The Face to Melt a Million Hearts...

Here is the face that both warms my heart and brings to to tears...

This is the face that launched us on this long jump leap of faith...

This is the face that haunted me for for five months...

This is the face that is the cause of the messy papers on my desk...

Why men should NOT be allowed to watch late night TV...

Yes, this is what my DH (and in this case the dear is replaced with delirious) bought watching a late night informercial. A $800 cleaning system that is SO LARGE that it requires its own closet.
Yes some fools actually to buy things off the TV and it appears I am married to one. Of course this purchase was made at 3am and without any input from Moi. Was he delirious, insane from lack of sleep or really really really gullible.... God... I'm waiting for an answer...please
Our modest home only has carpet in three small areas. Yes, that means 85% of the flooring in our home is wood. The carpeted part was installed when we bought the home four years ago as a temporary fix until we installed the hardwoods. So one can imagine my surprise when he tells me he bought a $800 rug cleaning system. First off, there is only one section of our rug that needs cleaned as the others are covered with area rugs. The area that gets dirty is small enough to be cleaned with a simple treatment of resolve. Knowing that we are installing new floors - this area did not bother me and I simply covered it with another area rug and out of sight was out mind.
So when the wildebeest arrives, the FedEx guy notices the package and tells me to call him when we are ready to return the item. He stated that he used to clean rugs for a living and that these rug doctors machines are notorious for leaking and being returned. Great...
Right now the machine has been with us for two months. The carpet is still dirty and the "system" has yet to be used.

First Care Package off to Changzhou China

Oh yes before we left for Mendocino, we took two care packages to the post office for HooHaa. In one package we sent him a super soft fuzzy transformer blanket (tobbers picked it). I went so far as to write his name on it in permanent marker. I sure hope I wrote it right and did not write something that translates into "lucky food happy cheap" God knows we have enough of those places in town.
In his second package I enclosed a photo album introducing him to us and our house. A shirt, some cars that tobbers picked out from his special stash, some candy, an alphabet book and some dinosaurs.
They say it takes ten days to arrive in china. His packages should arrive around the first of August. This will be his and his caretakers first knowledge that he has a family waiting for him. Unless a care package is sent, the orphanage, the nannies and the children do not know they have a "family" until a couple weeks before adoption dates are sent which end up being about five - eight months from approval. That long time period can be used to help the child transition into preparing for a family. We hope and pray that he will be excited about joining ours.

A lovely greeting when I got home.

We came home yesterday to a lovely greeting aka Fed Ex package from Washington DC - YES in deed it is the infamous Fargo ND notarized, certified, authenticated, stamped and sealed Birth Certificate! Yeah! One down one hundred more to go...or so it seems. Only nine more to do before it is all sent off to China. Good news is all of the others can be authenticated here in the big tomato and then sent off to San Francisco for the Chinese certificates.
This new seal from the DC embassy sure looks funny. It is nothing like the one we got from two years ago. I sure hope it is the right one. How can I tell.. It is all Chinese to me...

New Photos of HooHaa!

Amazing...a woman who is also adopting a child from the Changzhou orphanage in Jiangsu received some updated photos of her daughter. She noticed from the SWI yahoo group that we too were working our way to HooHaa. Today she emailed us a wonderful surprise of photos that have HooHaa in the background. I cannot tell you how exciting that is! Photos of our handsome guy. I really love the photo of him dancing...yep he will fit into our family just fine.

Photo 1 - second in from front - grey sweatshirt

Photo 2 -second in backgroud to the left

Photo 3 - left hand corner

Photo 4 - farthest right hand corner in blue short

Photo 5 - left hand cornder second up

A little post about China Geography

People often ask...What part of China do you go to? Where is MeiMei from? Where is Hoo Haa from? What is the distance between the two areas? So I thought I would share a little bit of China Geography with you.

MeiMei is a southern belle from the autonomous region of Guangxi which is located in the south east part of China. It borders Vietnam. MeiMei hails from Wuzhou China which is located on the Guangdong/Guangxi border.

