Halle-freakin'-luia!!!!

It FINALLY came! The I-171H arrived in the mail today-Happy Birthday to me!!! If you are following along, you may have noticed that I have been out of the blogging loop lately. That is partially because we were busy with the holidays and out of town visiting family in California and partially because I had nothing on my mind but the fact that that piece of paper had not yet arrived. I received a few e-mails after my last post that put my woes in perspective so I just couldn't continue with my rant-I just couldn't think of anything else to post either...


Anyway, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!! We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas this year. I was so proud of my children. In an effort to simplify life and concentrate on the true meaning of the holiday, we scaled things down quite a bit from last year. The kids were happy and so thankful for what they received. Taylor said, "Man, we're spoiled!" and Audrey couldn't stop saying thank you. That evening was spent cleaning, doing laundry and packing for the trip to CA the next day. I don't think that we will plan to leave on a trip the day after Christmas ever again!

We had a great time in CA. We went to the beach and walked around and had lunch- even though it was overcast and had been raining. We visited the Pacific Asia Museum, went to the LDS temple in Newport Beach, visited Matt's brother Todd and family and had dinner with Jenn's brother James and family. We brought Audrey's Karaoke along and sang probably more than we should have. Debbie got us all hooked on fresh ground, whole grain flour and fresh rolled oats (Did you know that oats don't come the way we see them in the Quaker container?; they look like rice until they are rolled flat.) It looks like my birthday money will go toward purchasing a grain mill, oat roller and a Bosch for making bread dough. It is pricey but a good investment for our family. We had turkey for New Year's Eve and Matt and I creamed the pants off of everyone at "Tribond" at Jennie's house. Of course, we also ate our way through Southern
California as usual.


The past week has been spent readjusting to reality. Last night we had a babysitter and Matt took me to Pei Wei(an asian diner) for my birthday. While we were eating, we noticed a family walk in-a grandma and a grandpa and a mom and dad with their newborn Chinese daughter. She was adorable but watching them made me sad-sad that Meili will not be raised in family where she would physically "blend in" and for the feelings that she may or may not have about that. Also sad that I will never see her or hold her when she is that young. We will both miss out on so much. But, we will have so much as well and that is what to focus on, I suppose. We joked that someday we will bring "Mei-mei to eat at Pei Wei"...oh well, it was funny last night. We also went to see Memoirs of a Geisha, which turned out to be better than reviews had led me to believe.

Today's highlight was of course receiving the I-171H. It arrived at 1:01 p.m. and our bank closed at 1:00, of course. I did find a branch a bit further away that stayed open until 4:00 on Saturdays so I was able to rush off and have a copy notarized. We are going to add a few photos to our dossier documents (realized that the pictures need to each have at least one adoptive parent in them and a few that we had set aside just had the kids) and send them all off to our agency on Monday. The I-171H is the only document in the current mailing that will need to be certified and authenticated. That could be done in just a few weeks-we plan to hire a courier to walk it through the last stop at the Chinese Embassy in LA. A January DTC is still possible, but a February DTC is much more likely-especially if Chinese New Year means a shut-down at the embassy.

So those will be the next few (and last few) hurdles until our paperwork goes to China. After that, I wasn't sure what or if I would continue to blog. However, since the referral wait times are fluctuating so much, I thought it would be a good thing to journal our daily happenings to be able to look back and see what we were up to at the time of our daughter's birth.

Another thing that I will be doing to pass the time while we wait for our daughter is training to become an Adoption Home Study Case Manager. Can you believe it??? I have gone from dreading my own home study to getting ready to provide them for other people! How weird is that??? I am actually very excited about being involved in helping other families prepare to bring their children home. Besides, I think and talk about adoption all day long. I might as well put the effort to good use and earn a little while doing it. We could use the extra $ as we prepare to travel. Know anyone in the Tucson area that needs a homestudy???