Friday, June 29, 2007

10 Things You May or May Not Know About Troy and I

I thought I would post something fun today as it is Friday!! So without further ado...

10 Things You May or May Not Know About Troy and I

1. We met in March 1996, were engaged in June 1996 and married in October (yep you guessed it) 1996.
2. We both love to fish. He didn’t believe me when I told him I loved to fish until I outfished him on our first fishing trip together.
3. We look for emergency rooms as a joke now when we travel – this is for Troy (broken ribs from a flipped 4-wheeler), (stung by a catfish in Florida), (deer antler through foot – don’t ask). Just to name a few!! We joke that we are on retainer at the local emergency room and have our own parking spot.
4. We love to travel. We especially like to cruise.
5. We both work full time and we both work part time (for adoption funds!). Troy works as an installer for a construction company and then works at AutoZone when he can. I work as a real estate paralegal and then work one day each weekend at the SPCA.
6. We both swam at the same lake in Florida probably at the same time! I lived in Orlando for 13 years growing up and Troy lived close by in Florida for a while also. He also used to swim in the same lake.
7. We still play “punchbug” and “woody” in the car when we go anywhere. And we never forget to yell “No Punch Back!”
8. We still hold hands, in the car, in the store, on roller coasters...
9. We still love each other after 10½ years!! (Shocker I know!!)
10. We are both so very excited waiting for a referral to meet our little one. This is truly an amazing experience and a roller coaster ride. We actually can’t wait to bring our little one home and then start it all over again (hopefully).

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Another shout out!!

Just a quick note to send a thank you to my sister-in-law Amber. She has sent me yet another box of clothes last night passed down from my nephew Parker. Everything was between 12-18 months – the perfect range!! I love everything you sent and I hope it all fits!! At this rate Troy and I will not have to buy a single piece of clothing!! I just love the little shoes!! Thanks Amber!!

Monday, June 25, 2007

Busy, Busy, Busy

Lately I have been feeling the need to stay busy, and well, that’s exactly what I have done. This weekend was a non-stop weekend. Saturday I hopped in the car with my parents and hit some yard sales in a neighborhood close by. I found the greatest stuff!! I bought a diaper genie for $4.00, some blocks for $3.00, and most importantly a pair of 12 month camouflage pants for the little one. (Troy is an avid outdoorsman – hope they fit. The baby that is, not Troy!!) I don’t even know if we’ll like to diaper genie, but for $4.00 you can’t go wrong. We had so much fun too. My mom and dad picked on each other the whole time and on me too of course. What fun family time. I also made sure to drive them one hundred miles an hour (in reality, probably about 25 mph) in between yard sales just to hear my dad yell about gas prices. (HA HA!!) Needless to say, after we stopped for breakfast, my mother got behind the wheel and wouldn’t let me drive anymore!! She said I needed the break.

My older sister Cathy “Cat” had a Creative Memories scrapbooking party later in the afternoon and (as I love to scrapbook) I went and had such a good time. She had tons of food and friends and we all scrapped short story cards and bought some goodies. I even won a door prize – how often does that happen?!?! I also bought some toddler stickers for an album of our little one.

On to Sunday and I had to pull my ten hour shift at the SPCA. Well, actually I managed to leave about ½ hour early. We adopted out a bunch of little kittens - It was a good day. We are so overrun with animals right now though that we have 2-3 dogs in one kennel and 6 kittens to a cage. I work for a no-kill shelter which means we don’t euthanize for space, and therefore, we have to stack cages. We have animals in hallways, bathrooms, you name it. Nothing like going to the ladies restroom and a cat appears under the stall!! I also had to remove a cat from the sink just so I could wash my hands. We can’t help how much we love those darn animals though.

I left ½ hour early because last night was my little sister’s graduation party. My mom bar-b-qued chicken and had pasta salad, homemade cold slaw (the only kind I’ll eat!), grilled hotdogs, fruit salad and about 4 different pies. Everything was yummy and we all had a good time. Congratulations again Cassandra!!

No news on the adoption front. We don’t really expect any for a while though. I plan to check in about once a month to see what is going on in our region, if I can wait that long!!

Special thanks to my mother in law, Barbara, who sent a bag of goodies to us on Friday. In it was a great tractor that makes all the great noises and is motorized. It will lift dirt and runs great!! We also got some hooded towels, some clothes, a changing pad, and some other toys that are going to be perfect. I can’t wait to see little one playing with them. And no – he won’t be spoiled – yeah right!!!!!!

Lastly, I just wanted to mention a congratulations to Adrienne and Jim (you can read their blog from the list of “Blogs I Read”). They now have their son, James Owen “Owen”, from Vladivostok, forever in their arms. Jim and Adrienne, we are so happy for you!! He is so precious!!