HooHaa is also a coastal kiddo and some from Jiangsu Province which is in the central coast of China. HooHaa resides in Changzhou which is about 90 minutes northwest of Shanghai.

We are very fortunate to know that both kids have lived in orphanages that have Half the Sky ( http://www.halfthesky.org ) sponsored programs and funding. More about that later.

Back in Black

Yep she's back and she work'in for black---entertainment that is... KC is home from her Disney Stint and tour of High School Musical. From what we gathered there was no dancing involved for her. KC's speciality??? you ask? Herding cattle, er auuhh I mean, "talent" and hanging out with celebrities so they do not get lonely or somthing like that...

One never knows what happens in the "business" guess its has a lot in common with Vegas. What happens in tinsel town stays in tinsel town or at least until the paparazzi gets a photo of it and sells it to a tabloid.

Here is our KC hanging out with a celebrity we actually know...Ok Ok, so I mean the kids and I know. Daddy-O spends wayyyy too much time reading people magazine and knows all the celebrities Team B (Linjit and KC) rub elbows with....who he knows is a little frightening to me.

Oh my God I'm Middle Aged!

Okay so after dropping off the medical forms at Kaiser I thought I would swing by the Mall since it is only one block away. I figured I would treat myself to finding a new perfume to wear. I have made a conscientious decision to use up all that I have and or give away those that give me headaches to others. Since I am down to the bottom of the sold bottle left. The time seemed right.

So I found myself walking in the mall when a huge red sign caught my attention. A very large sign that said 70% off. Now that is my kind of sale! So I walked in the store (one I had never been in before) and looked around at the clothes. I was quite surprised that here was the store that I have walked by numerous times and never noticed how cute their clothes were. The store was easy to navigate, well organized but colors and outfits, had tons of coordinating items and was reasonably priced. How could I have not known about this place I thought to myself?

I eased over to the sale rack and started looking at things and found a dozen or so items to try on. As I walked into the dressing area I was greeted by the sweetest frail elderly woman that I just did not feel right handing her my heavy load of clothes. She cheerfully waited on me and took my discards. I was just amazed with my new found store. I grabbed the three clearance items and headed back out in the cashier....when I noticed something....

Yes, I looked... and again and did a double take.... I WAS THE YOUNGEST PERSON IN THE STORE. Oh my god... I was shopping in a store for middle aged women who take cruises and listen to smooth jazz... and I liked it...aughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I quickly bought my two pairs of shorts and my white shirt and exited the store before anyone could see me and ditched around the corner and into Banana Republic.

I am NOT middle aged...I am NOT middle aged...I am NOT middle aged...

Medical Update

Yes, I did it! I took all five medical forms and dropped them off at Kaiser to be filled out. I do not know why this part of the dossier has me so bothered. I suspect it is my lack of trust with the bureaucracy of Kaiser. I am going to keep my fingers crossed that we get them all signed and back to me next week.

Two steps forward...one step...

Oh yeah....I'm still in the same place and have not moved. It is Monday and I public went on record to say that this week I will tackle the Medical Forms. I have emailed the kids pediatrician for their medical reports for the home study and I have contacted kaiser to find out how best to get the forms completed. I downloaded their fancy little form that must accompany our agency medical forms and will hand carry the medical form for DH and the Yahoos tomorrow.
Myself on the other hand am going to need to set up an appointment and pay all over again to see my useless MD. I need to have all new lab runs which is a bunch on stinky BUNK.
Good Ole North Dakota sent their package back today with a fresh secty of the state authentication. I Fed Exed off DH's birth certificate to the assistant stork this afternoon and should have it back from DC and the Chinese Embassy late next week. This is the only document that requires an out of state certification and authentication process.
Tonight we will tackle the financial statement and employment letters.

Social Worker Home Visit ... Check

We had our Social Worker home visit today. She met with DH and I and all three of the yahoos. Since she was just here in January completing MeiMei's one year post adopt visit, we only have to do an update Home Study report. I started reading of the the new Hague compliant I800 form and must say it is a little intimidating. Sure which we could use the old form we used for MeiMei.

