LOA!!!

Well, I got to the dance studio today with Colin and my cell phone started to ring. I jokingly said that I hoped it was from Oregon. When I looked at the number, I realized that it was! Marci was on the phone to let me know that we had received our Letter of Acceptance! I immediately called Dennis, who was on the golf course. His game suddenly got a lot better! The school informed my mother who let out a "Yes!" My night seemed so long at work. I just wanted to get home and celebrate! We are painting her room this weekend! We hope to travel the end of June. Here we come baby!

Reece's Rainbow

I have discovered an inspirational place and it's at the end of the rainbow! Reece's Rainbow is a not for profit organization that brings awareness about orphans with Down Syndrome and other special needs. Many of these children will be sent to an instituion at age 4 and many will die there. Reece's Rainbow advocates for these children and raises money for grants to help families bring these angels home. Please consider helping save one of these beatiful children!

The basement

Well, here's an update on how the house is coming. We are finishing the basement to make room for Tootsie. The office will move downstairs and that will become her bedroom. She will be right next door to Colin and across from us. All the walls downstairs are painted and the electrician just finished. We are waiting for the carpet installers to come a week from tomorrow. We're very excited! After the carpets are down, we can move the furniture from upstairs and start painting Tatum's room. We haven't decided if it will be pink or green. The pattern of the quilt is ladybugs and has both colors in it. I'll post pictures when we get it done.

A Little 'FUN'draising!

With the cost of the orphanage donation going up and the rising cost of travel around the Olympics, Dennis and I have decided to do a fundraiser. We are going to raffle off an Ipod Touch worth $400.00! With a donation of $5.00, you get one chance in the raffle. With a donation of $20.00, you get five chances! We will hold the drawing on June ist and post the winner on our blog! Colin is looking forward to pulling out the winning ticket! We appreciate your help.

Yay! It's finally here!

On Thursday, January 31st, our final piece of paperwork arrived in the mail. Everyday, I would go to the mailbox looking for the 'brown envelope' that everyone talks about. This day was no different. Again, no brown envelope, but there was a small white envelope from the Department of Homeland Security. My heart started racing because I knew that this couldn't be right. Something must be wrong! I figured that our fingerprints didn't go through. Well, I open the letter and inside is an I 797-C. So now, I'm even more confused because I've never heard of that. I called Dennis to look on the USCIS website and he couldn't find that form. So, I emailed ASIA with the question and I noticed that the form did say the words APPROVED! Unfortunately because of the time difference, ASIA wouldn't open for another 2 hours.
Well, they got back to me saying that Massachusetts calls the form by a different name, but it is definately our approval! I scrambled around and drove the form to Den's office. We drove over to where the notary and got that done. Then I rushed home and over to the Post Office. All in one day!
ASIA now has everything for the dossier and is getting the necessary authentication done. We should be DTC (Dossier to China) by the end of February! With any luck, we can travel in June!

Today, I was able to send Tootsie her first care package. It has some blankets, clothes and dolls for her. We also included a photo album of us so that she can get used to our faces before we get to China. There's even one of the dog! Hopefully she'll get it around the same time that we are DTC!