Recent Happenings

I had a request for some photos to jazz things up around here and Cher, I swear, I'm working on it! I'm not so swift at doing that kind of thing yet so it will have to be a joint Stewart/Heather effort. Busy, busy the past few weeks. Our nephew, Jacob, enlisted in the Air Force and left for Basic on August 1 so we were in Iowa for his going away party. Had a great time but we were sad to see him off. Last weekend, Stew's sister, Mary, and her family visited - Valley Fair (amusement park), the circus (animal rts folks, please know there were no animals present), extraordinarily hot weather and a trip to Convention Grill for burgers and malts - for a fun weekend. Today, Stew's other sister, Barb, her husband, daughter and their dad came up for a Twins game and an overnight. Next weekend, my sister and niece, Melissa and Chelsea, visit. Melissa and I finally feel ready to sort through and divide things from 516 Larchwood Dr. The boxes have been sitting in our basement for a few years and now is the time - making way for kidstuff storage. Phew! We have to cram in the fun while we can still step outside without having to brace ourselves against the cold. Why do we live here again...?

On the adoption front:
Still no update on whether or not we're through review and into matching yet.
However, referrals have arrived for people whose paperwork was (were?) logged-in in China June 29 through July 13, 2005, bringing them two whole weeks closer to our paperwork.
Check out some of the beautiful children: http://junejitterbugs2005.homestead.com/
(Babies are dressed VERY warmly in China. Can you tell that a lot of the babies in these photos are wearing 8-9 layers of clothes? They're not really as plump as they appear.)

For a long time, we'd been hearing that the CCAA was going to be moving to a new building and that process might be a piece of the slow-down in referrals puzzle. At the end of June, the CCAA finally moved to it's new location and so we can't help but hope things will speed up once they're settled in. Perhaps we'll know a little more when we see how many log-in days are covered in the next batch of referrals we expect to see near the end of August. (Referrals are generally sent out 1 x per month about 3-4 weeks apart.) The current online speculation is that we can expect to see the first picture of our daughter anywhere between November of this year and May of 2007. (That window is so large, let's call it what it is - a barn door!)

Family and Friends, we need your help! Keep fingers, toes and eyes tightly crossed for November-January of this year!