So we still have to get the MD forms completed for everyone and the financial statements done before they will release our Home Study to us and the USCIS so....I'd better get my rear in gear and get those forms sent off to Kaiser next week. Yes, folks I have put it in print and so now I must do it!

I will get the MD forms completed next week....

I will get the MD forms completed next week...

I will get the MD forms completed next week.

I've just started gathering information on HooHaa's part of China. Here is a photo taken from his home town of ChangZhou in Jiangsu province which is about an hour to so Shanghai. I will post more photos about his region in future posts.

Huh...I thought CA was supposed to fall into the ocean...

Not burn down into nothing! Good heavens it appears that this whole darn state is ablaze. This is not good folks. I know I know not everyone is fond of Californians and keeps thinking this state is going to fall off into the ocean or something for all of its debauchery....but hey fires?
It was 110 degrees today and with terrible visibility. It looked like it was December in the fog. The smoke was so thick that I could not see the buildings downtown that are only about four miles away. Yep it is that bad....
110 degrees and tomorrow is it supposed to be hotter. I do not know how it can get any hotter....110 is darn hot in my book. Oh yes and did I mention our AC is NOT working.... Ah thank goodness for Spanish adobe homes. Those old Spaniards knew what they were doing....
Good night I am going to jump in the pool and go to sleep in my wet clothes.

Fargo here we go again....

Okay so maybe sometimes I am not the sharpest tool in the shed... Geeeze...one would think with with two under grad degrees and a masters degree --- I mean hey I did go to Stanford...that must count for something!!--- that I would manage to find my way out of a paper bag on any given moment....well when it comes to that darn thing called dossier, I seem to forget how to read and understand the most simplest of details.
So I had to resend DH's birth certificate back to North Dakota to have it certified by the secty of state. I had sent it to DC first....oops... forward one step back two steps.
On the lighter side of things, Tobbers had his tooth filled today (okay for lighter for me not him) and spend the rest of the day hanging with me. We bought HooHaa a little photo album that we will use to introduce ourselves. We sent a similar book to MeiMei and it was very clear that she was used to looking at the book and knew who we were. It did not take ten minutes after arriving home from the airport that she took off outside to go play on the swing set in the back yard. We hope that this new album will have a similar affect with HooHaa.
Oh yes, Tobbers survived the dentist and the filling and crown. He is not happy about it ---the crown that is--- but he pulled through it like a trouper. He is counting down the days till the tooth with the crown falls out.

Gimme a P....Gimme an A

What's that spell? PA! that's right PA!
The ladybug was right! We got the call today that our formal Pre Approval for HooHaa has been granted. We have pre approval from the People Republic of China to adopt HooHaa. Yeah..... We have been waiting 42 days and it arrived today. So what does this mean? Well for starters it means he not available to anyone else and that we had better get our dossier dusted off and updated to send off to CCAA ASAP.





We are meeting with our social worker this Friday for the homestudy update. I need to send off the medical forms and file the new I800 form. Hummm guess I need to make a big list...yep a big list and check it twice. So it has been a long wait but here he is... Introducing the newest and final member of our crazy household... HooHaa.

Yeah! more photos to follow. Off to go make the list for his first care package ...yeah....yeah.....yeah....yeah...

Lady Bug Spotting in the Big T!

Yep you read it right! We have a Lady Bug Spotting here in the Big Tomato and it landed on Noleys head! I'm hoping that this means that our PA is on its way from China!

Happy 4th! America we salute you!

We had out annual block party here for the 4th. Since we live on a deadend street it makes it pretty easy to take over the street and block it off so the kids can have a parade and the adults can place the tables in the street. We start the day with the HUGH East Sac Parade and then head back home to set up for the street party.

Tobbers in his usual fashion starts off the event with his salute to america---as you can see in the photo. The kids pitched in and raised $7 dollars to buy fireworks for the party. They have yet to figure out that they cost over $100. But hey its the thought that counts...

Happy Fourth!