A little of this and a little of that

I have been working on my blog. This computer stuff is tricky. I have been trying to put in my blog "sidebar", blogs that I like to visit. I think I have tried at least 20 times to do it and can never get it to work. Finally, today I got it to take, but the blogs were at the very top of my page. So, I tried many new things and got it to work. Now you can look to the side and if you click on those blogs it will take you to the blogs I like to visit. One thing I have found out is that there are tons of blogs out there on adoption. I really have enjoyed reading them because it has taught me alot about what to expect when we get Annaka home.
I posted our blog address in my Christmas letter this year so I better make this look like I know what I am doing.
On to Annaka. We sent our paper work for our visa's to Virginia today. We have to get those done in order to travel. We have a tentative date set for our travel conference call. Decmeber 29th or January 2nd. We will talk with our agency about travel plans and hopefully get every thing laid out so we can go get Annaka!
Things have been really busy so time is flying. This weekend we are having both Ally and Andrew's b-day parties. Ally's is on Saturday, we are taking her and her friends swimming and to pizza. Sunday is Andrew's. He is going to go bowling with his friends.
We also have our annual TIKI / Christmas party. We have great neighbors. We started our TIKI nights about 4 years ago. We get together at each others houses about once every one or two months (sometimes more sometimes less). One neighbor has 2 girls and the other has 3 girls. So together we have 7 children and 6 adults. We BBQ, talk, have fires, and just have fun. Its really nice and I love having such great friends for neighbors. Last year we started our Christmas caroling. We hooked up our trailor and pulled it around with our 4 wheeler. We sang at the other neighbors houses. I laughed so hard, I almost wet my pants. The kids loved it!
Then we come back and have hot chocolate and the kids open their christmas presents.
So, tomorrow is the 2nd Annual Sacramento Subdivision Christmas Caroling (as we call it)!

One week ago..

One week ago we got the phone call. I still can't believe we actually received our referral. We were not supposed to get it. The CCAA had said the cut off date was September 8th. I was bummed, but it was going to be only one more month. Now that I have Annaka's picture I cant imagine tyring to wait one more month. It is amazing how bonded you can feel with a picture. I think part of that is because we have worked so hard to get to this point and waited so long. She was worth every day of waiting.
We hope to hear this week about our travel. I am so anxious to hear when we will be going to get her. I dread the plane ride but I will grin and bear it since the end result is taking Annaka home.

This is the picture that came attached to Annaka's health information. She is sooooo cute!!

What a week...

This has been such a exciting week. We were so surprised to receive our referral. Annaka is beautiful. She is 10 1/2 months old and weighs around 16 pounds.
We hope to travel in January to get her.
Ally and Andrew were so happy when I showed them Annaka's picture. They knew exactly what I was going to show them when I said I had a surprise. I tried to record them seeing her for the first time but I forgot to push "record"...
We also got Annaks's health information, she is healthy. She weighed 14.5 pounds on Oct. 10th. So I am figuring she weighs around 16 pounds right now. Her birthday is January 20th which is the same date of Laney our best friends that are also adopting and received their referral.

I have done a little shopping, I bought my first outfit at Gymboree. That store is dangerous, I don't think I will be going in there to often.

We are starting to get ready for Annaka's arrival. I can not stop thinking about her and wondering what she will be like. I carry her picture everywhere. Life feels like it is flying by with birhthday parties, christmas and planning for Annaka. I dont mind though.

The stork came after all!!

We introduce you to Annaka Wan Ci.
She was born on January 20th, 2006.
We are awaiting more information this week.
This was a total surprise to us. We thought we would be waiting until the end of December for our referral.
Once we get more information we will let you know all the details!