Happy Thanksgiving the day after

From all of us to all of you...we hope your day yesterday was filled with as much love and joy as ours was! We were surrounded by our families and are still relishing in the memories AND the left over pie! Thanks to all of you who helped to make our day together wonderful! We love you!

Thoughts to be thankful for

All is well and we are still here! Thank you so much for all of your support, comments, calls, emails and knocks on the door!! We are truly blessed to be loved by so many. Thank you!! Thank you!!

We are looking forward now with great joy to the month ahead, what a magical Christmas it could be! While it wont be the exact holiday we had planned for a year ago, it may be one we will never forget and that gives us much hope and fills us with excitement, guarded excitement but excitement non the less. So as we go into this week of thankfulness we look forward to what is ahead and look back at the last year and remember all that has given us pause and made us thankful....

Our health....Mike has lost 70 pounds and has never felt so good before! Kayce celebrated 30 years of diabetes and is looking forward to another healthy 30 ahead of her! Big J has continued to grow and flourish in being a teenager and of course his parents are surviving that!!

Our family...While we are spread all over the world, we still are able to keep in touch and share in each others joy. Our families are by far the foundation of our lives! We love all of you!!!!

Modern Medicine....When cancer hits a family member, life takes a pause, a moment to collect yourself and regroup. We are so thankful for the incredible doctors who have been caring for my grandma. She is doing GREAT and continues to move forward. The power of modern medicine and the power of prayer gives us so much strength!

Our friends...This quote says it better than I could...

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
- Anais Nin

Life is good and for that we are most thankful! What will you tell the next person who asks you what you're thankful for??

I have no words just hurt

I've been trying to find something to write but all that comes is pain. So until I can find the right words or until the pain stops I'll be gone for a bit to focus on the things in front of me today.

Bad Rumor
A European agency has announced (publicly) that “due to changes in the management team of the Center for Chinese adoptions”, referrals are not likely to arrive in November.

Rumors and speculation are rampant. No one seems to believe that the new director can’t sign referrals until he gets situated. I think the two main theories are 1) The CCAA’s fiscal year ends at the end of November and they’ve used up their yearly quota so they must wait until December to send them and 2) the CCAA is trying to stretch referrals out as much as possible due to H1N1.

Maybe it’s one of those things. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s a bogus rumor. I’m not holding my breath on that last one. I’m only giving this rumor (that they aren’t coming in November) an R2 until we hear confirmation from another agency, but I’m not discounting it.

If we get some confirmation of this from other agencies then I’ll go ahead and close the poll and we’ll look at those numbers. If you are still in the NSN line and you are not expedited, and you haven’t “voted” your LID in the poll, then please do. This poll has been up since the arrival of the most recent referrals. Please don’t vote from home and then from work, and please talk to your spouse so only one of you records your LID.

Today's post from the Rumor Queen.

Perspective

We are recharged, renewed and READY!! It is hard to say how much this place changes our perspective everytime we go. The world turns calm everytime for us and all we want to do is come back again and again. This was a MUCH NEEDED trip and VERY MUCH enjoyed and now lets bring on the next round of rumors and get us on the ride because we are ready to see our daughter and sisters face! Bring on TA's and those referrals!!!!!

There is a video at the end of this slideshow and I must warn you...you might feel like you're on a rollercoaster!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Still holding out hope

At this point that is all we can do is hope. Current rumors do not look so good...another delay....another set back. While we were hopeful that today would be the day we now know it's not and so we will look towards Monday with strong hope. The protective walls around our hearts are gone and all we can do now is stay strong in our hope and faith to make it through.