Well, I know from a lot of emails I have been a bit behind on my updates. So sorry!
John and I were fortunate enough to be treated an all expense paid trip to Las Vegas by my fantastic company. And, well, time has just gotten away from me. There are so only so many hours in the day!
We had a great time in Vegas, and the highlight for me was taking John to Bass Pro (yes guys out there, the all wonderful, testosterone laden BASS PRO) and shop like a crazed person. In addition to our stay at the fantastic Treasure Island, a cabaña by the pool, and fantastic formal dinner affairs, they gave me $300 to do with what I will…so we bought John clothes and all three guys (John, Aidan and Carrington) fishing poles. We are actually slated to get a Bass Pro here in Bako soon, so for those of you coming on out to visit, fun times are a comin! (Personally, I am not sure what the lure is, I’d rather go to Nordstrom’s…now THERE'S some real fun!) Oh yeah, and YES! I did win $$$ I made $125 on Roulette. Yahoo! And, no, I didn’t donate it back. This girlie knows when to walk away…Add it to my $300 and we came home with $225…enough to pay the baby sitter $100 and save the rest. Okay, so I may be boring, put I am a boring person who came home with more than I left with! I am, after all, adopting a child and $$$ are $$$!
As for the adoption front, as usual I had a hiccup. I was informed I had to complete 12 units of adoption related classes in keeping with the new Hague Convention laws. No one in Russia really cares that I have two fully grown children, a domestically adopted 6 yr old and an internationally adopted 13 year old. So yawn! Away I went on to the internet for 24 hours of training to answer a bunch of questions…And the good news is I passed. Then we had to redo our local police clearances ‘cause they were more than 3 months old and that is always a challenge. If you remember, I mentioned way back when that our city doesn’t normally do this…that is why we have the finger print clearances. I swear, if there is not a 'hit one button on the computer' program already in place, God help a county employee if they have to - dare I say - make up a letter? (I don't think we have any county employee's among our family and friends, but just in case - no offense. You just have to be in my frustrated shoes to understand. Please refer to my previous post in what the state dept. did with my apostilles!) So, we marched down again to the Sheriff Department and had nice letters made up that state the obvious – we do not have any felonies or arrest records. Yawn again! This is getting soooo old…and we are not in the clear yet. I can almost bet they will need to be done several more times before we are through. Good news though. The clerks at the county office now know me by name, and the Sheriff’s office doesn’t look at me like I’m crazy when I ask for the clearance.
So, with that being said, we did manage – once again with the help pf my friend Steph - (Thanks Steph!!!) to get them apostilled, scanned, and sent to V. My dossier should NOW finally be ready for submission the MOE. V tells me to be prepared for a referral in the next four weeks. As I understand it, two other families have already received their referral…very quickly…in the area where we are adopting from. All in all, we are playing by the rules - and the rules say we have to wait - so we do - just not patiently.
On a family note, John has been quite busy with re-doing the lawn. For those of you who do not know, we live on several acres of land. What led up to this new project was we recently had to have a new leech it put in for our septic tank. There was hole the size of a whale by the time they were done. So, with that happening my husbands thought pattern went something like this:
1. The lawn is already torn up, and he wanted to re-grade it anyhow, so he decided to get out the tractor and move all the dirt into strategic landscaping areas.
2. He needed to run new electrical and gas lines from the house to the barn, so he might as well so that before he put in the new lawn and had to trench it
3. So, he rented a trencher and trenched over 100 yards to lay the pipe in for the wires and gas lines
4. Because he re-graded the lawn, he had to redo the sprinklers.
5. Since he was re-working the sprinklers, he might as well figure in the new front porch that is going in, so he knew where to relocate them
6. I now have the area for the new front porch…
7. The electrical for the barn and the well needed to be rewired to suit the new sub panel, so all new wiring was placed under ground (Through said trenched pipes) and that meant a new electrical panel by the well
8. The new panel was built and placed in a new location by the well
9. Since the old panel is now gone, and the new one is shorter, he was then able to reduce the size of the fence around the well. The well fence (yes, the 6 ft high one that I hated so much) is now 3 feet in height and will have roses around it
10. I now have 1 acre of dirt that cannot be re-sodded until it is hot enough for the Bermuda to grow. Sigh….
Welcome to my life…
John and I were fortunate enough to be treated an all expense paid trip to Las Vegas by my fantastic company. And, well, time has just gotten away from me. There are so only so many hours in the day!
