Friday in Arrowhead California- Passing the time!

Mom and her wonderful boys. Feeding the ducks in Arrowhead trying to pass time before referrals come. Come on Referrals.

OK, I put this picture in because it perfectly shows the differences in personalities between my boys. Ethan (on the right) was delightfully feeding the ducks and enjoying every minute of it. Owen (on the left) was delightfully shooting the ducks (not literally) with his cap gun. Oh yes each one is unique in their own ways. Nature versus Nurture??? Who knows?? Ethan is out little socialite who is sensitive and enjoys people tremendously (kind of like his mom). Owen is our shoot em up and little builder (exactly like his dad). I just laughed when I looked to one side of the picture and saw Ethan feeding the ducks gleefully and Owen deriving as much joy from pretending to shoot the ducks. Interesting......

Here is our little "shooter" Owen.

Here's out little "feeder", Ethan.

Dad and boys. Love the crutches Kev!!

The true Ethan and Owen. Ever noticed Owen has NEVER just smiled for a picture?? Just wondering if anyone has ever noticed. Oh our little challenge :)

Friday in Arrowhead California- Passing the time!

Sorry it is sideways but this is a picture of the boys on the stairs at my parents cabin in Arrowhead.

Kevin and Owen at lunch in Arrowhead Village. Owen was being a little pain in the bum so Kevin was holding him so he wouldnt grab EVERYTHING at the table-- oh what fun kids are!!

Owen being his usual pleasant self at lunch-- ugg!!!

Ethan was being a pain also, but in this picture he was trying to be good.

The boys feeding the ducks in the Arrowhead village

We Are Getting Close!!!!

Oh the boards are jumping this morning!!! We have reports that referrals are for sure in the mail and that they may be in the US postal system (according to RQ). Can you imagine if we actually get to see our Mia's face today. I would DIE!!!! How amazing!!! So we are getting close and I can hardly stand it. I am just praying that we are for sure in this batch-- I feel really good about it-- real peaceful-- so hopefully it will happen.

I am up in Arrowhead, CA (a nice mountain community in Southern California--snow and beautiful) at my parents cabin here so it is going to be hard not to just stick by the computer and watch the rumors but we are here to spend time as a family so I will walk away from the computer- for an hour or two at a time:). But, if we get the call, it is only 35 minutes down the hill to our house and another 35 minutes to our agency, so we will be down the hill in a minute if by some wonderful chance we get "THE CALL" -- COME ON PHONE-RING!!!

So, I will leave it at that. I will post some cute pics of the boys up here in Arrowhead a little later. There is not much snow left, but we are going to go on these things called the Alpine Slides over in Big Bear so that should provide for some cute pictures. I will post soon and everyone hold on as this is going to be a crazy few days!!!!

Christy :)

It's Closed!!

I have officially closed my blog to uninvited guests.

I just wanted to thank all of you who have been following our journey and who have been so supportive to us. I am very thankful for such an amazing online support system. I don't know how I would have made it through these past 22 months without the support of all of you-- most of you I have never met in person. Thanks again.

So now the question is when? WHEN WHEN WHEN?? My online poll has April 2nd for our referral to be mailed as the winner. I was hoping that would not be the date but most of you out there think that is the winning date. I pretty much have been thinking our referral will be in the next batch. I had hoped it would come on it's own but I don't think that will happen. So, since it will probably come in the next batch I would have to assume it will come next week. The last batch of referrals came on March 5 so the average is 28 to 34 days between referral batches so more than likely that would put us sometime next week. OK, last month I prayed we would get our referral on my birthday March 6, but obviously that did not happen so lets pray for the next best thing. Kevin's birthday is April 4 which is next Wednesday. So, if referrals are mailed on Monday, maybe we will get our referral on Kevin's birthday-- Wednesday. That would be the best birthday gift ever!!! Of course I we would be fine if it came before his birthday but not after :)

So, lets keep all fingers, toes and even some of my good online pals keep their 40 year old saggy boobs crossed! Lets pray all of us waiting get our referrals this next week-- Wednesday is good!!

