handsful

We had a great Thanksgiving holiday! My parents came down from NC to spend a few days with us. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner…my Mom makes great mashed potatoes! That afternoon, we drove to the beach to take Christmas pictures. It was chilly, so we smiled quickly! On Friday, I managed to drag mom out of the house by 5:30am for over 5 hours of shopping! That was fun. Randy’s high point of the holiday was trying out the potato gun that he’s been building. We started out using little foam balls in the driveway…worked great. Then, we all walked down to the pier in our neighborhood to give potatoes a try! Wow! Those things really flew!! Randy was so proud!

See the smoke?

Daddy is way cool!

Yesterday, we received Secret Pal presents from BOTH of my groups…June-July CCAI group and July Fireflies group! Here are the pictures!

July Fireflies…Ladybug theme! Adorable Mama and baby ladybug toy. Pull the plastic loop and the mama scoots, pulling baby along with her!

June-July CCAI group…Chinese theme! ladybug chocolates, chinese coin replicas collection, beautiful journal, wooden fan, porcelain tea set, and a Smores brownie mix for the kids to make!

Our combo CCAI-Reunion / Disney Animal Kingdom trip this past weekend was so much fun. We started out on Thursday, arriving in Orlando just in time for a nice dinner at TGI Fridays restaurant. We got to Animal Kingdom the next day around 9:30 and stayed till they closed at 5pm. The weather was wonderful and called for shorts and T-shirts…not bad for November! Back at the hotel that night, there was a light buffet in the courtyard with the CCAI folks. At first, we felt a little out of place. But, we soon met some wonderful parents and too many cute little girls to count. We were able to meet Josh and Lily, the founders of the CCAI agency! They were just as nice as I always thought they’d be. I also met two of my online friends, Sue and Marney. Their families have already adopted once from China and both are adopting again! The next morning, there was a buffet breakfast and silent auction in one of the ballrooms. The auction was raising money to build a playground for the ZunYi orphanage in China. They had hoped to raise $10,000, but I’ve heard that they surpassed that! I was happy to help them out, with our 2 winning bids. Grin.

Seeing all those beautiful girls has made me think even more about Lainey. She’s in China, waiting for us!

The kids met a new friend at Animal Kingdom

Meeting Josh and Lily!

Sue and Me (Sue is from my June-July CCAI online group)

The girls meet Mulan!

The kids had a blast last night, going around the neighborhood and accepting candy galore! There were TONS of kids out and we actually ran out of candy (gee, who would have thought 5 bags weren’t enough??).

We’re also excited that today marks 3 months since our paperwork was officially logged in with China! Sure is nice to have that troublesome “first trimester” over with!

Presenting a ninja, Pocohontas, a gunslinger, and a Spanish princess!

We have no idea how long we’ll be waiting for our referral from China. We hope to meet Lainey in 2007, but it could even be 2008. So, to help us endure the looonng wait, we have Secret Pals. Let me explain…

I belong to two online Yahoo groups made up of other ladies also awaiting a referral from China. The groups are arranged by the date that your adoption paperwork went to China…so we’re essentially all in the “same slow boat to China” together! One of my groups is the July Fireflies. This group is made up of ladies across all adoption agencies, and there are members from all across the US and beyond (Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, etc.). The other group is called June-July CCAI. This group is for only those moms within our agency, Chinese Children Adoption International. As you can tell, both groups are for those whose paperwork arrived in China in July.

Each group has come up with activities to make our waits more enjoyable AND to help us to get to know each other. There is a good chance that some of us will be traveling together to China, because travel groups are made up of those with close LID dates. Both groups are doing a Secret Pal gift exchange each month. So, after all that explanation, here are pictures of the Secret Pal presents I received from both groups in October!

June/July CCAI group…books theme

July Fireflies group…bathtime theme

Janet (see the link to her site on the right!) invited me to join in the fun of revealing 5 weird things about me. Gee, like this is something I should make somewhat public?? Hee hee…

1. I label everything. I have one of those handy-dandy Dymo printers. I type in the info. and it spits out a perfect little label, all ready to peel and stick. I label anything and everything (so far, no people have been harmed…)

2. I don’t use condiments. Ketchup, mayonaise, mustard, nothing. Plain Jane, that’s me.

3. I LOVE to organize things (hence, the reasoning behind #1). Give me a junky drawer and some time and I’m in heaven.

4. I have a scar on my upper lip that I was born with. It’s basically an in-utero self-repaired cleft lip. I could have had plastic surgery as a child to smooth it, but I never bothered. Hardly anyone notices now, but it was darker as a child. My cranio-facial professor in grad school thought it was the coolest!

5. I’m a pillow snob. Gotta have MY pillow when I travel. Will they allow a pillow as a carry-on to China??

Feel free to consider yourself “tagged”! Either email your responses to me or let me know if you’re answering on your website or blog so I can see how weird YOU are!