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Merry Christmas!!

Made it!

I made it to Boston and all is well. It's crazy crazy warm here...something like 56 degrees today. Dustin and I headed off to the outlets this morning...this is beginning to be a mandatory requirement tradition each time I visit.

Munchkin's latest loot...




O Christmas Tree O Christmas Tree...how lovely are your branches....





The stockings were hung by the chimney with care......

Ho Ho Ho

Why o why are the holidays so BUSY!! I have been non-stop go for the past 2 weeks and I am pooped. We need a holiday to recuperate from the holiday...

I fly to Boston tomorrow and am spending Christmas with my brother and Ryan. Should be great fun! Oh and tonight is zee LID celebration dinner followed by an early Christmas with someone special.

More storm pics

Look at this truck!! That would be a tree underneath it


CDA City Park

Just as I was pulling into work, 1 block east of campus, on Garden St.

It still looks like this....

The work gals....out to breakfast because we had no power :-)

The aftermath

Here are some shots from the wind storm last week...crazy!!

On Abbey St, right off of 3rd next to French Cleaners


On Govt Way

Another on Govt way

 

Log In!!!!

Just in from my agency:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HERE IT IS!!!!

December 13!!!!

Have a wonderful Christmas!

For His Children,
Kathy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

December 13th 2006!!!!! December 13th 2006!!!!! December 13th 2006!!!!! December 13th 2006!!!!! December 13th 2006!!!!! December 13th 2006!!!!! December 13th 2006!!!!! December 13th 2006!!!!! December 13th 2006!!!!!

Let the countdown begin!!

Windstorm 2006

All h*ll is breaking loose....

We had a major major windstorm last night, gusts over 60 miles per hour for hours on end. The streets are littered with fallen trees and power lines. I lost power at 12:30a.m. last night and it is now 10:00a.m. and it just came back on.

I had to shower by flashlight this morning and head into work without makeup and wet hair. pretty. Being the bright one that I am, I hauled my hairdryer and makeup in my purse with full intentions of finishing "getting ready". I thought for sure there would be power. Not so much. Over 19,000 folks are still without it....

Our building was pitch dark and freezing...so what do we do? The ladies and I all head to breakfast, and it seems as if everyone else had the same idea. The place was crazy busy, yet very convenient as they had power...generator maybe? As we were driving back to work, my friend Ana took a ton of pictures of the damage. CRAZY stuff, I'll post them up as soon as she emails them to me. We still didn't have power at work so we were sent home...yippee!!

Now that the power is back on, the news is reporting over 1 million people are without power in the Seattle area (I am 4 1/2 hours east)...wow.

"The Story Of An Adopted Child..."

You know, I’m not really a ‘poetry loving’ kind of person. In fact, I’ve been known to say that I hate it. I will say this though, the only real experience I’ve had with poetry is through a hated English Literature torture class…ewwww….horrid. When I read something, I don’t want to spend hours analyzing, breaking it down, and guessing what the meaning is, it’s just not my thing. Know what I mean?

No offense to any fabulous English teachers out there…wink…wink…

Enter adoption poems. Love them. They are so sweet, easy to ‘get’, and oh so meaningful to me.

This was one of Mother Teresa’s favorite poems and I’ve read that she would give a copy to each mother who adopted a child from the orphanage from which she worked.



"The Story Of An Adopted Child..."



There were two women who never knew each other,
One you do not remember, the other you call Mother.

The first one gave you life,
The second taught you to live it.

One of them gave you your nationality,
The other one gave you your name.

One of them gave you the seed for growth,
The other gave you a goal.

One of them provided you with emotions,
The other calmed your fears.

One of them saw your first smile,
The other wiped away your tears.

One of them left you, it was all that she could do...
The other prayed for a child and the Lord led her to you.

And now you ask the inevitable question,
"What molded me, heredity or environment?"

Neither the one nor the other, but only two different loves.

Chinese Lesson #1

My DTC yahoo board is offering up weekly Chinese lessons to the waiting parents.