Thanks again for all your support. It means so much to me!

Christy :)

OK, Here are some cute pictures I thought you all would enjoy.

This is (from left to right) Niece Kylie- 7, Owen-6, Ethan- 8, friend Jake- 10 and Niece Kaitlyn- 8 at Disneyland last week. No good reason to go-- just love D-land!! Oh ya, we also went with my best friend Laila and her two kids Tyler and Ava (Ava and Mia are slated to be best friends-- Lai and I have it all planned out), my sister Cassie and then we ran into my brother and his family while we were there. We had a lot of fun!!

This is the boys and their friends at a birthday party for one of Ethan's friends at school (Owen is far left in red and Ethan is next to him in the blue) They went paint balling and had an amazing time. They are tough!!! Those things hurt and leave bruises-- ouch!!

This is the newest addition to our family. My grandparents lost their dog "Suzi" a few weeks ago and have been on the hunt for a dog since then. Last weekend I went looking with them and we were lucky enough to stumble on this wonderful little Chihuahua mix at the Humane Society in Rancho Cucamonga. They instantly fell in love with her and we quickly scooped her up (3 people were waiting to adopt her when we came out of the play room with her-- we were lucky--or it was meant to be--hmmmm??) So, we are proud to introduce Mini to our family.

I'm going to restrict access to the blog starting tomorrow 3/28

Due to unforeseen issues, I need to restrict access to my blog. I will be changing the access profile late tonight or early tomorrow. If you would like to have access after tonight, please email me at kcbock@gmail.com and I will send you an invitation to read my blog. After you get the invitation, you can continue on to the blog as a guest for up to 30 days, or you can sign in with a Google account. It isn't hard to do, so I sincerely hope that some of you will continue to follow our journey.

Thanks again for all of the prayer, support, messages, and kind words...this has been a very bumpy and emotional road for our family, but it should all be coming to an end in the near future. I appreciate everything more than you all could know. The online adoption community has been my primary support since we started this process 22 months ago.

We were skipped :(

I am soooo sad and heartbroken to say that we did not get our referral today. For some strange reason that we don't know why, we were skipped. There are two families (us and another) that had the same log in date and we were to receive referrals at the same time. This is how it works in China. The other family received their referral but we did not. Being skipped is very rare and sometimes it is simply that your referral is in a different envelope and it shows up a day or two late or it could be that we will not get our referral till next month. I PRAY IT IS NOT THE LATTER! Whatever the case I am just a wreck and am heartbroken. Everyone wants to point to the bright side but I am just not ready for the bright side right now. Right now I am PISSED and very angry that this happened to us. We have waited 18 months when we were originally told that it would be a 6 month wait. We have been patient and I have sucked it up with thousands of people asking why we haven't got our baby, but now what am I supposed to say? "We were skipped" does not really explain much and again, people don't get it. I know it will get better but right now I am just so angry that this happened and I don't understand.

Our agency is contacting their person in China and she will be going to CCAA to try to get answers. I pray it is just a simple mix up and that our referral is on its way but if it is not, I have asked my agency to advocate for us and ask CCAA to make this right. I know you have to tread lightly with CCAA but other agencies in the past have asked CCAA to make an issue right and they have, so I have asked my agency to do the same. I do not want to wait another month. We were not asked questions in the review room (which is one reason why we would have been skipped) and we did not have any issues throughout this LONG process. We were squeaky clean and that is why this comes as such a surprise. So, our China facilitator is having their person in China check and I should hear something tomorrow hopefully. I just don't get this. There have been so many crappy things happening recently (Kevin's injury, death of friends) that this was the one light in this whole dark 2007 year. I know I am being dramatic and I know I will get over this, but right now I am playing victim and I am pissed.

I just pray that this whole thing will work its self out and that we have our referral VERY SOON!!

Sorry to all of you who were expecting to see our little Mia today. This SUCKS!!!!

