Feelings lately...

So I guess my buzz from the review room has worn off a little bit... I can't believe my 3 weeks of vacation are over and I'm going back to work next Monday. At least it's short days next week, the first week is always the hardest right after the 4th of July, people are still trying to make up their minds what they are doing for the Summer, and some people are still away from the 4th. So it's actually really nice to not have really long days the first week.

Summer is always hard, time to myself which I am always yelling I don't get, and then I get it and don't know how to relax enough sometimes to enjoy it. I have a ton of stuff I want to get done this week, and now the weather is going to be crappy, and may impede on what I want to do. I did get the garden around the tree done yesterday, and the other garden weeded and mulched, and plants transplanted yesterday, so yesterday was a good day. I am going to do the barrel next to the mailbox today and then to Joann Fabrics to pick out fabric to send to a fellow blogger for her daughters quilt-excited about this!

I plan on sending out notices via email for the last of the quilt squares for our quilt, this week. I'm not sure people know they can still send fabric or not, but we've added a few names also. My blogger friend is also going to send fabric for Avery's quilt.

Got all of her quilt squares out last week that we've received so far. We have 92 so far, and will definitely be over 100 for her quilt, so that's really good.

Been noticing a lot of things lately...people mostly.

I've noticed how they act, how they respond, and have seen what's important to them, versus what's important to us. It's funny how different people are...I guess that's a good thing, we wouldn't all want to be the same.

I guess in some instances you get what you give, and no matter how much you think you give it doesn't seem to be enough. It's funny how you can live close to someone and not really know much about them, or assume that you do, but be completely wrong. I don't know these are just ramblings in my head. When people make me mad, or frustrate me, it comes out on this blog. Gary asked me other day, so is this blog just about us now...I said no, but this is our lives and what's going on during this journey it's nothing different than what I've blogged about before. I can't write in a journal, I feel idiotic, and I'm a computer person anyway. I like email over the phone, facebook, and all of that stuff. People say I'm too quiet and hard to read...so read this and you'll know how I feel, and what's going through my head.

I feel like people lately don't want to hear about any progress unless it's the referral. You say progress, and they think, do you have her? I guess I can understand that. Probably sick and tired of us droning on how long the wait is, and has been, and what's left for the wait.

Maybe I'm just stir crazy here at home, because I'm not working. Maybe...if I was working I'd complain I was working...never satisfied. Wish I had the whole Summer off though. Will do when we have Avery...can't wait.

So there's my droning for today...
~Alli

More pictures from our vacation in Indiana...
Enjoy!!:)

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Our Indiana vacation...

So Gary and I took off last Friday evening to go visit my brother, Tom, and his wife Liz, and our nieces Jessica and Jodi. We haven't been to Indiana in the Summer in 8 years. The last time was for Tom and Liz's wedding. We go every other year for Thanksgiving and Easter, and they come home for Christmas, and usually 1 week in the Summer in August, so it was nice to go and catch up with everyone. I love Indiana, it's quiet, and laid back, and so much to do.

We left Friday evening about 9:00PM, and Gary likes to drive through the night because the traffic is light, and you can get there and still not really waste a whole day traveling. We got to Tom and Liz's about 6:00AM. We snoozed til about 10:00AM when we got there, and then visited with everyone for a couple hours and then we took off to Shipshewana. My favorite touristy part of Indiana. It's a little town full of shops, and cafés, and you park in one place and walk the town. Each house is another shop. We had a pretzel, and a cherry coke (the kind where they put the syrup in themselves) at the Mercantile, and unfortunately the chocolate shop that Gary loves had closed down-bummer! But it was nice, and not too busy, and we didn't stay too long. Had dinner with Tom and Liz and the girls at their house, Liz made some tasty lasagna, and we were in bed by 10:00PM. I think the driving all night was catching up to us.

We went to church with them on Sunday (Father's Day). They belong to Fairview Missionary Church. It's a big church, beautiful inside and out, they have a 18 piece band and the pastor is fun and upbeat. We went 2 years ago for their version of the passion play and enjoyed it then. For Father's Day they had a ll the Big Boy Toys in the parking lot- RV's, cars, tractors, etc. for all the Dad's to drool over, and the Father's got chocolate on the way out. After church we had lunch and Gary, Liz, Jessica, and Jodi and I went to Pokagon State Park, so the girls could go swimming. Tommy took a nap in the chair. It was in the high 80's and really humid while we were there. Really pretty park, and we had fun watching the girls in the water, it was a lot cooler near the water. Then we hit the outlets next door, just 4 shops so Gary could get some new work clothes. He's lost 50 pounds and is desperate for some new clothes. He came home with 7 shirts and 5 pairs of pants-cheap!! For our Father's Day I took Gary to Moe's in Fort Wayne. He may not officially be a Dad yet but he is a Dad to a lot of our students, and with the news lately of the review room, we deserved to celebrate a little. We're a cheap date, and Moe's is good food!! Grabbed a shake at Steak and Shake on the way home and that was that for Father's Day.

