Yessssir--eeeee Sir - the "T" is here!!!!!! We are going to CHINA!

Our Travel Approval came today!  I'll fill you in as soon as we know more details, but for sure and for certain now, we are SO close to having our sweet JiJi home!

Greetings family, friends, and fans of The Crew!  MamaD has asked me to be a guest blogger as I will be joining her on the last leg of this roller coaster journey to get to Ji-Ji.  So, instead of wondering who the dingle berry in the photo is next to their little sweet pea in China, you'll know it is MamaD's travel companion.  A pleasure to meet/blog with you.  If you are involved in any way, shape, or form with this wonderful family, then you must also be wonderful too!  If I should be so lucky to be an honorary "Aunt" to these girls then you may want to know some basics about me.

For starters, my name is Heidi and I'm a Junior at a local university.  I'm studying Social Sciences to later pursue grad school to become qualified as an academic adviser or teacher at the college level.  I met MamaD and MissE while working at the amphitheater (and later IBoy too.)  My dog, Penny is 5 and she might just be the most spoiled Cocker Spaniel west of the Mississippi.  Well, maybe not more than Oprah Winfrey's Cocker's but... pretty close, I'm sure.  I'm from a small town in Oregon.  I currently live in SW Washington and work at a popular coffee house as a barista.

Most recently however, I've been spending time in town a couple of hours away, where my love, Brandon, has moved  to for a job. WARNING: I am a cheesy, hopeless romantic!  He's a chemist and is handsome, respectful, and sweet taboot!  I am thankful and feel lucky every day to have met him.  Alright, alright, I'll stop. ;)

Like:

• the color purple
• the beach
• painting
• clam digging 
• reading
• coffee
• softball
• volleyball
• Italian food
• kayaking
• wine tasting
• crafts
• traveling
• snowboarding
• peacock feathers
• french vanilla, lavender candles

Dislike:

• brussel sprouts
• the color "mustard yellow"
• rude, ignorant people
• snakes
• spiders
• dusting
• hitting my "funny bone"
• forgetting things on my grocery list (What's the point of having the darn list!?)
• inconsiderate cell phone users

That concludes your crash course on this Heidi.  Thanks for reading and stay tuned for our upcoming adventures! 

TA and Turkey Talk

We were thankful to be able to spend Thanksgiving with Mom and Grandma (101 now!).

IBoy's jaw was still slightly swollen, but he didn't let it stop him from feasting!

The girls are patiently waiting to start the feast!

Dad's not so sure, hey - the food's getting cold!

Enough turkey.  Now the tough talk.  NO TA yet!  I am so longing for it to come in.  Do you see the green "Adi" listed?  That is us - this is from a site that tracks timing of each step of the adoption process.  This was from early last week - I believe there are close to 200 families listed in all phases of the journey.  Since this was taken, there were actually several families below us who received their TA.  We have been (not so) patiently waiting since 11/2.  The average time to receive it is 18 days, but recently many lucky families have received theirs much more quickly than 18 days.  Most of the families who shared our same timeline (up to this point) have already met their children in China.

I know that He has perfect timing.  I do know that, it is just SO hard for my heart to trust that He knows best!  It shouldn't be, and there are brief moments throughout each day when I am calm and at peace with His plan.  And then, the human mama part of me takes control and I weep and fret.

In then end - I have no choice but to submit to His timing - after all, I have ZERO control over when it comes!  Our agency has promised to look into why we, and several other families with our agency, have not yet received the Travel Approval.  God willing, we will have good news in the next few days!

Dog Burgers

Dad went to make us some yummy burger last night, but we only had hot dog buns to go with them.  Presto, change-o - we had dog burgers instead!  But of course we still have the four legged mongrels running about.

IBoy is not feeling so wise these days.  Friday found him sleeping in the oral surgeon's chair while all four of his beloved wisdom teeth were extracted.  He is now getting tired of pureed dinners, but his mouth isn't.

We began our forest habitat unit in school today - the girls made raccoon masks.  Yes, I know that raccoons don't have yellow noses, but don't say it too loudly in front of the students who I had to convince that we were making a distant cousin of the typical raccoon.  They weren't convinced.

The White Stuff

You wake up in the morning to S.N.O.W.!!!!

I was lucky to catch her as she was headed out the door. In her undergarments. I barely managed to convince her to at least get her boots and sweatshirt on!

Zabi zaniness!

Zabi, on the left, is supposed to be a princess.  I have no idea who Chicka is supposed to be!

test

While we wait on word of our travel approval, I thought I better do a test run on posting here from an email post. So, here we go!