Baby Becky's Present

Thank you Secret Pal! Today we received the sweetest gift from our secret pal. I am a member of many adoption groups but the one that I am the most active on is the one for people who are also Logged In in the month of April through our agency CCAI. With the wait being so long, we are doing a gift exchange. I have been assigned a secret pal that I will send a gift to every month and one has been given my name. Today we received our first secret pal gift! I must admit that it made me cry. The note from our pal was so sweet. Baby Becky's first present from our pal is a boo bunnie ice pack and it is so cute. She also sent some bath gel for Lily which Lily loved! It meant so much to me that our pal thought of Big Sister Lily. Lily carried the bath gel around until she fell asleep with it in her hands at nap time. Many of you may remember that I obsessively shopped for Lily while we waited. I have not allowed myself to buy one present for Baby Becky especially with the wait being soooo long this time. It was so nice to recieve the gift today. Thanks again secret pal!

Referrals and Sophie

I remember when we waited for Lily that I loved referral times. I loved reading when other people got their referrals. The first time that I saw one on the computer I burst into tears. I knew that someone had just found out about their daughter/son. I still love referral time. It is so exciting to see the pictures and to hear the family's excitement. It was a little different when we were waiting on Lily's referral. Things were much more predictable than they are now. China was referring a month to a month and a half of Log in Dates each month. Then they started referring two months each month. We had initially anticipated that we would wait 12 months but we only waited 6. It was amazing when the time frame decreased so dramatically. Now the opposite is happening. For the last few months and including this month, China is referring 7 days or 5 business days of Log in Dates each month. The families with log in dates in the 2nd week of November 2005 just got their referrals. What does this mean for us? At this point the wait times continue to increase. We are told that this trend will probably continue. We are expecting at least a 2 year wait. I am looking forward to and praying for the time when referrals stabalize and hopefully speed up. Staying busy with Lily helps but we think about Becky each and every day.

On a happier note, our friend Ginger Stringer and her daughter, London are in China now. Walt is at home in Louisiana with Victoria and Sydney who was adopted not long after Lily. Ginger and London met the newest member of their family late last night China time/early this morning US time. Her name is Sophie and she is 3 1/2 years old. They are asking for prayers so that the transition will go as smoothly as possible. If you would like to follow their journey, please go to http://www.StringersInChina.com. You can e-mail them through the sight and let them know if you are praying for them or how their adoption journey touches you. London is sending the pictures and Walt is adding the commentary...he is hilarious!!! Enjoy their special journey! We are blessed to call them friends!

Beach Pics and Happy 4th of July

We celebrated the 4th today with my good friend, Becky. We just had a wonderful time visiting and hanging out by her pool. I hope everyone else had a wonderful day as well. I am finally getting around to posting some of the pictures of my trip with Lily to the beach last week. We had so much fun and the big news is that Lily learned to swim without her floaties!!! We were so excited and all she wants to do is practice now. She had lots of fun playing and singing with her friend, Bett. They repeated silly lines from movies to each other and had Lisa and I laughing along with them. It was a great experience to see them together. I really enjoyed the camping even more than I thought that I would. We had wonderful neighbors at the camp ground that really looked out for us. After Hurricane Katrina, I have vowed to never live anywhere near a coast again but I sure enjoyed visiting. I would have loved to have stayed all summer. Enjoy the precious pictures of Lily and Bett. Lisa and I talked a lot about how blessed our lives are with these two sweeties!