We drove to Fort Wayne on Monday and took Liz, and the girls shopping. Had a lot of fun, and Tommy grilled chicken for dinner, it was great. It was great to spend time with my brother and his family. the girls are growing up so quick, and we miss so much of their lives because we live so far away. I picked out fabric for a purse. Liz makes these amazing purses. She is a sewing genius!! We went for bike rides, and played badminton, played with the kittens, and watched movies.

On Tuesday we went to the big Shipshewana Flea Market. There are over 400 vendors at this flea market, and all sorts of deals. Jessica and Uncle Gary made shirts, I bought some what Gary would call, "happy crap". Liz and Jodi met us there a little later, and we had lunch together. A good time was had by all. It was HOT though. I forgot to put on suntan lotion like an idiot. I burn in 3 seconds when it's hot like that, but Liz had some in her bag and I bought a scarf to put around my shoulders and neck, and then I was fine. I got a little burned but not too bad. We got through 3/4 of the flea market and I had had enough-too hot !! So they continued and we went and got a pretzel and cherry coke from the Mercantile in the village-YAY!

Gary took a 3 hour nap when we got back from the flea market, and I packed up all our findings and goodies. We had dinner with all of them and we left to come home at about 8:00PM that evening. Again, Gary likes to drive through the night-less traffic. We got home about 5:00AM on Wednesday and had the rest of the day to chill out and relax.

We had a great time in Indiana visiting with my brother's family!!

I'll try to post some pictures we took when we were there!!

Have a great day!
~Alli


Uncle Gary and Jessica and Jodi


Jodi at the Pokagon State Park Playground


Jessica!

Oh Happy Day!!!...week!!

So happy everything came back clear for a family member-Oh Happy Day!!! What a week, great news on the adoption, and great, great news in the family!!

We really should count our blessings everyday, and be grateful for the people in our lives, and tell them everyday that we love them!!

Goodness all around!!

Love to all,
~Alli

We are off to Indiana for 4 days to frolic with the nieces and the brother and sister in law!!:)

Want to say Happy Father's Day to my Dad and Gary's Dad. We will be in Indiana for Father's Day this year. We celebrated Father's Day with my Dad last Sunday-we made breakfast for him. Had Father's Day with Gary's Dad last night-made dinner for him. We love you both and will call you on Sunday-Happy Father's Day!!

Clarification...& other note

Review room means they are or have looked at your dossier. The dossier is the huge packet of information we sent to China, our criminal records, finger prints, statement of intent to adopt, all agency paperwork, the homestudy, the medical documents, the pictures, and all the other notarized, exemplified, and whatever else we were when we had to get all of that stuff together. So we've gone from one pile to essentially another pile, but the difference is they have reviewed our dossier now, and we should be moving on to the matching room here shortly. So in that room we again are put into another pile. Lots of moving from one pile to another, to another. But after so many months of waiting to get this far, the news yesterday was great to hear.

The last time I checked on the update (last week) they were still on April 30th 2007, and they have gone up almost 2 months in this last update (yesterday). So that's good! Now they are at June 30th, 2007. I know for some people it's a small step, we are still waiting. But let me tell ya, yesterday was such a happy day for us, and any amount of progress, of feeling like this adoption has gone forward is BIG for us, and we need to celebrate the little things along the way. Because if we don't, we just get bogged down on the negative side of the waiting. Had a glass of wine last night to celebrate w/ Gary.

So I am going to wait until next month to start the countdown, and the time for that may freeze at times, and it may also have times where it goes along as scheduled, but right now we can "plan" on at least 10 months until our referral. The other couples that just got their referrals waited 34 months from their LID, so we are almost at 24 months, in 14 days we will be 24 months. Then we will start at 11 months and countdown. I know I may be ahead of myself a little, but smaller numbers are good, and that's what we've been waiting to hear about, and we're here...maybe off a little here or there.

But we're HERE!!

Thank you to everyone that have left comments here and on facebook and sent emails about our news yesterday. We
appreciate all the support, and love, more than you know!!!

