Catching Up

• We've been busy as can be around here over the last couple of weeks. Surprisingly, nothing has occurred that is particularly blogworthy-hence the lack of posts.
• Two weekends ago, we had our annual children's program at church. Since I'm the president of that organization, you can imagine why I'm relieved to have it behind us. My children (all 40+ of them) did great, though, and I'm so proud of them.
• On the adoption front, here we sit on the 5th of the month and still have no concrete news as to what the CCAA will have to offer this month. Early rumors of a 5 day batch were depressing. Now the latest rumors of a possible 2 day batch make the original rumor seem like an early Christmas present. Funny how that works.
• I am famous for being a list maker. I've been working on a list of things that need to be done before we go to China and most of them can and should be done before we get our referral. I may share the list in the next post in case my paper list should mysteriously disappear. I'm disappointed and relieved at the same time to find that the shopping portion of the list is rather small.
• So, the election is finally over. My guy didn't win but I voted so I have earned the right to complain about it for the next 4 years.
• I actually have hobbies and interests that don't involve adoption. Shocker, I know. Soon my sidebar will reflect my addiction to bargain hunting, food storage and playing the coupon game with groceries. This, coming from the girl that would wait in the car with the seat reclined to avoid being seen at Target as a teenager.
• The weather here is finally down in the 70s during the day with overnight lows in the 40s. During the summers here, you feel as if you will never be cool again. I'm glad we do get the nice crisp weather, if only for a few weeks. It makes me start to crave turkey and pie!
• Last weekend as I was opening the blinds in the boys' room early in the morning, I noticed a creature in the wash that borders the east side of our home. At first I thought it was a dog, then thought it looked more like a cat. Then I realized that it was a cat that was the size of a dog-a Bobcat! We pulled chairs over to the window and watched it hunt quail for a few minutes. It was better than the discovery channel. Xander still talks excitedly about the day that we watched the 'bobblecat' outside his bedroom window.
• Halloween has thankfully come and gone. Taylor was a ghoul-type thing. Audrey was Alice in Wonderland, Noah was Indiana Jones and Xander was a dinosaur-really a dragon but we aren't going to spoil it for him. It seems like less and less families are participating in the event each year. In our neighborhood, the kids had to knock on about 5 doors to find one person home. Taylor was our official hander-outer and only counted about 40 trick-or-treaters at our doorstep. We usually have more than 100.
• The kids came home with their report cards last week. We have a monetary reward system in place and lets just say that Matt and I are officially broke. They all did really well and we are proud parents.
• Taylor had a boy scout court of honor last week where he earned the rank of Life. The next step for him is EAGLE! He has already earned all of the Eagle-required merit badges so he just has to complete his eagle project and let 6 months pass. He is researching the requirements for the project now and hopes that he will be able to do something to help the Humane Society. His goal has been to earn his Eagle earlier than his dad did-which he is on track to do. He recently announced though that his new goal will be to earn each of the merit badges by the time he is 18. I think there are 205 so we have some work to do!