Bad Bloggy Momma

Yeah, so I haven't updated in a while...sorry...

We've been a bit busy. We're moving. Not far from here, but to a "new " house. We bought a house in the hills and moving day is 2 days away right now. Our house is a "cosmetic fixer" which means it looks a all sorts of bad inside. The yard is huge and the house is big and we're all happy with it.

Since the last post, we've been to San Diego, Universal Studios, here and there and have had bunches of stuff going on. So--how about a picture or two?

Here are the girls at Universal Studios meeting a doggy friend at the "Animal Actors" show.



Here's Min with Laina in the background at the beach in San Diego. It's funny to think that just a year ago, Min HATED the beach with a fierce passion. Now, she loves it.



Laina went to Lego Land with Daddy. I stayed at home with Min. Here's Laina on a ride:


Next time: our new house...

The wait of a Lifetime...

Look at this Picture. It was taken on March 15th, 2006. Laina had been home for 6 months and we still lived in Portland, Oregon. Laina was 15 months old. Since then we've moved. We've traveled back to Portland several times. Friends have gotten married and had babies. We've added Min into our family. I'm starting to think about the girls starting Kindergarten in the year 2010. I'm starting to think about starting back to work when the girls are in school. Our lives are quickly moving forward and things are looking bright.

There are a group of people that we have something in common with that have had their dreams and plans put on hold since the date that this picture was taken. On March 15th, there are at LEAST 25 families that had their dossier logged into the Center for Adoption Affairs in China. We know that 25 people reported to the Rumor Queen that they have their Log In Date on March 15th, and more people haven't reported. Right now, China has given referrals of babies and children to the people who have logged in their paperwork up to March 6th, 2006. They turned in their paperwork just one year and 2 months after we turned in our paperwork for Laina and they're having to wait for 3 YEARS or more before they can see their child's face. We waited for 6 months. The slowdown is just so long. Many families are going to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel before too long, though. At least 83 families are going to be getting their referral at the beginning of April. I hope that more than that will be processed.

How did we get Min home so quick? She was a special case called "waiting child". We had identified her off of our our agency's "waiting child" list. We filed our paperwork specifically for her, and because of that the process moves much faster. Even so, it was a year in process, including gathering all of our dossier documents.

One of my secret joys is seeing the faces of the babies that are matched with new parents and watching the families go and get their new babies. It's a fantastic journey that I love to watch from afar. Check out this page and watch the babies come home. There should be a new group of babies matched to their parents coming in the beginning of April.

So...all 2 or 3 of my blog readers that are waiting for your babies, my thoughts are with you, and I'm also counting the days/months/years along with you.

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The last couple of Sundays we've been braving the world of Realty and we've gone "Open Housing". We're not going to be buying a house in the next week or two, but it's a good time to start checking things out and seeing what one can get for how much. I enjoy seeing in other people's houses and thinking about how our things would fit in the house. We've seen some that we like, and others that are pretty awful.

The last weekend we were out, we stopped by a Yuck-in-a-box for lunch (Acutally, the grilled Ciabatta sandwich isn't bad). Jorg recently bought a new snappy cam and we were trying it out. Here's what we came up with--

Don't worry, I wasn't about to rip of Min-min's head. We were playing a game of "Make a silly face" and I was pulling a face at Min and she was reacting to it and Jorg happened to take a picture of it. Nice, huh?

I always say that if you make an ugly face at the camera, the only thing you'll get is an ugly picture that someone can post on the internet.



Here's a nice picture of me and Min together.




Jorg and Laina like to sit together, or rather Laina likes to sit with Jorg. He's a softie pushover and she gets to drink as much of her soda (7-up mixed with lemonade) as she likes. I usually pull her cup away until she eats most of her dinner.



At this second, the girls are playing legos on the floor. Min is trying to roll the lego car up Laina's arm, and Laina is squealing happily and then after she squeals, she tries to bump Min's chest with her head which send off another peal of laughter and the process starts again.

I've just annouced "Jammie Time" and nothing is happening. They're totally ignoring me, the little scamps. **sigh** gotta go and enforce the law...

Time marches on...

So, now it's the beginning of March and I haven't updated the blog since the middle of December. BAD bloggy momma. Let's do a Reader's Digest Condensed version of the last few months.

So, for Christmas we went to Germany and had a very nice time. The girls got to experience some snow (thankfully, not too much). We got to visit with our relatives in Germany and a good time was had by all. Except for that whole stomach flu thing, but that went away.
Here's a picture of us and some cousins, aunts and uncles mixed in somewhere. We're at a castle somewhere in Germany.



I had to buy these coats special for the trip, and we really haven't used them since. I don't think we'll use them again before the kids grow out of them! The picture is the skating rink in the Fussgangerzone in Stuttgart.



After Christmas, we came home to the OC and then we all got sick for most of the month of January. Blech. Fever, sinus infection, ear infection, bronchitis, stomach yuckiness, and jetlag. Hurl. A picture? You want a picture? OK, let's see what we've got.

This picture was taken sometime around Min's birthday, which was on the 21st of January. I was going to take her to Disneyland, just her and me, but on the actual day, we were both so sick that we had to just stay home and convalesce. We'll have to do her first trip to Disneyland on another day...maybe my birthday we'll go. Well, the girls don't look to sick, but I think they were putting on a happy face for the camera.



After the horrible month of January, we moved into February, which brings with it the happiness of the New Year! We let go of the year of the rat and welcomed the strong determination of the Year of the Ox. For our New Year celebrations, we again had a lovely lunch with the Chinese Consul General to Los Angeles, Mr. Zhang. We really enjoyed seeing him again, and the girls ask when they can see him again.


We also had a fantastic dinner with our friends from our Dragon Boat team, the Blazing Paddles. The girls really like dressing up in their fancy clothes.





And now, we're back into the day to day rhythm of life that I enjoy so much. I started going to Zumba classes to help me keep my pants size the way it should be, and also to help me get down with my bad self. The girls go to their Chinese teacher twice a week and to tiny tots twice a week.
Today we took some "for fun" pictures. The girls saw me puting on a little make up and wanted some, too. I made them all up and we looked like real floozies! So what do you do when you look like floozies? Well--pull out the camera, of course! Actually, the camera didn't capture the skank very well, and actually, the pictures turned out really cute. Here's a few...
Me with my girlies!!





Not bad for holding the camera out as far as I can reach, huh?

Here's some of Laina:









And Min: