Jack O Lanterns and Good Fortune

Tonight we carved a pumpkin with the Chinese symbol for "Good Fortune" on it. It was the first time in a VERY long time that either one of us had carved a pumpkin. Bo did all of the work. I assisted, when needed, and was the designated photographer. Someone on one of the Yahoo groups that I'm a member of posted the stencil for the "Good Fortune" symbol, so we decided to give it a try! We could use some good fortune. Maybe our I-171H will come now!

Bambi and all of his friends have come for a visit!

We live in a rural area of South Alabama and constantly have wildlife all around us. When we got home this afternoon, there were 7 deer in our yard. We have oak trees all around us, so they come to eat the acorns that are falling from the trees this time of year. They also love the Indian Hawthorns and daylillies that we have in our landscaping around our home. The Indian Hawthorns have been stripped of their leaves, and the daylillies are nowhere to be found. They even ate the geraniums right out of the pots on my front porch.

After spotting the deer this afternoon, I snuck out on the front porch to try to take pictures of five of them, but they were wise to me right away. They ran off and then stopped to look at me. If you notice in the picture, you can see 4 heads peeping up over the hill at me.

Cybershower gifts are here!!!

This week we received our Trick or Treat cybershower gift from Pam Follick and her family. They sent the cutest little Halloween pj's for Sophie and book for us to read! I can't wait to see her in them and read the book while we rock in the rocking chair. Life will be grand!

Thank you, Pam Follick!! We love the gift!!

We are in review!!

The CCAA has now reviewed applications dated through August 31, 2006. Since we have a LID of September 8, 2006, that means that we are now in review!! This is a really good thing. If we find Sophie in the next group of SN kids, chances are, our application will have already been reviewed and the wait time between Letter of Intent(LOI) and Letter of Acceptance(LOA) will be shorter than for some of the other families with our agency. I also found out today that our updated homestudy had been approved by DHR and was sent on to INS for approval last month. We should have our new I-171H by the end of the month!! Yea! This also is very important because it says that the government has cleared up to adopt an orphan and that they will be expecting us in Guanghzou at some point to finalize the adoption.