Something to Pass the Time...

Hope you have fun learning a few phrases!

A wonderful site for learning Chinese is http://www.mandarintools.com/ .

Hello Ni hao (knee how)
I am (name). Wo shi Suzanne. (Woh shee Suzanne.)
Goodbye Zai jian (zy jee an)
Good Morning! Zao shang hao (zow shong how)
Good evening! Wan shang hao (wan shong how)
Thank you xie xie (shyay shyay)
You're welcome Bu yong xie (Boo yong shyay)
See you later. Hui you jian (hway too jee an)
How are you!? Ni hoa ma? (Knee how mah)
I am fine. Wo ting hao de. (Woh ting how der)
I have a question. Qing wen. (Ching wun)
Please speak a little slower Qing shuo mian yi dian. (Ching shwo mee an yee dee an)
I am glad to know you. Wo hen gao xing ren shi ni. (Woh hun gow shing run shee knee.)
I'm Sorry. Dui bu qi (Dway boo tchee)
Excuse me Bu hao yi si. (Boo how yee see)
Congratulations! Gong xi ni (Gong shee nee)
Chinese currency Renminbi (run men bi)
Chinese dollar yuan (you wen)
China Zhong Guo (jong gwo)
America Mei Guo (May gwo)
Little sister Mei Mei (may may)

Review Room

We've made it through the Review Room!!! This is the last step of approval in the process to adopt from China - Here is a little more information on how the Review Room works:

Each agency has their own review person. They know how to put a dossier together based on how their review person wants to see it, and based on the things their review person will approve or deny.

Each review person has their own assigned agencies, or maybe their own assigned country.

Sometimes one review person has twice as many files to review as someone else does that month, but the next month they may have half as many.

This means that one reviewer could be several months ahead of another reviewer, and may stay that way until their agencies have a big month and they get slowed down again. It is normal for one reviewer to still be working on February while another reviewer has made it to April.

The review room notice on the CCAA site won’t show that a month is complete until all reviewers are through with that month.

One Year LID Anniversary!

We finally made it to one year of "official" waiting!!!

We are very excited, but unfortunately, it doesn't appear that we are that much closer to receiving our referral. One year ago we did think that our 1-year anniversary would have only meant a matter of months until our referral, but we now know that we will have another 10-12 months to wait.

We have purchased the bedding for the crib and a couple of pictures for the walls, but I don't feel a strong need to paint the room yet. I think it will be too difficult to have it ready for so many months before our daughter arrives. We continue to stock up on clothes and other odds and ends and we hope that we are guessing on the correct sizes:)

We continue to pray for peace during this long wait and we remain faithful that this is all in God's timing and He knows who is meant to be our daughter.

On a positive note: A friend of ours that we "met" through an adoption forum recently received one of the greatest miracles - their daughter, Brea who was adopted from China last October, received the heart transplant that she has been waiting for! She became ill 7 weeks ago with a virus that attacked her heart and she was in desperate need of a new heart. She received that new heart on March 30th and is doing extremely well. We continue to pray for her recovery and for the donor family that made the difficult decision to provide life for another during their time of loss. Please keep both of these families in your prayers -

Almost 10 months of waiting...

It has been awhile since we created our blog and posted our first notes, but to be honest, there hasn't been much to report on. We have been waiting and watching each month to see how far the CCAA has reviewed and matched. Their website was recently updated indicating that they have reviewed all dossiers through March 22, 2006 and they have matched referrals through October 13, 2005. We were originally hoping for a 13 - 14 month wait, but now it may be 18 - 24 months.