Goodbye Old Friend

Yesterday our dear family cat Clancy went to heaven. Clancy was 17 years old and over the course of the last two weeks had gradually stopped eating. He had been at the vet since Saturday but yesterday was the day we had to decide to let Clancy rest and stop suffering. Clancy was my cat before I met Steve so Clancy and I had a very special bond. He was loved and in return gave to us unconditional love. Goodbye old friend you will be missed Kate.

Happy Birthday to our Beautiful Girl

Happy Birthday to our girl who turns eight today!!!! I can't believe she is eight already and coincidentally had a growth spurt over the summer and is looking really grown up. We celebrated her day with a party with our families. Both Steve and I come from medium families but all totaled the number is 30. I planned the party when the temperatures here were in the 60's and yesterday it was near eighty. All the food needed to be cooked in the house needless to say it was a long day for me. We had a wonderful time though and it is always great to see Olivia with all her cousins.Today she will celebrate with her classmates in school. Tonight the three of us are off to our favorite restaurant for dinner. We had more communication from HAS. It seems that China requires a notarized letter from Steve and I certifying that neither of us has been married before.A ridiculous but easy request and that was on it's way within a day to China. Everyone is reassuring that "at least" they are looking at our paperwork and that is true. However each time they look at it they find another letter, document that is needed. We are almost at five months waiting for LOSC and are left wondering how many more hoops they are going to make us jump through. We just keep praying that at this point Matthew will be home for the holidays. We are not prepared for the fact that he may not be.Please keep praying--- All the Best Kate.

Is it Fall Already ?????

Well the air is certainly fall like in the Northeast.Our girl starts school Wednesday. When I got up yesterday morning she was in her room packing her backpack. Do ya think she is ready for school? We are so blessed, Olivia loves school and is counting down the days until she returns of course give it a week and then we'll see. While I worked last week she spent the days with my sister and her family. Uncle George took them all fishing. Moe has three girls ages 10, 8 and seven. Olivia loves to spend time with them and do "girly" things. She picked out a barbie fishing rod and wouldn't bait the hook because the fish were slimy but after that part was done she had a blast!!! We are spending a quiet labor day today and then back to work tomorrow.
I had some communication from the adoption agency indicating that we should be hopeful that our loa will come sooner rather than later and that most likely the lost document didn't set us back a full three months,BUT we should always plan for the worst case scenario. I love how they are always so guarded. I suppose though they have learned through experience dealing with anxious adoptive parents, and I know I am certainly one of them!!!! We are four months waiting at this point and figure our lost document lost us about a month. Today my family and I are choosing to be hopeful for LOA this month we'll see.On a more practical note our fingerprints for our 171h expire 1 /2010. We need to apply for a fingerprint appointment by 11/1/09 so hopefully we will have some indication by then. If not we will have to cough up another $160 to be refingerprinted for what the 80th time. I don't think I'm going out on a limb her predicting that our fingerprints haven't changed,but alas we will do what is needed to bring home our son. Please keep your fingers crossed and keep my family in your prayers. We so desperately want our family to e complete with our beautiful boy home with his family---- All the Best ---- Kate.

Ponyo

We saw Ponyo this weekend I thought it a little bizarre, Olivia loved it. I will say the story was about love and holding onto something you love so that was great. All the kids in my family went and they range in age from 13 to 7 and they all loved it for different reasons. Just FYI All the Best Kate.