Jinnae's room in progress

Rick is working hard on Jinnae's room.

It will be awesome when it is done.

The colors will be pink and brown.

His goal is to get it taped off and the crown molding up tonight.

The nursery should be done by Friday.

Mom's Cooking

Sorry Jinnae, you have not been blessed with a mom who can cook. I was so excited about making this thin crust pizza for your dad too! Oh well.

I can bake, shop, do hair and make up so we will have lots of fun.

And don't worry, your daddy can cook. He is a great chef!

Baskets and Reading

Today Rick and I sent a goody basket to Jinnae and her foster parents. We included a camera so we hope to get lots of pics of the things we are missing. We also sent a picture of ourselves and a letter (translated in Chinese). She will probably slobber all over the picture, but maybe she will recognize us when we get there. My friend, Tanya, suggested I not send a pic of Rick with his shirt off - she didn't want Jinnae to be scared! :)

We are keeping busy with baby showers, decorating the nursery, final doctor appts. for Hep. A and Hep. B shots and saving more money.

We also are reading together the book, Parenting with Love and Logic by Foster Cline MD and Jim Fay. It is interesting and helpful.

It is hard for both of us to concentrate on work these days. Hopefully the time flies until May or we may be surprised and leave earlier. We'll see!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

Rick and I went to Mars Hill Easter service this morning.

It was thought provoking and meaningful.

The music brought tears to my eyes.

God has been so good and so faithful to me throughout the years, even when I don't understand things sometimes. He has a plan for my life and I need to always trust Him.

We had a nice dinner with my family. We then came home and talked with Rick's parents on the phone as they live in North Carolina now.

It was a beautiful day. We are thankful for our faith and our many blessings.

We also had a nice time Saturday night with our spectacular friends John and Carole. We laughed a lot. John gave us great vision on how we should paint the nursery. Posts on the nursery will be coming soon. Carole actually crawled around my house and got into everything Jinnae would. Thanks Carole, for helping me baby proof!! This picture is from a fishing trip we took with John and Carole in South Carolina. I get seasick easily so I wasn't sure I wanted to go on this trip. John convinced me I would be ok. He said we would still be able to see the shore. We went out 20 miles!! You could not see the shore!! I actually ended up being alright, John was the one who got sick! Sorry, John.

Patience!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, so I'm tired of being patient. I have been patient for three years. We were hoping to hear something today about travel dates and by 4:00 pm we still had not heard anything.

So....I called my agency. They said they still had not heard travel dates from China. China is setting up appointments for us right now. We will need to meet and interview with government officials when we are there, do MORE paperwork, etc.

I said I understood that they did not have exact travel dates but could they let me know what they thought they would be approximately?

They said Rick and I have a ten percent chance of going before April 15 and a 90 percent chance of going the second week in May. (China's government offices are closed April 15-April 30 due to a trade fair, so adoption travel doesn't happen then)

We can handle that, it's good to kind of know for planning for our jobs, getting the nursery wrapped up, etc.

I did cry. On May 12, Jinnae will be 9 months. I feel like I am missing so much. Rick and I are going to send Jinnae's foster parents a goody basket for them and Jinnae. It will have blankets, stuffed animals, a camera, and lots of film. We are going to ask her foster parents to take tons of pictures of Jinnae for us.

God is good. Thank you for all your prayers.

Happy first day of Spring!!

Still Waiting for Travel Dates

We received an e-mail last Tuesday informing us we should receive travel dates in five to seven business days. Tomorrow will be day 7! I know we will be going either in April or May to get Jinnae but I just want exact dates. Those who know me well, know that I plan and organize way too much. It is difficult for me to not have an exact plan on when we can pick up our sweet pea. This information would help a lot with packing and my job of course.
Please pray that we will hear very soon.

Happiness

We are so happy to finally be parents!! We are bursting with joy!
We love you, Jinnae! We are anxiously waiting to hold you. You are a gift to us in the west. That is what your name means. You are beautiful.

When do we travel to China?

We would love to leave right now and pick up Jinnae! We do have to follow a process though. Our agency works with China and arranges our travel. They get our hotel accomodations, and our appointments set up. We need to interview with government officials in China, visit American doctors there, and do some more paperwork.

We know that we will either travel before April 15 or the first of May.

China has a trade fair April 15-April 30. Adoption travel does not happen during the fair.

We should find out early this week our exact travel dates. We will keep you posted.

Here is our daughter!!

HERE IS OUR DAUGHTER!!

Her given name is Chu Xi Rao.

We have named her Jinnae Xi Li Pulaski.

Her birthday is August 12, 2007. She is 7 months old. Her height is 23 inches and her weight is 14 pounds.

She is a deep sleeper, she loves to imitate, she can grasp toys, she can roll around, she has a ready smile, and she laughs out loud. :)

We can hardly wait to pick her up!! We are so anxious to hold her.

A Mundane Monday turned Marvelous!!

Monday, March 3, 2008 was a typical Monday until 12:00 noon.

I check my e-mail at lunch everyday. This day I had an e-mail from our adoption agency. It said that they were getting a surprise package from China. It also said that our daughter's picture may or may not be in the packet. Our agency's mail is delivered at 2:00 pm.

I called Rick freaking out and said, what should I do, we might get our baby's picture today?!

Rick, who never freaks out, said, well, just relax, we'll have to see what happens.

It was difficult to teach my class like normal after that. My students have Spanish class at 1:40 on Mondays. So, I went to the office to correct some papers hoping that maybe I would get the call around 2:10 pm - since they would get their mail at 2:00 pm and then need time to look at it.

At 1:45 pm, I got the call on my cell phone. The lady on the other end, Robin, said, Congratulations you have a daughter! She then began to tell me our daughter's name, age and weight. All of a sudden, I just started balling! Tears of joy of course! I had to ask Robin to wait as I finished crying to give me the rest of the information. She told me two pages worth of info. I will always keep these notes.

Our agency informed us that they would e-mail us our daughter's picture around 4:00 pm that day. It seemed like the longest wait ever from 1:45 pm-4:00 pm.

My work was awesome and let me leave early. Infact, the entire teaching staff knew within three minutes and they were at my classroom door wanting all the details. Our school does not have an intercom system so everyone must have had a special code I didn't know about!!

I got home at 3:15 pm and could hardly wait for Rick to get home. I called him every two minutes to see where he was at.

At 4:00 pm we opened the e-mail together and there she was. We both just stared for a while. Then Rick said, she's chubby, and I said, that's a lot of hair, and we both said, we love her!

Our daughter is 7 months old and beautiful. Rick and I are so happy!! God is good.