Monday, June 18, 2007

Good News May Be On Its Way While We Learn Russian

Is it possible that re-accreditation is on its way?? We hope so. There were rumors swirling around Friday that an agency (not ours) had heard the last two ministries had signed off of the re-accreditation documents in Russia which means that some agencies, ours hopefully included, would begin to receive their documents required to open all regions back up to adoptions. This would mean quicker referrals and long awaited court dates for many families. We know it may not be true, but we spent the weekend praying it is. I will let everyone know as soon as I can!! This could be really, really exciting. Of course we don’t want to get our hopes up too much as we know it could be a false alarm.

In other news...I think I am sore from laughing so hard this weekend – Troy and I trying to learn Russian is extremely hilarious. We spend a lot of time listening to the words going “Huh??” or “What was that??”

But we figure we’re okay – we learned the word for pizza which is “pizza” and soup which is “soup” and most importantly french fries which are “cheapsies”. Our new joke is seeing me order chicken and fries and going up to the counter and flapping my arms making chicken sounds and finishing it with “and cheapsies”!!!

Seriously though we learned hello and goodbye – you know the basic easy ones, not the formal vs. informal because this will be a game of memorization for us. We also learned the words for mother (mot) and father (achyets) and grandmother (babushka) and grandfather (diadushka). The other two big words we learned are dog (sabaka) and cat (koshka) since we have plenty of those around!! It’s actually pretty fun. Our goal is to learn a couple new words every so many days during the wait.

If anyone out there has a word they think we really need to know or just think it would be amusing to hear us say - chime in and we’ll try to learn it!!

On another note – ever since we have started the adoption we’ve seen little signs that we are on the right track. Now I’m not a believer in signs, but Saturday at the SPCA I adopted out a kitten to a family. The kitten’s name was Babushka!!! We normally name the animals as they come in, but no one remembers naming this one. That’s another thing – if you have any good dog and cat names send them on to me!! We are taking in an influx of stray kittens and puppies and are running short on creative names for them!! We even had a litter of puppies someone named Arms, Legs and Lips. We’ve been through cities, fabrics, movies stars, singers, you name it!!

So, here's to learning Russian and some hopefully good news about the re-accreditation!!

Monday, June 11, 2007

Ups

An Up - my little sister graduated Saturday. Graduated??!! I thought she was still 7 years old. That’s how I remember her the most. I was 20, engaged to be married to Troy and the little stinker stole my engagement ring and hid it because she thought if I got married she would never see me again. Needless to say after questioning her for an hour and promising her I would always be there for her, I got the ring back and a few months later married Troy.
An Up - my mother in law, Barbara, bought Troy and I the crib we picked out for our little one. We picked it up Friday night from the store nearly 3 hours away and of course it rained all the way home. The box was soaked, but the crib had been wrapped inside the box and was okay. We promised Barbara we would not open it as it was to be a shower gift on down the road. After taking it out of the ruined box we sat staring at it thinking, “Wow, our very first crib.” Thankfully, Barbara soon put us out of our misery by calling and telling us she wanted us to put it together and take a picture for the shower. No problem. So here we are being silly!! (I know, I know - we should wait to do these things but we just can't stand ourselves!!)








An Up – today is officially the one month mark since our dossier was sent to Russia. Troy and I can’t believe it’s been one month already. My, I hope time flies like this every month. I don’t want to wish my life away, but I do hope and pray and wish for a quick referral for us and for all those out there waiting.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Well, I have to tell you...

I absolutely LOVE to blog!! I can’t believe we didn’t start this sooner. The comments left to us by other adopting families have been wonderful and it works as a great support system. To our family and friends – feel free to chime in anytime. We look forward to hearing what you have to say!
So today I added an element to the sidebar consisting of the Blogs I read. I can’t believe I did that! It actually works too!!! Those blogs are from families in all different stages of the adoption process- from the paperwork stage (Becky and Keith-almost done!) to the waiting stage like us (Ryan and Amy-dossier in Tver) to the in between court trips (Melissa and Nathan-I know this is tough) to almost at court (Adrienne and Jim- have a safe trip this weekend and congrats!!) There are other families as well in various stages that have great blogs out there. I just want to say I love reading them as much as I love writing for ours.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Forms, Documents and Waiting...

Yesterday I prepared a package to CHI containing the travel agreement and other such forms and mailed it. Then I went home and started going through all the documents we have ever received, printed, or copied during the adoption to date. Needless to say our file of documents has now officially turned into a box.
Now that our dossier is in Russia things have become so real for us. Waiting is so much harder than I imagined. I feel silly complaining about the wait time already, but it truly is tough. We wonder if our child has been born yet and if so we wonder what he wakes up to each day. We pray that he is safe and well and warm. There just isn’t anything we can do at this point. While we were gathering documents, at least we could make it go as fast as we wanted. Now we have no control.
Please keep us in your prayers as even though this waiting period may seem difficult, we know and have heard from others that the period in between seeing your child and bringing them home is much, much more difficult.