T minus 6...

First off my apologies to everyone who has to deal with hearing the most annoying daily reminder that we are going on vacation. And after another 10 hour call day I am reminded of the fact that I REALLY need a vacation.

Been trying to get ready for Jon's sister who will graciously be staying at our house to watch the dogs. She'll surely have her hands full with her 2 year old and our 2 "children". I apologize now for their spoiled behavior. But they will LOVE having the baby around.

We'll be taking our new video camera to practice so when we do eventually get back, you all will have to watch video of us, which won't be too exciting, but we need the practice of uploading video and such. Not much else.....T minus 6 days and counting!!!

That's where our children are....

My father just sent this to me. Please say a prayer for all the families. My Dad said "This is the projected path. It is expected to be a cat 5 before it strikes Taiwan."

The arrow is pointing straight to Taipei, where our orphange is at. I hope they are prepared.

Vacation....BACK ON!!

We couldn't hang with not having a vacation again, so we bit the bullet and booked a week on the gulf. Now it's not the Bahamas, but we just couldn't swing a trip to the Bahamas this time. So we decided to take a trip to the beaches on the gulf. We can drive there and most importantly there is a hurricane policy. AND with a little itsy bitsy storm a brewin' off of Africa and heading this way, this was important. So pray that we either avoid all storms or it takes a direct path to our destination. The warranty only works if the National Hurricane Center says that a hurricane is going "to HIT Jon and Ann's condo!!"

Just a little glimpse into my husbands mind. The above picture is what sold him on our rental. It's a 700 foot lazy river on the resort grounds. We are on the bottom level and from my understanding we have very easy access to this little "river" from our room. So I will have to stock up on Corona and an inner tube, that way as Jon floats around the "river" as he passes by I can pass him another. Okay so does that make us sound like lushes? Really we're not. We're just super excited about our vacation. So less then three weeks to go and we're basking in the sunshine, floatin' down a river, chillin' on the beach...and anything else related to the water!!

Just calll me Super Girl!!

Okay so the title has nothing to do with the post, but I liked the picture. Our homestudy visit was fine. Our homestudy coordinator is soooo nice and very laid back. When ever she comes, it's like visiting with an old friend. She has two children adopted from China, so I always feel very comfortable with her in our home. She was right, she didn't look at anything and the visit was very informal. We have all the paperwork done and now all she has to do is wait for the DCF and FDLE to come back which should be in about 3-4 weeks.

On another note, it is blazing HOT!! And our AC went out again. Thankfully Jon's brother is a wiz when it comes to AC and hopefully our house will delve below the 85 degree mark tonight.

Time to break out the toothbrush!!!!

So seriously, I get to spend Friday night cleaning like a fiend. I got a phone call from our homestudy coordinator at 5pm tonight. She tells me that she's going to be in town tomorrow to do a post placement, and can she stop by to do our update?

UMMMMMM!!! I know that I said that I wasn't going to clean, but come on. Did you really think that I wouldn't do anything? And with about 17 hours til she gets here and our house in disarray(it is Friday and well by Friday our house is a little disheveled after a long week) we will be the Merry Maid squad.

Jon has decided that he has to do the lawn and I can't really not clean up the dog hair. So for our relaxing Friday night we are going to clean-even though she told us not to. She said she wasn't even going to look at our house. But she'll see it even if she isn't looking. So despite her trying to convince us not to clean, we are. I'm breaking out the proverbial toothbrush and I'm getting to the scrubbing!! Wish us luck!!

Join me in celebrating

17 months!! Okay, so I'm really not that excited about 17 months, but we have made it this far and that's nothing to scoff at. There have been some referrals(not from our agency), but referrals none the less. I did find the motivation to get most of the paperwork for our home study update done. Everythings pretty much done except our local background check which will probably be done tomorrow or Monday. Everything is mailed out and now all we need to do is have them come to our house and write up the fact that we are still waiting...I mean still qualified to be parents, oh and pay that little "update" fee. We haven't murdered or molested anyone this past year so thumbs up to us. Do I sound a little jaded? Okay let me try again....

**what this post should say**

YAY!!! We have made it to 17 months. Isn't this exciting. I can't believe that we have made it this far. We continue to be elated at the prospect of being parents and can't wait until we learn of our little one. We have been using these past months to get our house in order and spend quality time with eachother. We know that once little baby is here, free time will be sparse. Our marriage has grown stronger as we have waded through this process of adoption and we know that when we finally get our referral news this will all be worth it!!

(is that better?)

I'm just not motivated

Nope...just not feelin' it. We are starting our homestudy update. Our agency let us wait a bit(wasn't that nice) so we wouldn't have to do two homestudy updates. Now when she gave me the list it didn't seem that bad. Not a big deal. I let it sit Thursday and Friday and put it aside over the weekend, thinking I'd start tackling it today. So I pulled all the forms I printed and was feeling like I could breeze through it, have hubby sign here here and here and be done with it.

You'd think that we hadn't done this before. The forms make no sense and I really have NO desire to even fill them out. Isn't that sad. So I just put it away again. You'd think that I'd be in a hurry to get this all done and over with again, but I'm just not that into it. I don't even think I'll clean the house before they come again. Can you picture it....dust hangin' like a cloud in the living room, hair bunnies in every corner, evil creature eyes peeking out from the corner, unidentifiable things hissing from behind the couch(wait that's me), our creeepy bulgivonia plant overgrown by the front door. Nope I'm not trimmin' it. Yep, that's gonna be our home. I really should care, but I just don't. I don't even think I'm gonna mop. Last time, seriously I cleaned the floor with a tooth brush....yes I did. NOT this time. Can you tell that I just don't want to do it. Oh well one day won't hurt, I'll get to it.......

....eventually.....

I'm sadistic like that...

My poor nephew has to have an Aunt who enjoys things like this. A little bit ago he had to have a few staples in the ER after a mishap at the skate park. For reasons that make absolutely NO sense to me, his primary would not take out the staples. My sister was told she had to follow up with the physician that put them in to get them out. For them that meant another trip to the ER, many hours in the waiting room and another copay. That's were I came in......can you just picture me, rubbing my hands together in excitement, snickering that evil nurse laugh....all the while my nephew is scared and saying...

"no Mommy I don't want Aunt Ann to do it...I want to go to the hospital"

Ye of little faith.

Mind you I haven't acutally taken staples out before, but I did stay at the Holiday Inn express. I looked at the little device to take out staples, and well I'm a smart girl...looks like you insert staple here and squeeze..simple...so I was like "okay let's do it...drop your drawers!!!"(evil nurse laugh again)

"NO MOMMY>>>>>I WANT TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL!!!!!!"

...device in, pop..pop..pop, staples out.....Hey this is fun!!! That'll be $25.

Anyone need staples out? I'm cheaper then the ER!!