Gotta love Friday!

Well, it's Friday again and you just have to love it. I know people love Friday for lots of things but my #1 reason is for high school football. For the last 7 years we have looked forward to watching the boys play at Holy Cross. It's a very special place for my family. This is the very school that both my sisters, my brother-in-laws, and Mike and I all graduated from. This is the same field that Mike, Glenn and Steve all played football on. It has been so special watching Corbyn and Chase put on those cougar uniforms and play. This year marks the last year we will be heading out to to Holy Cross. I can't believe that Chase is a senior and playing his last season of high school football. So tonight we will put on our cougar attire and root on Chase and the rest of his team at alumni field. Good luck Chase, our lucky #8!

Ike!

I was checking some of my favorite blogs and I saw Lisa's post about Hurricane Ike and I couldn't stop thinking about how lucky we are to be here safe and sound. On Sunday we got a small taste of Ike here in Kentucky. It was amazing to see this wind storm that we got. I saw reports of winds 75mph and I think where we were at must have been close to that. Now, I saw the damage that these winds did and I can't imagine being down in Texas experiencing over 100mph winds. At the time when the wind storm began Mike and I were heading into Louisville to watch our nephew Ethan play flag football. Now don't think we were stupid for being out as no one expected us to get this kind of wind. We had left early to do some home shopping (still no luck) when trees and debris started coming from everywhere. Every street we would drive down had trees falling. Now at this time they said the game was still on (can you imagine little 1st graders being blown away on the football field). In the next 15 minutes the winds hit their strongest level and for the 1st time I saw Mike getting really nervous that we were out. Huge trees were snapping and power lines were exploding. We were still the crazy ones out in this until I made Mike go to Target so we could get someone safe. The winds went on for quite soom time. When it was all over everything was completely calm, no wind, no rain, nothing. Now as of today it has been 5 days since the storm and over 100,000 people are still without power. As I have drove around the last few days I have experienced something that we don't see very often. I seeing people helping everyone all over the place. Neighbors taking in neighbors without power, helping clean their yards, cooking for one another. I am not hearing lots of stories of people yelling at the electric company but commending them for working so hard to get the power on. It amazing to see how a community rallies together when a crisis occurs. I see what our community is going through and I can't imagine how the great people of Texas are coping and staying strong.

We were very lucky to have no damage. My sister Tommi and her family live across the bridge in Indiana and they have some damage to their house and as of today they still are without power but their spirits are still strong. They know how much worse it could have been.

Yesterday I drove through the neighborhood that I grew up in and it was hit really hard. I posted 2 pictures below of 2 of our neighbors houses. I don't think the pictures are that good but you can just what the wind has done up here after slowing down over 40mph from Texas.

How much longer?

Just in case you were wondering how long we have until we get to our LID

Duration calculation results
From and including: Friday, February 10, 2006To and including: Wednesday, March 29, 2006
It is 48 days from the start date to the end date, end date included
Or 1 month, 20 days including the end date
Alternative time units48 days can be converted to one of these units:
4,147,200 seconds
69,120 minutes
1152 hours
6 weeks (rounded down)

When you look at it that way it sure doesn't look very long but when you break it down into how many days it takes the CC*A to get through that it could still be a very long time. Oh well, we are still excited.

I do wonder sometimes why we got a LID of 3/29/08. During that time log ins were getting done very quickly so we were very disappointed for it to take so long from DTC (date to China) to LID (log in date). We had all of our papers in to our agency mid December but because of our holidays and then the Chinese holidays it took that long to get it sent to get all the seals and then back to our agency. Then our file was held in China to have a big group all go in at once so it ended up taking 5 weeks to be LID. Sure at the time we were disappointed with the date but then realized it was LID on Mike's birthday so we felt it was a sign. At that time we thought, oh well, not a huge deal, what was a few weeks going to hurt?! What were we thinking? That few weeks could make a HUGE difference. A few weeks could mean 6 or more months longer until we see sweet Emma's face. Who would have ever thought that? We just keep telling each other that God has a bigger plan and Emma will only be ready in his time. I just have to remind myself of that a couple of dozen times a day!

I was looking at some photos I had taken this year and I found these. We were out in Vegas and I remember being so excited when I saw these cute ladybugs. The next day referrals came out!

Next! (well, not really)

I got on the computer this morning and read the posts on my site and for the first time I had that feeling that Emma is really coming. This is the post I read

Hey Kim,Glad to see that you guys are still out there. I keep a running list of my families that I loved and guess what?? You are next to get your baby. I just marked off my Feb. 9th family and you're next. I know it may not seem like much but I have marked off many before you and now you are finally at the top! On another note, 32 pounds, WOW!!! Clearly, you need to be my personal trainer! That is incredible. Good luck on the house hunt!Amber Able :)

Amber has been taking care of us for a very long time! When we decided to go to Ukraine we were assigned Amber by our home study agency. We were so nervous to meet her as she held part of the key to us adding a child to our family. When we met her she welcomed us in and made us feel so at ease with the whole process. We immediately felt so comfortable with her and enjoyed all of our visits with her. When things didn't work out with Ukraine and we decided to go to China we decided to stay with our same home study agency. We were so lucky to still have Amber with us along our journey. So, when I saw this post it meant a lot to us. Now I know we still have a long way to go until we get to March 29th but it was an incredible feeling to know that in someones book, WE ARE NEXT! Thanks Amber for that uplifting post! By the way, we know it is almost time to update our home study and we do plan on having a house by then , hopefully closer to you!

A small sign

First off, I missed posting about our 29th month LID! The big 29 was on the 29th. It's been awhile since I posted our anniversary (they happen so often). Anyway, on our 29th month anniversary we took a little road trip to Pikeville to watch Chase play football in the Pike Bowl. They lost their game but not to brag, Chase played great! Anyway, when we got to Pikeville we had a few "signs". First when we got to the hotel and checked in we got in the elevator and saw this...

A beautiful Chinese girl and I love the caption "can you hear me now?" DeeAnna and I immediately decided we had to have a picture of this! Next we got our room keys and the 2 keys we got were for room 8 and 11. Now everyone knows 8 is lucky in China and 11 has been that number that keeps coming up all through the adoption (could it be a sign?). Last but not least we went to eat and there sat a mom with her 2 Chinese daughters. What made that odd is that this is a town with NO diversity in the hills of Kentucky. It's just the little thing I needed to hold on to hope.

Now for the adoption. There are rumors going this weekend that the next batch of referrals are going from Feb. 1- Feb. 9, 2006. Now we do have to remember that the Chinese New Year went through the 5th so that is only 4 actual LID's but it still puts us 9 days closer to Emma. That puts us at 48 days until our LID, 14 of which are weekend days. That means 34 actual referral days. It still means we are a good distance away but still a step closer.