definitely means that we move up in line just a little bit. Sadly, they didn't update the review room stats...hopefully they will do that soon.

I came across a really cool adoption website as well called Bright Outlooks. If you click on their referral calculator, it will do the math for you about when you could possibly get your referral. If the CCAA could keep up the pace of 18 days of LIDs per month, we would get our referral 12/27/07. Sure, it's another 12 months of waiting, but it would mean a referral in 2007. You can play with numbers though...for example, if they could pick up the pace by just 2 days a month (20 days of LIDs a month), that would get us a referral a full month earlier. If you want to play with the math, our LID is 4/17/06...just remember to set it to "just playing" so your guess doesn't get figured in to their data.

Happy New Year


And you ask me what I want this year
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
'Cause I don't need boxes wrapped in strings
And desire and love and empty things
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days

So take these words
And sing out loud
'Cause everyone is forgiven now
'Cause tonight's the night the world begins again
--Goo Goo Dolls

2007 will be our year. I can just FEEL it. 2006 ended with a bang. We had a fantastic trip to California...have you ever seen a cuter niece & nephew? :) And after an eventful flight home, we celebrated New Years Eve with friends in what we hope will become a new tradition...jammies, party games, and root beer floats! (we're wild, I know!) Keep your fingers crossed for us...hopefully by 2008 we'll have our little girl home!