LOA Wait and Chinese New Year....

Tomorrow morning marks day 40 waiting for our LOA.  I have read anywhere from 30-80 days.  Huge range and with China being closed for New Years celebrations for the next two weeks, I suspect we are in for a long wait.  Bummer for sure.   Everyone who has adopted before knows that when you finally see that precious face of the one you are adopting, the wait time feels like double normal clock ticking time.  But, we wait and we pray.

Tonight we took the family out to celebrate not only our 11 yr old daughters birthday, but the start of Chinese New Year.  We ate way too much at the local Chinese Super Buffet!  Titus spent his time chatting in chinese with the employees (while eating 4 plates of food) and Adam just ate and ate and ate.  He now wants this to be the place we bring him for his birthday present:)  

I was chastized for not giving them their "red envelopes with money" in the morning.  I gave it to them at dinner.  After their correction on proper tradition I reminded them that we were out of power for 5 days, had no cash and had to wait for the bank to open up while they were in school.  Geesh...I guess they have become Americanized...too bad, I enjoyed their Chinese traits better:)

Overall a great night

Gotta love Washington weather

No, really, normally its awesome here in Washington.  BUT the last four days were just spent without heat, water, electricity etc etc.  A huge storm came through dropping 14 inches of snow followed by 1-2 inches of ice, causing trees to break and fall all over the place.  We were not prepared so we were pretty much stuck the first 24 hours.  After that between neighbors, church family and friends pooling together resources we survived:) Hahah I know, I grew up in Michigan so this was nothing compared to there, but when a state is not equipped to deal with this type of issue then it is a big issue.

I must say despite getting bored, being freezing cold and having to flush with buckets of water we sure enjoyed all the time huddling up with friends, playing games and visiting.

Don't worry sweet Elizabeth, we will have a generator, gas stove and all the other things we need so you never have to live without:)  Its kind of comical now that the time has passed, I am clean and have access to my own power and computer:)

Can I get any cuter?