This is a Good Day...

Jon hanging out with my Dad in the woods..
Me doing nothing at the house...
Going to the pool and meeting up with the nephews...
Watching Jon being a Great Uncle and seeing the smile on their faces as he threw them, over and over and over again in the pool...
Having the middle nephew fart as he was on Jon's shoulders in the pool(I so loved that one)....
Having my youngest nephew spend the night...
Watching the bats fly at dusk from my back porch with my nephew as the sun was setting...
Playing Stratego with my nephew and having him spank me at it...
Watching the two "boys" play PS2 and watching my nephew spank Jon and wreck his car...
Eating the sloppiest, cheesiest pizza EVER made....
Watching the nephew fall asleep on the couch and watching Jon carry him to bed airplane style while he continued to sleep....
Watching how excited the puppies were to realize that he was still here in the morning....
That was a good Day!!!!

Can I just Say.....

I love being "paper pregnant". For all of you that have been pregnant...I know there is stuff that I will miss, like feeling my baby kick and move. But I have to see the good in this and I have to find the humor. So for me being paper pregnant is awesome. I won't get morning sickness, I sure can do without that. I don't like to vomit. I won't get stretch marks, thank Goodness b/c I paid a lot of money for these tatoos. I won't get fat and you all know I love to eat, can you imagine? And the boobs(don't read this part DAD) ..they don't need to get any bigger!! And the giving birth thing...ooouch...that's gotta hurt, right? So overall, being "paper pregnant" seems to be working out for me. I get the glory. I get the baby. I glow.....what more could I ask for....this ROCKS!!!

Think about this...

You know it's weird how you come across things. I clicked on next blog I think and it brought me to this. This blog is from a man in the Phillipines and he has some powerful pictures. Scroll down past his latest entry. I felt an instant connection with these pictures because this(not this exact city) is where my Mother is from. Although I have only been there once and I only remember snipets from that trip. I have memories based on pictures and stories that my Mother told me. My parents raised me with a strong connection not only to my American heritage, but also to my Filipino heritage. When you think that you have it bad and your AC isn't working. Or the toilet is stopped up, think about how it is when you're NOT in the US or other well developed country. Think about how it could be.

Florida Home Studies and Adoption

Okay, so I just wanted to give a shout out to our Agency: Florida Home Studies and Adoption(FHSA), I have added a link for them if anyone wants to know more about them--->
I have to give them major kuddos, first for dealing with my totally neurotic self. Second for dealing my totally panic strickin' self.. We have said before that they are going to earn their money with us. So now that it's all done and over I can laugh about it but this is how it went a couple of weeks ago..
I was on my lunch break sitting at the front desk at work-
"Ann you have a phone call"
"this is Ann"
"hey it's me"
"What's up?"
"We got the letter from immigration"
"you don't sound good, it's not good is it?"
"No, blah, blah, blah, DENIED, blah blah blah" note: Jon didn't say denied, he said deficient...
but he's reading the letter to me and I hear... "DENIED, DENIED, blah, blah, more paperwork, blah, blah, by May 24,2006, DENIED..blah, blah, blah" another note: he still never said DENIED.
"blah, blah, blah"
..so there I was pacing at the front desk, tears streaming, trying to find a phone I could make a long distance phone call from...I find one, I'm by myself, and pure panic sets in....
I'm on the phone with the agency
"WE'VE BEEN DENIED!!!"
"What, I'm in total shock, we've never had anyone denied that had a favorable homestudy from us..never"
tears are now free flowing like a flippin waterfall, I'm sobbing, eyes bulging, chest heaving...not making any sense, can't get a real sentence out, "DENIED...I can't do this....why us..maybe we're not meant to be parents...DENIED...what are we going to do....DENIED.."
"Mrs. xxxxX? I'm so sorry, you must be very upset..I can only imagine, but please..what exactly did the letter say, do you have it with you?"
"DENIED!...it said DENIED!....I don't know what the letter says I DON'T HAVE IT WITH ME..."
"can you fax it to us please, so that we can see what it says.."
"Jon says it says denied, we've been denied...I can't fax it to you b/c I don't have it Jon has it...Well maybe he didn't say denied...he might have said deficient...yay maybe deficient."
"Okay, Ann, that's very different. That's not denied...I think we're okay...can you get Jon to fax it to us?"
...sob..sob...tears rolling...chest heaves...." but...we can't be denied....we had a favorable homestudy..." heave, heave....deep breath...
"okay...I'll call him"
"Ann I pretty sure we're okay if it just says deficient, they just want more info."
"ok"
So then I call Jon and he faxes it to them. By that night they were on the phone with our homestudy coordinator and she had started getting together what needed to be done. That night she emailed us telling us that she is working on it at that moment. Within days she had a "fluff" up of our homestudy with the added info they wanted, and by a week later they had the rest of it fed exed to immigration.
Phew...and you know the rest we were approved a week later. No problems.
So this is just a glimpse into the panic attack that I had. I think it's quite humerous now, b/c it's all okay. And Jon never said denied to me. I just lost it for a day or two there. But anyhow I just wanted to say that everyone at FHSA rocks, they took care of the situation with total grace, and calmness(which I needed) and made sure that everything was taken care of with the utmost of speed. SO Horray for FHSA, they are the bomb diggity!!

IMMIGRATION APPROVAL

Okay peoples I know we have't updated this bog, but that's b/c we were in limbo. We had a snag with immigration and were very scared that this adoption was't going to go through. We had to resubmit some stuff.. then pray that it would all work out. We were so busy todya getting ready for our annual Mother's Day outing at our house that we didn't even check the mail. So after grocery shopping Jon and I were both at the mailbox and there's this big envelope. I saw it was from immigration. My stomach dropped. It's only been a week since we resubmitted paperwork. Jon asked what it was. I told him and held it behind my back. We knew that this was what was going to make or break our dreams. I closed my eyes and opened the envelope. "NOTICE OF FAVORABLE DETERMINATION CONCERNING APPLICATION FOR ADVANCE PROCESSING OF ORPHAN PETITION". So here we were standing on the street hugging eachother and crying. It's okay. It's okay. We will get our child. so for those of you that don't know what this is. We hve to have advanced approval from the United States to bring an orphan ino the U.S. and without this we couldn't proceed with the adoption. So after a heart attack, two strokes, many tears, and onemajor panic attack...we are okay. "it has been determined that (we) are able to furnish proper care to an orphan or prphans..." YAY...phew!!!!!Oh and we have approval for two children...just in case.