Wow it has been a long time since we have updated our website! While there is forward progression with our adoption, the process is taking a significantly longer time than what we expected. When we started the process in January of ’06, families were home with their children in under a year from when their dossier was logged in at CCAA in China. Now each month we read that we should expect it to take one more month than what we were told the previous month. Right now it is taking about 18 months from LID to referral, but that could change either way. Let’s hope things speed up soon!

Tom has been busy. Tom was coaching a 15 National volleyball team; they did very well this season. All of the girls improved tremendously both in their skills and their knowledge of the game. We will miss them and the practices! Tom has been promoted to Team Lead at his job. He is also hoping that the weather begins to cooperate so that he can begin working on the yard and working on his golf swing.

Caesar has been busy as well. At the beginning of April, we had a scary incident where Caesar was acting very strangely. As I watched him, he became progressively worse and his stomach was bloating in front of my eyes! I called the vet; of course it was after hours, and begged him to come into the office because it was a REAL emergency. After a series of tests and x-rays, it became obvious to the doctor that Caesar’s stomach was flipped-yes I had never heard of it either. But I guess many large breeds of dogs are susceptible to this, as well as horses and cows. He was quickly taken into surgery at 11 pm that night and spent 5 days in the hospital. So after a month of babying him he is back to normal and his spark is back in his eyes. You can see in the picture that Caesar had all of his gear on so that he could not lick the staples and make the incision infected. We called him “Cone” for three weeks. At first he would bump into things, but he got pretty good at navigating the furniture with the cone on his head. He was a good sport about the entire thing.

I am just looking forward to the end of school. My year has been wonderful. My students have been an absolute joy to be around. I have had 27 of them two years in a row by teaching Advanced 7th grade and now Algebra I. They are mature and fun to teach. I will miss them, but it is time for them to go to the high school. I am looking forward to taking a few classes, swimming and finishing up the landscaping this summer.

We had a great opportunity in February to go to the FCC Cleveland Chinese New Year celebration. Tom and I had an opportunity to meet so many great families in all stages of the adoption process as well as many families with older children. It has been great to be part of FCC as well as our local group, MAK. We have been to two recent events with our local MAK group. My mom, sister and the twins had the opportunity to go to the April Family Night and meet many families. Mom had a chance to talk to people who had been through the entire adoption process, she got to ask all of the questions that I was not able to answer and have them answered by experts. Morgan and Alayna had a chance to play with all of the children! I am looking forward to getting together with the other mothers of MAK during their weekly playgroup to catch up.

We will be going to our Adoption Agency’s annual China Party the Friday of Memorial weekend at their headquarters. I can’t wait to meet some of the families that we will be traveling with, plus we will get to meet Uncle Zhou, our guide throughout the entire trip to China!