CCAA September Update

The China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) updated their website last night that they have finished placement of children with families registered before August 9th. That is 18 days worth of referrals which is twice as much as they did last month. Although, most of the rumor sites are saying that the beginning of August had very few registered log in dates so this may not be a sign that things are speeding up. They still have to get through 5 months of Log in Dates to get to us but it is significant progress so we are excited. Haven't heard anything from our agency yet whether they received any referrals this month but we should hear from them within the next couple days. The other part of the CCAA website update says that they have finished reviewing applications registered in December 2005. Since we were registered in January they should be reviewing our application now. Kind of odd to think that someone in China could be looking at our application as I write this.

Bathroom Remodel

We finally got around to taking some pics of our bathroom remodel.....

Before

After

We are pretty happy with the way it come out. It was definitely in need of an upgrade from the bad 80s decor. Jen is trying to talk me into buying an LCD screen to mount on the wall so she can watch Oprah and have a bath. I guess Gracie could also use it to watch cartoons while she is taking a tubbie. We'll see. Not a whole lot of rumors on this month's upcoming batch of referrals. We are not sure what to expect based on last month's small batch. But still hopeful that things will start speeding up. We should know for sure late this week or early next week.

Football

We took off this past weekend to visit Jen's family and take in some college football. The home team won and the weather was great so everyone was happy. I feel like it wouldn't be appropriate not to say something today on the 5 year anniversary of September 11th. We always feel pretty patriotic when we are down in the Washington area but to see all of these brave young men and women preparing to stand up and defend our country really humbles me. All I can really say is Thank You..
Nothing really going on in adoption news, Jen and I did finish up our Hepatitis vaccinations last week, so I guess that is one less thing we have to worry about. Our bathroom remodel is finally finished as well. We just need to touch up some paint and hang a couple things on the walls and we are back to normal.

8 Months

Tomorrow marks 8 months since our Log In Date. Some days is seems like the time has gone by pretty fast and some days it feels like we have been waiting forever. It has definitely been like a roller coaster ride. I spend a lot of time reading other waiting families' websites and blogs as it is nice to get some perspective from people that are in the same boat as we are. Have noticed recently that morale seems to be pretty low with many waiting families. The common theme seems to be that we just have no idea how long the wait is going to be. A few families just can't deal with it and are switching to domestic adoption or other countries. This is not something Jen and I have ever considered, we wish we knew how long the wait is going to be but we don't and we know our daughter is in China. We attended a wedding this past weekend for saw many of my family members who excitedly asked us if there was anything new with the adoption. It was tough to have to say again and again, no, nothing, no idea when we will know. It is nice to see people genuinely excited for us but at the same time it is difficult to tell people that we have no idea when Grace will be coming home. To give us just a nibble of good news the China Center of Adoption Affairs updated their website last week that they have finished review of adoption applications registered in their office before November 30th 2005. So this means that they are now working on December and since we are logged in January we should be next. I read somewhere that they actually work on two months at a time so they could actually be reviewing out application now. From what I understand the review process is just to make sure all of your documents are in order and you meet all of the requirements. Sometimes people will get a call requesting additional information, we have our fingers crossed that we will make it through OK. I think we will breathe a little easier when the website reads that they have finished reviewing applications registered in January. See the latest screen shot below.