Christy

TODAY!!!!!!

It is all over all the blogs that TODAY IS THE DAY!!! There are official reports that referrals have landed and that US agencies have referrals in hand. The official cut off date is 10-24-05 so obviously we are in (which we already knew) but it is official!!!

I have held myself back and not got too excited but today I am going CRAZY!!! I cant stop screaming and jumping up and down. I cant believe today is the day!! We will get to see Mia's face for the first time TODAY (unless some crazy thing happened)!!!!

OK, I must calm down. Our China Coordinator usually gets her DHL package by noon so we should hear sometime after that. I will keep you all posted and I will post her picture and info on this site!!!

My head is spinning. I cant believe today is the day!!!!!

Christy

Tomorrow? The Next Day? When????

So, there are rumors out there that are saying referrals may be in the mail and that we may get them as early as Monday or Tuesday. WE know a package left CCAA on Friday and that it is heading for the US. Inside the package there may be referrals or there may be Travel Approvals - TA's (TA's are when you are approved to travel to China to pick up your child. You get your TA after you get your referral). The one agency that is expecting the package says it looks like it is a package that contains referrals, but we will just not know until it arrives on Monday. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE it if it were referrals, but my best guess is that it is TA's. We will know soon.

So, if it is referrals heading to the US then we should have our referral on Monday or Tuesday. I hope it is Tuesday as it is my birthday and that would be an AMAZING birthday present. If it is referrals then we should get the call on Monday or Tuesday and we will head to our agency in Fullerton (about 40 minutes from our house) and we will get the information on Mia. It will include pictures, a medical and developmental profile and some more cool stuff. At that point we will know who Mia is and we will be able to sign our acceptance letter (where we say to CCAA that we will take Mia and they then will prepare our TA). Once CCAA gets our acceptance letter they will send out our travel approval (TA) and once we get that back from CCAA (usually takes about 3 to 4 weeks) then we can get our consulate appointment (CA) and we will solidify our travel plans. From referral to travel is usually 4 to 6 weeks.

My thoughts are that we will get our referrals this week or next at the latest and that we will travel the last week of April and the first week in May. We have to be in China for 2 weeks and we will unfortunately run into the Trade Fair in China during late April, therefore, we will have to wait to go to the city where the US consulate is until after the trade fair. I'm totally cool with that time line but I will totally be open to going sooner if we can. Kevin will be on crutches most likely whenever we travel, so the earlier the better.

So, what if the package is not referrals? The same scenario will take place as listed above just a week or so later. I PRAY referrals are in the mail but we have waited a LONG time and another week wont kill us.

Here is a little fluff. The boys had Pajama Day on Friday so here is a picture of that. Below that is Ethan at a Cub Scout Function. His pack did the flag thing do I took some pictures. Enjoy and I will let you know as soon as we know who Mia is.

Pajama Day (Cousin Kaitlyn, Cousin Kylie, Ethan, Friend Jake and Owen)

Cub Scout Troop

I can't stop DREAMING!!

I think the wait is getting to me. I never dream. The only time I dream is in the early morning and I never remember what I was dreaming about. For about the last week, every morning I wake up in the middle of a dream about Mia. I just keep dreaming about her. I don't totally remember the whole dream but I will remember still frames of Kevin holding her or this morning I was in the middle of a dream where I was kissing her as she was walking away to her first day of Kindergarten. I guess I am a little ahead of myself with the kindergarten thing, but I just keep dreaming about her. The other morning I dreamed a still frame of a Christmas card. It was totally funny because it was just all of us, the boys, Kev, me and Mia, posing for a Christmas card picture. It is funny how my mind has already integrated her into our lives and I don't even know who she is. I am enjoying the dreams as she actually seems real to me when I wake up and realize I was, once again, dreaming about her. Hopefully in the next week I will be able to dream about a REAL LIVE MIA as we should get our referral within a week or so. Lets pray for referrals to come quick!!

Christy :)