Waiting For Ava

“But these things I plan won’t happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, be patient! For it will surely take place. It will not be late by a single day.” Habakkuk 2:3

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Before Kitchen Renovations





We decided to renovate our kitchen before we went to get Ava. What an ordeal it turned out to be. We are very happy that we decided to do it now and not later. It was a-lot of work. Very time consuming. We bought our new kitchen from Home Depot. What a mistake that was. Don't get me wrong we are happy with our new kitchen but we are very UN-happy with Home Depot. Needless to say we won't ever shop at Home Depot again. We bought new kitchen cupboards, new back splash, new paint, new kitchen sink, new faucet, new light fixtures and new a new counter top. It took almost three months to receive everything. We waited twelve weeks for the same six pieces that kept coming in damaged. Enough with the venting. Here are some pictures of the kitchen before the renovations.

More Before Renovation Pics





Pics of New Kitchen Renovation






These are the pictures of our new kitchen. We are quite happy with the way it turned out.

More Pics of Renovated Kitchen





Saturday, May 19, 2007

Florida Vacation

Terri and I just recently came back from a vacation in Florida. We went to a place called Orange Lake. It is about seventeen miles away from Kissimmee. While we were there we went to the Epcot Centre for a day. One of the attractions there was visit to China. We went into a three hundred and sixty degree film room that was playing a video on China. I recorded the video with my HDD camcorder. The video lasts about twelve and a half minutes. I had to split the video up into ten seperate shorter videos in-order to put it on our blog. I had to do that because I recorded the video in high definition. A rookie mistake. It is good to learn these things before we go to China to pick up our daughter. I hope people will enjoy it. Just click on each video one at a time and you will see the hole thing. Each section of the video lasts about a minute and a half.

CHINA VIDEO PART 1


CHINA VIDEO PART 2


CHINA VIDEO PART 3


CHINA VIDEO PART 4


CHINA VIDEO PART 5


CHINA VIDEO PART 6


CHINA VIDEO PART 7


CHINA VIDEO PART 8


CHINA VIDEO PART 9


CHINA VIDEO PART 10

Thursday, May 10, 2007

What an Emotional Roller Coaster We Are On

I got a huge scare yesterday. I called the Children's Aid Society yesterday and asked them to add my wife and I to there list of people willing to adopt from them. The social worker informed me that our home study is no longer any good. Apparently as of April the government has implemented new rules regarding home studies and a new course that is mandatory. The new course is called PRIDE. It can't be taken privately. The government has to be the ones to teach it to you. I told the social worker that we were involved in the China international adoption program. She then informed me that she has received notice that China is shutting down their international adoption program. I was shocked. I didn't know what to say to her. I basically began to panic. She told me that the best thing that my wife and I could do would be to request a new home study from the Children's Aid Society and get enrolled in the new PRIDE course that is now mandatory. She said that the sooner we get those out of the way the sooner we can get added to their lists of potential adopters. Needless to say when I got off the phone I was almost crying. I didn't know how I was going to tell my wife about this devastating news. So I waited to tell her until I had sent Jenna Ryan at Children's Bridge an e-mail asking her about what I had heard. Jenna sent me back an e-mail stating that she had not heard anything about this news. She reminded me that they would know these things first because they are always in constant contact with the CCAA. This helped calm me down. I thanked Jenna for getting back to me so fast. This roller coaster that we are all on is just unbelievable. Sometimes I don't know how to deal with all these emotions. They can certainly be overwhelming. All we can do is try to stay positive about this ride that we are all on.
 
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