We had a great time in Vegas, and the highlight for me was taking John to Bass Pro (yes guys out there, the all wonderful, testosterone laden BASS PRO) and shop like a crazed person. In addition to our stay at the fantastic Treasure Island, a cabaña by the pool, and fantastic formal dinner affairs, they gave me $300 to do with what I will…so we bought John clothes and all three guys (John, Aidan and Carrington) fishing poles. We are actually slated to get a Bass Pro here in Bako soon, so for those of you coming on out to visit, fun times are a comin! (Personally, I am not sure what the lure is, I’d rather go to Nordstrom’s…now THERE'S some real fun!) Oh yeah, and YES! I did win $$$ I made $125 on Roulette. Yahoo! And, no, I didn’t donate it back. This girlie knows when to walk away…Add it to my $300 and we came home with $225…enough to pay the baby sitter $100 and save the rest. Okay, so I may be boring, put I am a boring person who came home with more than I left with! I am, after all, adopting a child and $$$ are $$$!
As for the adoption front, as usual I had a hiccup. I was informed I had to complete 12 units of adoption related classes in keeping with the new Hague Convention laws. No one in Russia really cares that I have two fully grown children, a domestically adopted 6 yr old and an internationally adopted 13 year old. So yawn! Away I went on to the internet for 24 hours of training to answer a bunch of questions…And the good news is I passed. Then we had to redo our local police clearances ‘cause they were more than 3 months old and that is always a challenge. If you remember, I mentioned way back when that our city doesn’t normally do this…that is why we have the finger print clearances. I swear, if there is not a 'hit one button on the computer' program already in place, God help a county employee if they have to - dare I say - make up a letter? (I don't think we have any county employee's among our family and friends, but just in case - no offense. You just have to be in my frustrated shoes to understand. Please refer to my previous post in what the state dept. did with my apostilles!) So, we marched down again to the Sheriff Department and had nice letters made up that state the obvious – we do not have any felonies or arrest records. Yawn again! This is getting soooo old…and we are not in the clear yet. I can almost bet they will need to be done several more times before we are through. Good news though. The clerks at the county office now know me by name, and the Sheriff’s office doesn’t look at me like I’m crazy when I ask for the clearance.
So, with that being said, we did manage – once again with the help pf my friend Steph - (Thanks Steph!!!) to get them apostilled, scanned, and sent to V. My dossier should NOW finally be ready for submission the MOE. V tells me to be prepared for a referral in the next four weeks. As I understand it, two other families have already received their referral…very quickly…in the area where we are adopting from. All in all, we are playing by the rules - and the rules say we have to wait - so we do - just not patiently.
On a family note, John has been quite busy with re-doing the lawn. For those of you who do not know, we live on several acres of land. What led up to this new project was we recently had to have a new leech it put in for our septic tank. There was hole the size of a whale by the time they were done. So, with that happening my husbands thought pattern went something like this:
1. The lawn is already torn up, and he wanted to re-grade it anyhow, so he decided to get out the tractor and move all the dirt into strategic landscaping areas.
2. He needed to run new electrical and gas lines from the house to the barn, so he might as well so that before he put in the new lawn and had to trench it
3. So, he rented a trencher and trenched over 100 yards to lay the pipe in for the wires and gas lines
4. Because he re-graded the lawn, he had to redo the sprinklers.
5. Since he was re-working the sprinklers, he might as well figure in the new front porch that is going in, so he knew where to relocate them
6. I now have the area for the new front porch…
7. The electrical for the barn and the well needed to be rewired to suit the new sub panel, so all new wiring was placed under ground (Through said trenched pipes) and that meant a new electrical panel by the well
8. The new panel was built and placed in a new location by the well
9. Since the old panel is now gone, and the new one is shorter, he was then able to reduce the size of the fence around the well. The well fence (yes, the 6 ft high one that I hated so much) is now 3 feet in height and will have roses around it
10. I now have 1 acre of dirt that cannot be re-sodded until it is hot enough for the Bermuda to grow. Sigh….
Welcome to my life…
So, I will close with the last new addition to our family…chickens. Yep, John decided to override me objections and buy baby chicks. 5 of ‘em. At least I will have organic brown eggs – someday. I figure he will spend more on feed than I ever would on the eggs, so we should break even in about 10 years. That is given they don’t get ate by the wild dogs that run around here, or an owl, or a hawk…LOL!
See ya!
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