Odds and Ends

• Just came back from a Chinese banquet put on by my Mandarin instructor at a new Chinese restaurant across town. It was an 8 course authentic adventure in Chinese cuisine and delicious! Let's just say that I'll eat just fine in China. I ate duck and lived. And serving yourself some fish while it is staring at you is really not that big of a deal... A new favorite is Cong You Bing. It's a green onion-pancake type thing-sold on the street in China apparently and a popular breakfast item in Taiwan.
• I start another 10 week Mandarin course next Thursday. My skillz have gotten rusty and I need to get back into the swing of things before we go to China. The good news is that the native Chinese that we were eating with tonight told me that my pronunciation is very good-there's hope!
• Last week we went to HIGH SCHOOL orientation for Taylor (We're officially old...), Jr. High orientation for Audrey, and registered Xander for Kindergarten. Our kids are going to be spread out over three schools next year. Add a new baby to the mix and it's going to be wild. (I can't wait!) Xander was asked to count to 100 at the registration to which he replied, "Would you like me to count by 10's or 1's?" I think he's going to be just fine... We are waiting to see if he will have full day Kindergarten or if they will have to scale back to half day to pare down the budget.
• Taylor is participating in Track this quarter. Today they had a clinic at the high school. A couple of coaches there asked Taylor for his name. He thought he was in trouble but they wanted to recruit him for Cross Country and Track at the high school next year. He's very excited!
• Audrey has announced that she wants to play volleyball. This is the first time that she has shown interest in a sport. I think she'll do great-If she stays on her current growth curve, she'll be 6' one day! We have a net set up in the back yard and she's been practicing every day. I would love to enroll her in volleyball camp this summer but still can't say for sure when we'll be in China. In fact, we can't really enroll any of the kids in anything this summer while we are in China limbo.
• Noah officially starts his baseball season this weekend. It's going to be fun to watch his games!
• On the adoption front, it looks like it's another whopping two day batch this month. That leaves just two LIDs to go before they get to us. I seriously thought that I was mentally prepared to not be in this batch but I was surprised at how upset I was at the news. Part of me REALLY wanted to be in the same batch as my March 7th and 8th blog friends. I think that makes it a bit worse-feels like the party of the century is about to happen and I'm not invited. I've had a bad two days but I'm ready to suck it up for another month. It doesn't change the fact that I'm truly happy for those who are about to see their babies' faces for the first time next week. Besides, we're NEXT!!!
• I have great friends and family. Many have called to see if we are 'in' or not this month even though they were afraid to ask. A mom of one of Audrey's friends hung her head (and half of her body) out of her car window in the drive-thru line at Mc D's yesterday just to yell, "Any news about your baby?!!!" I'm grateful that so many are still along for the ride with us.
• I'm also grateful that April of 2009 will go down in history as the busiest month we've ever had. We've got Easter, two birthdays, a baptism, two sets of houseguests, cub scouts, baseball games, two school field trips, Mandarin class, and the list goes on. It should certainly help pass the time until the next batch of referrals come out. Did I mention that we're NEXT???