Spring is here!!

Spring is finally here!! I love the warm sun on my face! I love being able to go for a walk after dinner and not freezing..or walking in the dark.

Today, Ethan and I decided to take a walk after dinner. He rode his Spiderman bike and I ran/walked next to him (depending on how fast he was going)...well we didn't make it far before meeting our neighbors....everyone had the same idea today since it was such a beautiful day. We have more and more young people moving into our neighborhood and I am so excited because when we moved in, we were the youngest couple by about 10-20 years!! We now have young children all around us! Hope great that our kids will have neighbor kids to play with!! We need to have a block party to meet all the new people in the neighborhood......Maybe we will host one this summer. How fun that would be.

The Grumpy Spider

Ok so this story is totally not adoption material but it has made me laugh all night long hysterically every time I think about it.

My husband was in a lousy mood this evening. The day started out by getting up early, having pancakes for breakfast, and going to church. After church, we went to see "How to Train Your Dragon". It was so cute....but on the way there my husband decided to stop at the Hyunda place and look at a car. After the movies, he stopped back by and we ended up spending 1 1/2 hrs there talking to the dealer! (but we did leave with a car for an overnight test drive which is a good thing since my car is in the shop) But we still had to go to Walmart afterwards to get groceries and fix something for dinner once we got home. Everything put my husband in a foul mood and he was a bear in the store!

I left the store early with Ethan to go to the car and get cleaned up (we are still trying to potty train...got peepee down but poopoo is another story). Once we got to the car, Ethan says, "Daddy's grumpy. Why is daddy grumpy?" and without thinking I replied "something must have crawled up his rear end". Well Ethan rode home with his daddy from the store and evidently he told his daddy that I said something crawled up his butt and wanted to know what is was! He somehow came up with a spider ..... The grumpy spider!

When I got home David walked past me very mad and told me that Ethan had asked what had crawled up his butt. I was shocked but wanted to laugh so hard but the look on David's face said that I shouldn't. All night long, the giggles overtook me and finally after dinner, I burst out laughing. When David asked what I was laughing at, I told him and the whole story came out. David finally admitted that it was funny and as we put Ethan to bed, he began to joke about it to.

So now when anyone you know is in a bad mood, just know that the Grumpy Spider got them!!!!

Spring Break

We had so much fun this past week but back to real life now and dealing with my car!

The hotel we stayed at was having problems while we were there. First the electricity kept going off...they were somehow throwing a breaker over and over again and didn't know why!! That was the first problem...next on the first night we were there, the lady across the hallway decided to smoke in her non-smoking room and set all the fire alarms off at 4:00 in the morning!! Luckily, David was able to make ours stop screaming by taking it down off the ceiling so that Ethan didn't wake up but we were awake listening to all the commotion going on in the hallway and especially when the fire department showed up! I was slightly mad when they beat on our door and asked if we were smoking too!!! The lady that started the whole fiasco was mad and didn't know why it was such a big deal that she was smoking in her room....and she wasn't smoking a little! When David opened our door, the smoke came billowing in and stunk up our room until it finally aired out again! It was crazy! A day later, we came back to the hotel only to find the fire department there again...this time we had no idea why but they were down by the breakers. It wasn't a bad hotel in all but I wouldn't stay there again.

All in all..our trip was great! I really didn't want to come home. The zoo was awesome and we will definitely go back again. We also went to the Pink Palace Museum where Ethan got to see dinosaurs! He was so excited. We walked down Beale St and ate some awesome BBQ and listened to great music. We just took our time with everything and walked a lot.

But back home .... glad I cleaned the house before we left.

I finally filled out the application for Dillon..we have decided to do the Waiting Child Program in China!! I noted in the Dillon contract that I am going to have to make my blog private...so I guess that means if you are not a friend, you can't see it. Not real sure how that works but if you want to keep following us on our journey, just send a request and I will approve you if you are a friend or a supporter.

We are getting ready to kick off our major fundraising efforts and are needing help to sell the ads for our games. If you would like to help, please send me an email at tiffanydpt@yahoo.com and I will let you know place, time, date, and details. If you can't be here in person ...please pray from where you are!

ZOO

I love the zoo!! Watching the bears, monkeys, and other animals and comparing them to people. My favorite was the panda...she was sitting leaned up against a tree and eating cane in the morning and had only moved about 5 feet by late in the afternoon. Sometimes this is how I feel but never get to do!! Some of the other animals were in constant motion which is how I usual am with my 3 yr old who only stops moving when he is sleep. He would fit in well with the monkeys!! In the panda exhibit, we got the feel of China and got more excited about our child to be! In the gift shop, my son bought a stuffed panda and I got a jade hanger of Kwan Yin. Kwan Yin means "One who hears the cries of the world, and comes." The most celebrated goddess in Asia, she is the goddess of mercy or compassion, the protector of children and goddess of fertility. It just seemed appropriate! and it is very pretty!

AHHHHH!

Just when I thought everything was going right....the transmission went out on my car!!! It is going to cost $1308.00 to fix it! Well there goes almost all the $$ we have earned so far......yes I will try to replace all of it but will have to work some Fridays and that takes away from my Ethan time. This really sucks!!! I will never buy another Ford. It has been nothing but trouble since it turned over 80,000 miles and the guy at the Ford dealership told me it was just time for stuff to start going wrong! That just isn't right! Next time, I will buy a foreign car like a Honda or Nissan or Hyunda.

Oh well, just one obstacle in a long process. We will get over it and continue to push forward. Please pray for us...we need it right now!

YEAH!!

We made $477.00 at the Rhea Lana sale. We are so excited and I found out that there is still the Duck Duck Goose sale to put items in!! We want to thank everyone that shopped.

I think we have made our decision. We are going to stick with China and Dillon. I can picture my little China doll named Ivy and am sooooo excited. Now to begin our paperwork. I have everything that I need for our first application. Doesn't look too complicated but I could be wrong. I do know that I will have to make a trip to ACH for my oncologist to write a letter clearing me. I have been cured for 15 years and my last chemo trip was 13 years ago. I was discharged from my oncologist 2 years ago. I was very excited until I talked to my mom who said "doesn't that make you nervous? You won't have your yearly checkups anymore!" I wasn't nervous until she said that!! but was still very excited. I was finally set free!!!!

I still go back to ACH to visit occassionally but rarely know any of the nurses anymore. I love to go back to visit....maybe I can be an inspiration to one the cancer patients one day.

Decisions, Decisions

I never knew it would be so hard to pick a country for our child to come from. I thought we had picked China until today an adoption agency called that I had inquired about. They perform adoptions from Poland. We are very interested in Poland because my great grandparents came from Prussia (Polish Russia). This is a country that I was greatly considering early on because of my heritage but was having trouble finding an agency that did Polish adoptions. I found out that this is because only 3 agencies in the US do these adoptions. After further research, I have found that the stay in Poland is really long or to be broken down into 2-3 trips because they require a bonding time before you take your child home. That sounds great in theory but I don't think I could be away from Ethan that long! I have never even spent a night away from him. We would probably have to take him with us....But wow would that be a looooooooooooong flight with a 3-4 year old and then 2 kids on the way home! I just don't know .......... so stressful just picking out a country. HELP