Here is lesson #1

Hello (simple, basic greeting): "Ni hau"
Pronounced: "Knee How"
"Ni" (knee) - said just like that body part, it means 'you'
"hau" ("how") - simple, eh?, Hau means "good", so the literal
translation of "ni hau" is "you good"
Add the word "ma" (pronounced just like it is spelled) to turn the
phrase into "How are you?" ("Ni Hau ma?")
You can respond by saying: "hau" or if you are really good "hen hau"
(pronounce the "hen" like the 'hon' in honey)

Mom/Mother: "ma ma"

Dad/Father: "ba ba"

So when they hand your sweet little one to you, you can say to him
or her: "I am your mother" = "Wo shi nide ma ma"
Pronounced "whoa sure knee duh ma ma" :
"wo" (whoa) -just like what you say to stop a horse, it means "I"
"shi" (sure)- say it like the first part of the name Shirley but
don't put a strong "r" on the end
"ni" (knee) - just like that part of your leg, it means "you"
"de" (duh) - its a very short 'duh', it turns something into a
possessive, make 'you' into 'your'
("ma ma" (mama) - just the same as in English.)

To say: "I am your dad" = "Wo shi nide ba ba"
Pronounced same as above, except "ba ba" is just like what a sheep
says, or what we sometimes call our babies' bottle.

Oh my....lost my breath for a moment

Just in from Vietnam...

Hannah and Ari!! TOGETHER

Ari

Holy shite

The big meeting is over.

The Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs has announced the new rules for China's international adoption program.

No more single applicants after May 2007.

Dossiers that have arrived before then will still be considered.

Originally, I had decided to use a differant agency. An agency which had an open single spot May 2007.

If I could type this while on my knees thanking jesus and my mother I would be.

My mother was the one who flew into my house one Sunday right before she left for Phoenix and gave me the newspaper with an ad announcing a local adoption seminar....saying "you should just go for fun. Who knows, maybe you might meet some people", knowing darn well that I already had an agency and was planning to start this process May 2007.

I attended the local seminar, nervous and scared to death because I was all alone, asked the following questions during the Q and A.

Me: "Do you accept applications from singles?"
Agency: "Yes"
Me: Do you have any single slots open now?"
Agency: "Well...actually yes, why don't you see me after the meeting"

After the meeting

Agency: "I had a single girl drop out of the program yesterday, I was going to see if a local family (single) wanted the slot first, before I advertised it nationwide, and you are the first person that has crossed my path looking for a single slot. Do you want it?".
Me: Bursting into tears....."yes"

After, I sat in my car crying and shaking because I knew at that very moment my life had changed forever. I had just made the decision to start this process now, not next year.

thank you mom.

My adopty buddies are leaving!

Remember my friends Hannah and Neil? The couple who traveled with me to Yakima to submit our immigration papers? Well folks....the time has come!

They leave for Vietnam tomorrow night to pick up their precious Ari!



They will receive her on the December 9th. I am so happy and excited for them!!

shakin' on down...

I like watching my little lady bug wiggle her arse down the ticker.

27 days since DTC!

I wonder if I've been logged-in yet?

My "little"

My friend, Liz, is the area coordinator for Big Brothers/Big Sisters and asked me last spring if I would be interested in volunteering for their school lunch program this year. The school lunch program is a bit different than the traditional mentor program in that I will only meet with my “little” one time per week and will spend time with her during her lunch hour at school. So anyway, I said yes to volunteering, filled out the application, submitted references, went through a couple of interviews, and was finally accepted as a “big” for this school year.

Today, I finally received the call that I have been matched with a “little” and will meet her for lunch next Tuesday. Here’s what I know:

• Her name and school
• She is 8 & in the 3rd grade
• Her Dad is raising her alone and she has a younger sister who is also in the program
• She is not in the program because she has behavior problems, etc., her Dad just really wants her to have some positive female role models in her life
• School lunch is $2.00 nowadays!

Cute.

Should be interesting and fun!

rugs and homework ***updated***

Grandpa bought this rug for the baby's room. So cute.

I'm in the final stretch of completing my first two graduate classes, I have exactly 5 days left to finish everything. All will be mailed on Saturday, December the 9th! I still have two papers to write, a few assignments, and the final to finish. Needless to say, I'll be cramming my little heart out during the evenings this week.

Hi ho Hi ho, it's back to work I go!

***The rug can be purchased at PBK***