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.

Mid-Winter Break!

Last week was a little bit crazy with conferences and in-services. Most nights I was getting home at 9:30 pm. 14 hour days take a drain on me after a while.

I was thankful for my one day off today. Yes, only one day, most schools get two days off for mid-winter break, not mine, that would be too generous. I do love my job though. :)

I decided to make the best of my day, and just have fun. I started the day by having breakfast with my good friend, Shelby. Shelby is thoughtful, kind, and a lot of fun. She is always open to trying new things. We met at the Rainbow Grill. She encouraged me to get a bran muffin, saying they were the best bran muffins around. I decided to venture out and try one. This was a big step for me since I am extremely picky about the food I eat. It really wasn't too bad. I ate half and gave the other half to my sister in the afternoon. Shelby and I had a great visit.

In the afternoon, I visited my sister, Sally. My sister always makes me laugh. We played Scrabble and chatted. My sister beat me at Scrabble once again. I always say, that was fun, but deep down I am irritated because I have never beat her yet. My day is coming. I cannot wait!

In the evening, I had a nice time with my husband and best friend, Rick. Rick and I excercised together in our home gym. We have really tried to be dedicated to a low carb diet and excercise. It is nice that we can encourage each other.

Rick gave me beautiful flowers at 10:30 pm on Valentine's Day since we both had long work days. We also went out to one of our favorite restaurants, Stromboli's, on Saturday night. Rick is so good to me.

Everything is looking really good with the adoption. We may have a picture of our baby girl in two weeks! Two weeks!! We can hardly wait!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good News!

Rick and I found out this week that we are #1 on China's list. That means we will get the picture of our baby girl soon. We are anticipating a picture in March and hopefully will go to China in May. We are so excited, it has been such a long wait!! We will continue to keep you updated.

We are also happy that our home church, Restore, has been going very well. We are doing great things to promote social justice and wonderful friendships have developed.

I have been enjoying teaching fifth grade this year. It has been a lot of work learning the new curriculum but also a lot of fun. My students are great and the parents are very supportive.

Rick and I watched our nieces and nephew one day recently. Here is Alyssa, Isaiah and Rick with the snowman they built together. I was so touched by their handiwork. Then, Rick said, let's destroy it and gave Isaiah and Alyssa a board to demolish the snowman with. I was shocked but they had a great time!

Summertime

I am so excited that it is Summer!
A lot has happened the last few months. Our adoption is moving slowly but surely. We hope to hold our baby girl this fall. We also are considering starting the adoption process for more children right now. We might have four or five children before we know it. We will see what happens!

A fifth grade position became available at work and I applied for it and got it. Yea!!
I spent this week moving out of the fourth grade classroom and into the fifth grade. I felt like I was on the Clean Sweep show. I had a toss pile, a give away pile and a keep pile. A friend of mine from church, Molly, helped me move my room. She was a tremendous help. Thanks Molly!

Rick and I had a spectacular vacation at Bald Head Island in North Carolina. We hung out at the beach, went for walks, and drove around the island in a golf cart. Our golf cart ran of battery power when we went too far. Rick had to push us a few times!!

We were also able to visit Rick's parents and extended family. It was a good time.