We Love New York!

About a month ago, we took a family trip to NYC.  It was the first time any of us have ever been there, except for Jim, who has been working there since mid-August.  What a neat experience to go and stay right in Midtown Manhattan!  It delayed the start of our "formal" homeschooling for this year, but what an education it was for our girls to see such an enormous city and all of the culture that is there!  I think the educational highlight was the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  Fun highlight...hmmm...American Girl, FAO Schwarz, Blue Man Group, or Mary Poppins...I don't know, but they are still telling everyone about all the great stuff they got to play with at FAO Schwarz!!




Mary Poppins on Broadway was Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!!!

 




The view outside of our hotel room at 57th and Lexington.  We could see Bloomberg, where Jim has been working, right outside of our hotel window!

  



In fact, not only could we see the building, we could see the exact window!  He even wiggled the shade in the window while we were talking on the phone so we could see where he was!

 


We were staying in the heart of the fashion district in the middle of fashion week!  Too bad we were completely OUT of fashion!  This was a designer storefront labeled, "SPRING PREVIEW 2011".  Oh my.  We're in trouble if we're gonna need spacesuits by spring!





My pretty girls in front of one of many many fun toy displays at FAO Schwarz toy store

 



The Big Piano at FAO Schwarz.  Our first full day there Jim was working, so we literally played at this store for most of the day.....

 


....with an ice cream break in Cental Park at lunch time....





....and Grace has had this problem with popsicles since she was 3!

 



Jim took us to Bloomberg and showed us around.  Pretty big business there and more security at an employer than I have ever seen.  I got in trouble for taking pictures!

 



American Girl on 5th Avenue!  What fun!  The girls worked toward a day here as a reward for their Super Summer Challenge that we have done on summer break for two years now.  They earned their day at American Girl by things like reading, excercise, finishing craft projects, memorizing Bible verses, swim lessons, and summer learning.

 



Grace got ahold of my camera in the American Girl cafe

 



Yes.  We went to Times Square with matching I love NY t-shirts.  Um....not the best way to blend in.  It is however the best way to be targeted by every tour sales gimick within 5 blocks!

 



Braved the subway like pros....well almost pros....

 



We met up with Coleen, a friend of the family who lives in NYC.  Super fun to have dinner with her twice during our trip.  She's awesome with kids and the girls absolutely love her!

 


WTC site.  No way around it, it's a moving place to visit even under construction.





View of the Brooklyn Bridge out at the Pier

 



We went to see the Blue Man group.  Bizarre.  Baffling.  Batty.  Blue.
But definately not boring!

 



Silly faces in the taxi

 



More beautiful in person than I imagined she could be.  A truly impressive symbol of our country.  Quite possibly my favorite thing we saw on the whole trip.

 


Liberty ladies!





Ellis Island was also quite stirring.  An amazing piece of our history.

 

Waiting...

Well, we're still in that waiting room for now...

Mei Mei means "little sister"

As we wait for "Mei Mei" we are learning a lot about this imperfect system that everyone works with for Chinese adoptions.  Specifically, in the last few months, we have learned a lot about the Special Needs program, also known as the Waiting Child program.  As the wait for the non special needs program continues to climb towards 5 years, more and more people are opening up to the idea of special needs. 



The first thing we learned as we looked into this program is that the term "special needs" has a very different connotation here in the US than it does for China adoptions.  Special needs is anything and everything that opts the children out of being on the healthy list.  Many correctable needs are included in this.  There are many children who have very correctable or treatable needs or health issues, many older children with no health issues at all, and some even who have already had operations to fix their correctable problem and now just need a family! 



So...This is the third month we've been on this list and eligible to be matched with a waiting child.  In August, as I said in a post below, we did get a match but decided after much consideration that we could not accept that referral because her needs were greater and more uncertain than we could take on.  Last month when the list came out in September, we did not receive a match at all.  The list comes out once a month and tonight is IT!!  Will our little girl be on the list?  Will she be matched with us tonight?



