First a quick update on the adoption and related iPad giveaway...we are up to about 65 iPad tickets sold. For not having been out there even a week yet, I'd say that's pretty good! So, SO many of you have posted the link on your Facebook, tweeted about it or even blogged about it for us and I can't thank you enough. I've had several donations from complete strangers and that's all due to YOU. My site meter told me that I had nearly 300 hits last week. I normally run about 80-90 hits, so that is excellent traffic!
I'm going to have an opportunity to increase ticket sales in early December at Christmas for a Cause. I'll post more information about that later, but it will be, I hope, a wonderful event for us to fundraise more money for our adoption. We have another fundraiser coming soon, so stay tuned!
As for the actual adoption, we have literally 2 tiny things that still have to be done before it's final. The issue is that these last two items are beyond our control. We are again waiting on someone else. Just pray that it will go quickly and we'll get the home study issued quickly. We have to have that before we can apply to the USCIS and the fees there increase next week. I'm starting to think we aren't going to make that deadline.
We also had a call with our agency today and discovered that from the point we get a referral, it will be 1-3 months before we get the final acceptance from China and then another 10-14 weeks before we get travel approval. So, that's 7-8 months from the time we first get her picture to the time we can bring her home. This is relatively short in terms of international adoption, but I'm sure it will seem like an eternity when the time comes and all we can do is wait.
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On a non-adoption note, if you'll remember, I have had quite a busy few months and part of my committment is to kind of trim down some of my activities outside the home and spend more time with Jenna and God and Steve. Part of the changes I made was to go upstairs with Jenna at 8pm every night and read with her until her bedtime at 8:30. Usually, she is reading her school book (she has a super high reading goal) and I'm doing a devotional or my Bible study. Currently, she's reading CS Lewis', The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. It was one of the first books I read to her as a newborn and she's seen the movie numerous times. But every night at 8:30 it's a struggle to get her to stop reading. But last night, I let her finish the chapter she was on and told her to get in bed while I put the book by the stairs (to remember to take down when I went) and I went to comb out my freshly washed hair. I sat the book by the stairs and put my cell phone on top of it and went on to my bathroom. Oddly enough, when I went to Jenna's room, the book was gone, but my cell phone was still there. When I confronted Jenna, she pulled the book from it's hiding place and begged me to let her stay up and read just a little more! Now, of course, that little sneak was going to read after I told her goodnight. But I was secretly happy that she loved reading so much that she wanted to stay up late to finish.
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It's that time of year again...the weather changes and I get a good solid case of laryngitis. Since I was a teenager, I have gotten it twice a year every year. Typically, it starts the same way...sore throat from drainage. Day 2 comes with relief from the sore throat, but quite the thickness in my throat. Day 3 -4 I'm usually started to get pretty hoarse. Day 5 is usually the worst with me sounding like a boy going through puberty with all the squeaking. Then it starts to go the other way with my voice getting better. For several years, I only had it once a year and then lately, I've gone probably 2-3 years without getting it at all. But for all those years it missed, it's back this year with a vengence! It started Friday with the notorious sore throat. Sunday night I was a little hoarse, but yesterday morning I woke up with NO VOICE. I mean, no more than a whisper. I haven't lost my voice completely like that in a LONG time. And it definitely came on faster than usual. Today I've had an in/out voice meaning sometimes I can squeak something out and when I do, it's with my sexy voice and sometimes it just comes out as a whisper. The good news is that although I sound HORRIBLE, I feel just fine. I'm on the upside and the only downside to the upside is the coughing that comes with breaking this up.
Well, that's it. That's what's up with the Taylors.
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