Love to all,
~Alli:)

PS~

Thank you to our nephew Noah who gave us one of his art projects from school. It was a picture of a chinese coat drawn on silk, it's very cool. When I get a chance I will post a picture of it up here to everyone. Thank you Noah!!!
Love,
~Aunt Alli

Guess who should be through or definitely in REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay so we just got the email from our adoption agency saying that the CCAA was through review of dossiers logged in or before June 30, 2007. I still need to email LaShonna our adoption agent because we were told when our dossier went to China it went with the June packet of dossiers, even though our LID is 7/3/07.

So at the very least we ARE in the review room, if not truly through review and that is EXCITING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just called Gary at work, and he was so happy, he's having a tough day at work, and he said, "I needed that!". I am so excited and relieved and have a big smile from ear to ear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a nice Father to be gift for him this weekend, during one of the tough holidays for us.

How exciting!! I don't care if we are through or are in review-PROGRESS!!!!!!!!!!!! FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pop the bubbly!!!-So happy today!!! Finally get to start counting down in months instead of up. The countdown will be hard to gauge but I'm sick of counting up, gonna start from 11-10 months and count downward for the day that we will receive our referral for Avery Lin Newton-our beautiful daughter!!!

Love to all,
~Alli & Gary:)

Sending good luck today...

Sending good luck and we'll be thinking about you today, and we love you very much!!!!

Zhu ni hao yun!!

~Alli & Gary

More scrapbooking...

We don't have Avery yet, so here's Koko...

Make a Smilebox postcard

Enjoy...she is cute!!!
~Alli:)

Thank you Christa, Kara & Lucas...& other things...

We received another 3 quilt squares yesterday from our friends who just got back from Ethiopia 2 weeks ago with their son Lucas. We are so happy to have them be a part of the quilt. Christa has been a God send to me this year for having someone I know going through this adoption process and being someone in our life that just "gets" it. So thank you to Christa and her family for contributing to Avery's quilt and we loved seeing Lucas for a few minutes yesterday. He is such a lovely little boy, he must be a lot of fun, and keep you all on your toes..what fun!! Thank you for the kind words also on her scrapbook page!!

To anybody else that would like to contribute to the quilt please feel free. Gary & I are going to Indiana this weekend and I am taking the quilt squares and our pattern and hoping to meet up with my Aunt Julie possibly and also my cousins to talk about the quilt and how to proceed. We are also going to talk with my Aunt Joyce around here who is also a fabulous quilt maker and get her input as well on how to proceed.

I'm anxious to get started and anxious to look at all the quilt pieces laid out together. I have lost count on how many we have now. I will snap a picture of all the pieces together and post it this week.

Well, this is the first official week of my vacation. I'm hoping to get a lot of stuff done around the house, but ,ore importantly I'm hoping to relax and enjoy it more than anything. I am not good at vacation or time down, because I'm always gearing up for the next event we have. So, wish me luck in relaxing and enjoying being home!!!

If you are in town, stop by for a visit!!

Love to all,
~Alli:)

I'm trying digital scrapbooking...

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Here's what our kitchen looked like at Chinese New Year this year. I took the pictures not Gary...obviously, that's why they are dark and blurry. But I've been wanting to try this digital scrapbooking out and slideshows so here we go...

Enjoy,
~Alli:)

Putting this in the blogishere...

Okay, so I have an old "friend" that I speak to not very much, and don't see ever but I get these random emails from. The last time it was totally out of the blue, and I was blamed for things going wrong in her life, and a whole bunch of other things. I hadn't talked to this person in a couple years, and I only get an email when something is wrong, or she decides to yell and blame me for something. Granted I don't talk to her and don't see her but still get blamed for all of the random stuff that happens in her life. She is one of my former students and I helped her through rough times with her family, and career, and college, and everything else when she was around here. But she moved away, and then dropped out of sight for a really long time, and then stays in touch when things are rough or she is having a tough time. I don't mind helping with the advice but I'm not going to be blamed for her life situations either. I also will not compete with her in her life.

In the last set of emails I received which were out of the blue, she said a lot of things that were very hurtful, and inappropriate and false, and mean. I didn't know where any of this was coming from I hadn't heard from her in at least 3 months prior. A lot of us not having a family, and lies, and a lot of very hurtful things were said on her end...so I did retaliate, and was extremely ready to let her go out of my (our) life. But then she apologized, and I let it go...wrong thing to do. Because now it's been 2 months and I'm really mad, and hurt still, and really don't want anything to do with her or her family now. She said too much, and she should have taken her life problems out on the people that actually were the problem...not me.

So now, we keep getting emails from her about her wedding, we're not invited, which is fine I wouldn't go anyway, I couldn't go with a happy heart. She did ask Gary if he would dj their wedding because their dj has backed out now 3 weeks before the wedding-what nerve!? Today I got another email like we're best friends-WHAT DO YOU DO??

I really am mad and hurt by this individual, and really just want to cut them out of my life until maybe she grows up a little more. I hope she finds what she is looking for in life but it will have to be without me in her life. Is that mean? I think it's just being truthful, and the relationship is toxic so why hold on to it -right?

I am trying to get all of the negative people and all of the negativity out of my life. We have enough going on with the adoption waiting, and everything else we are involved with. I just don't want to have to deal with these kind of people. I know that I have to, but doesn't there come a point with some of them you just say-ENOUGH!!...I think yes!!

Okay so there it goes out into the blogisphere...my venting and way of dealing right now.
~Alli

So I have an amazing hubby...

Don't ya like the new layout?! We have been talking for the past few months to change it up now that it's been just about 2 years and we will be on the down side of the adoption soon. He's not done yet, but he is totally amazing at this stuff and the amount of knowledge he knows about all of this stuff is astounding to me, I don't even try!!

Drop him a note if you like the new layout!!

Have a great day!

~Alli:)

CCAA...no new news again...this no news is good news theory is shot in the foot...

The update has not changed...it is still the same. They are still at April 30th, 2007. I am beginning to be frustrated with no new news of an update of the dossiers. I know...all in good time.

I think other things are bothering me more lately, and new things, and I feel very much at a stand still. I am still waiting to start the quilt, and there is an update on that site about the quilt. We are still waiting to start her room, we are still waiting on news of being through review, we are still waiting for the referral, we are still waiting to go get our little girl, we are still waiting to start the other half of our lives. Waiting, waiting, waiting...one word I absolutely cannot STAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Come on...some good news!!!!!!!!!!-Please!!!

But we wait...we're getting pretty good at it...MOST days.

Love to all, and some positive thoughts, energy, prayers sent our way... so maybe we hear soon about the review process. It would be greatly appreciated!!!!
~Alli

23 Months!!

Today is the 3rd of the month...our LID monthly Anniversary!!! I just got back from my walk and thought-"hey, today is the 3rd...23 months". Wow!!

23 in Chinese is, er shi san...I think. I think you add 2 plus 10 (meaning 2-10's) plus 3, and that's how they arrive at 23. I could be wrong though.

So, cross your fingers that by the end of this month we will be through review and on into matching!!!! Then we can pop the bubbly!!

Have a great day!!
~Love to everyone!!
~Alli:)

A nice weekend...

We went away last weekend to Lake Placid. One of my former dancers got married, and actually her husband danced for us also on the SJ Dance Company a long time ago, so we knew them both. Plus, her brother is getting married this Summer also, and he is marrying Gary's cousin, so it's funny how everything really is connected. We've known all of these kids for a long time, and they're not kids anymore. They are great adults, and great people, we love them all! It was nice to get away for the weekend, we don't do that very often. It always seems that every time we go to Lake Placid it is cold though, it was a little chilly there last weekend. The wedding was lovely, and the food was great, Sarah looked beautiful, Lucas very handsome and Ethan very cute!! We are very happy for them, and for their families. It was great to catch up with Hayley and Dan, we don't get to see them very often, and I miss Hayley alot!! We can't wait for their wedding in July!! All of our "kids" are grown up, and getting married, and having children, we feel old!

We did a little shopping downtown in Lake Placid, and we always have good food there. We went to the Olympics store downtown, and got 2 Beijing 2008 hats, and a t-shirt for Avery with the Panda character from the Olympics on it-very cute and very cheap!! We came home about 4:30ish on Sunday. Weird weather on the way home the temperature dropped about 20 degrees and we had hail, and it looked also like slushy snow-weird!? I was so tired Sunday, maybe it was the 5 glasses of wine at the reception Saturday night, I think Gary had 6. At least we don't do that very often. Sarah and Lucas had calla lilies at the reception, and that was our wedding flower. Sarah showed up at my studio yesterday, and dropped off some calla lilies at our house-thanks Sarah! Have fun in South Carolina!! Another thing was on our table cards at the wedding where your table number was written there were ladybugs on our cards. No one else had them, we felt special. We had a lot of fun, and it was nice to get away before crunch week before the Recital.

It is crunch week now for the Recital, this is the last week of classes, we start dress rehearsals on Sunday and Monday with the Recital next Tuesday. There is so much to do this week it's just ridiculous!! I am looking forward to my 3 1/2 weeks off after the Recital though. Just get me through this week, and the Recital go well that's all I'm asking for!!

Wish the weather would clear up, and get warmer!!

Love to all,
~Alli