I thought I'd post some information about how this process works in general.  I can't actually take credit for all of the following write up - I saw it on a blog and thought it was so well written so I borrowed parts of it.  Can I get in trouble for that?  I don't know - but here is a summary of the process of waiting child adoptions through the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs):

• An update to the list of waiting children is published every month or so. These are kids who are newly available for international adoption and, for whatever reason, will have a little more trouble finding their family - maybe they're a little older, maybe there's a special need, etc. They've likely been in the state's care for years, but their paperwork hadn't been processed to make them available for international adoption until now. It's commonly called "the shared list" because it's shared between all of the agencies accredited to work in China.

• In order to lock a file in the updated shared list, a family must have a Logged In Date (LID) from China. This is the date that the CCAA received the family's paperwork.  No problem for us - our LID is February 12, 2007!!!  (Yes they've had our paperwork THAT long!) 
• Our agency knows what kinds of needs and what ages we are willing to consider.  As soon as the shared list is published, our agency (and all others) will work like mad to find a file that hasn't already been locked and meets our general requirements. This is like a crazy Oklahoma land rush for babies. Madness.
• Once (if) our agency locks a file on our behalf, we'll have 72 hours to review the child's records, consult an International Adoption doctor, pray, etc.  Because of this 72 hour lock period, the agencies frequently make more matches 72 hours after that month's list comes out.  That's when we got our match in August - 72 hours after the list came out.  Why?  See the next point...
• If for some reason we do not believe we are the right parents for the child, we will let the lock expire and another family will be able to review the file. Our agency will then look for another child who seems to be a good fit and lock the file on our behalf and the cycle continues.  So in August we got matched with a file that became unlocked again after the 72 hours, and then we had 72 hours to review it and make a decision.
• If we believe that the child is our Mei Mei, we then officially petition to become her parents, jump through another 400 paperwork hoops, and travel to meet her in 4-6 months! (I think - although I've heard a LOT of varying travel times - more and less!)

So this month the list comes out tonight.  Why tonight in the middle of the night?  Because China is 12 hours ahead of us.  So the list is being released on October 20, which is tonight for us.  Match opportunity #1 is tonight, match opportunity #2 is Friday night.  So a good question is...how does one go to sleep at night when wondering if they will see the face of their next child in their email inbox the next morning?

Pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray, pray......

Happy Birthday Mary Emma!

Yesterday was Mary Emma's 7th birthday!  She had a fun day even though we kept it pretty simple.  I woke her up singing happy birthday, and that was in MY bed because she had snuck in early in the morning so I let her sleep a little longer in there!  (Which she completely loves!)  We did violin lessons in the morning and then school work after that.  Then at 3 I took her to have a pedicure at a salon!  She is SO very girly and has wanted to do that since I took Grace for her birthday.  She LOVED it!  And she loved that she got to go just the two of us while Grace hung out with Nana and Papa at some stores!  Then after the pedicure we took her to Red Robin for an early dinner.  (She was mostly after the ice cream sundae they bring you on your birthday)  Then on to Awana in the evening where she took the other kids a small treat for her birthday.  Oh yes - I can't forget the surprise visit from Tinkerbell while the girls were getting jamas on.  She apparently came to our door, rang the doorbell, and left a gift - complete with pixie dust of course.  The gift happened to be her new movie, so then I gave into the girls watching that before bed.  I don't know HOW Tinkerbell does it each year - it must have something to do with a particular aunt that seems to have an in with Tink!  ;)

Fun Weekend at Camp Barakel!

I had a great weekend at Camp Barakel this past weekend.  Went with two great friends, Jamie and Vicki, for our 3rd annual yearly getaway.  Our previous getaway that we've gone to was not scheduled in Michigan this year, so we regrouped and did a Barakel ladies retreat instead.  A few pictures...

If you look very closely in that last picture, Jamie and Vicki are coming down those crazy zip-lines!  I was safely on the ground that time around.  It wasn't until later in the day that, sanity temporarily laid aside, I also braved the tower!


It was some very fun girl time and Barakel, as usual, was a place to be blessed!  I think our most unexpected blessing was a surprise friendship with another lady in our cabin who took us all on as adopted daughters!  Her name was Mary and she was so sweet and caring toward all of us.  It think she blessed us as much as we did her when we welcomed her into our group on and off through the weekend.  I'll post a picture with her if I can get it off of Jamie's phone.