Who knew? Special Edition Ethiopian Coca-Cola!

Ok so my daughter (& my son as well) work at the local grocery store, and one day my daughter comes home and tells me that the coke cans are special Ethiopian coke cans with Amharic writing on them for the Olympics. I find this very exciting so I run out and buy a 12 pack of the Special Edition Olympics Coca Cola but I'm not sure if every can in the 12 pack will be Ethiopian or if there are 12 different countries in the 12-pack. I got it at Target and guess what? They are all Ethiopian coke cans. I think this is very cool and show them to everyone who comes over. Now I must get more coke. I think I even need to save a 12 pack or two in the basement for later use. Does anyone know how long coke will last? I know this post is really rediculous but the wait for a referral seems endless so maybe I am going a little bit over the edge. But you have to admit it is pretty cool. Please refer to pictures at the right.

I'm still here...are you?

It's been a while since I last posted. Not sure if anyone is still reading this blog. Well, we are still waiting so I didn't feel like I had much to add. We received the weekly update from the agency today and there was one infant referral this past week. The families at the top of the infant list have been waiting since May 2007 and we have been waiting since July 6, 2007 so we are getting closer. We have no idea how many families are between May and July 6th. Although we are still at the top of one of the sibling waiting lists there have been very few sibling referrals. We had to update our homestudy with the agency. Homestudies in Mass are only good for a year. Then we had to redo our fingerprints for the Department of Homeland Security- they are only good for 15 months and finally we had to reapply for permission to bring our newly adopted child and or children into the U.S. again through the Department of Homeland Security. This approval is only good for 18 months and must be valid at the time you travel and ours was due to expire in August so we had to reapply. Well we just received that approval in the mail so all of our paperwork is up to date and now we just need to wait. I will try to post more often and maybe I will add some more pictures too. Hope everyone is having a fantastic summer. We have been enjoying the pool and spent a couple of nights in Maine. It was so much fun. Until next time...

One step closer to referral.

Today the family right in front of us on the sibling list being open to the older child being under 5 years received their referral. That will move us up to first in line the next time a sibling pair with one child being 5 or under and the younger being up to 15 months old. Does this make sense to you? So there are other families ahead of us waiting for a sibling referral but they are asking that both children be under the age of 4. There was another referral today for a little boy. So far it seems like an exciting week for referrals and hopefully there will be more. So we are again one step closer...I am looking forward to seeing our "wait date" listed as first in our category.

Ethiopia Coffee & Film Shindig

The kids invited some friends over to learn about Ethiopia and our pending adoption. Anthony called it our Ethiopia Coffee and Film Shindig because we watched a movie too. We talked about Ethiopian culture and also the challenges facing the country today. We served Ethiopian fair trade coffee, popcorn, and cookies designed to look like the Ethiopian flag- see pictures on the right, what do you think about my efforts? I even had a coloring sheet for them and you'd be surprised how excited high school kids get about coloring, no one really gives them a chance to color anymore I guess. A good time was had by all and I think everyone walked away with a greater understanding of what an amazing country Ethiopia is. I think our enthusiasm is contagious.
In terms of the adoption, there was a sibling referral this week so I guess that puts us one step closer to our referral. Until next time, thanks for checking in.
Laura

We are back from Washington D.C. and N.Y.C.

We had so much fun on our mini vacation! We took in some sights in D.C. and visited American University for "freshman day". Also went to a fabulous little Ethiopian restaurant called Dukem- pictures to the right. Washington D.C. has the largest Ethiopian Community in the U.S. and as a result there are numerous Ethiopian restaurants there. They are all concentrated around 18th St., U Street and 9th street, unofficially referred to as "Little Ethiopia". This restaurant was reccommended to us by the concierge who told us he was half Ethiopian himself. Anyway, the food was amazing and we all loved it. They also have live Ethiopian music there but unfortunately not when we were there. After 2 nights in D.C. we went on to N.Y.C and stayed in Times Square which was so much fun and went to see Hairspray which was a treat. Also went to the Statue of Liberty, St. Paul's Cathedral (shortly after the Pope was there), Nintendo world for Nick, and did some shopping. We were only able to stay one night. Anyway...our sincere thanks to our good friend who took care of the dogs for us so we would be able to have our mini vacation.

ACONE Conference

Last weekend Tom and I attended the annual ACONE (Adoption Community of New England) Conference. We attended lectures on a variety of topics including: Adjustment during the first few weeks home, grief and loss issues in adopted children, language acquisition in internationally adopted children, how children learn about race, medical issues in internationally adopted children, and advice for traveling to pick up your children. All lectures were very informative, lots of great info and resources for future reference. We saw some friends there too as well as people from Wide Horizons and coincidentally the conference was in Westborough so that was convenient, we were able to come home for lunch.
As far as an update on the wait, there were a number of referrals last week but no referrals of sibling pairs. I guess that's why I haven't posted b/c there was really nothing new to report in terms of the wait. Every Monday we receive an update on referrals for the week and I hope that I will have some news to report but there haven't been any sibling referrals in a while. I will keep everyone posted...

Exciting news, not related to the adoption.

Our exciting news, entirely unrelated to the adoption, is that Anthony, our oldest, has been accepted to American University, University of Miami, Hofstra U. & Ithaca College! We are still waiting to hear from Syracuse and UMass. We are so excited and thrilled for him and wanted to share the news.