Mark and Melissa

Skittle Face

As many of you know we don’t really celebrate Halloween. But we love to have fun (and eat candy, of course!). So this year, being that Savannah is now old enough to appreciate one, (and, well the rest of us are too) we had a bon-fire out at my parent’s house in Caledonia. With us, my parents and my sister Krista it was a very fun and relaxing time roasting S’mores over the fire and watching for shooting stars. Along with the necessary candy (as seen in the Skittles face photo) we had a pizza dinner and then went out to enjoy the fire. Our hearty bon-fire, smoked-sausage-smelling hair and coats after the night was over (mmm…smoked sausage! LOL!) were the lasting evidence of a great, smoky, evening had by all.

Since I volunteered that day to help out in Savannah’s class with the games for their Harvest Party, Savannah and I had already had our fill of pumpkin bowling. It was a great game that the kids really loved playing and barely wanted to stop at the end of the party. But I feel that next year, we will need to add this fun game to our festivities at the bon-fire.

We are heading to Chicago’s Chinatown on Friday for the Dragon Boat races. I’m LOL that the last post was for the dragon boat festival last year. We’re heading to the windy city with a few other families from our local Chinese Culture and expect that we will have a fun time. Of course we will be frequenting Lao Sichuan restaurant. Savannah is looking forward to the tipping head aka the Mayan Waterpark in Elmhurst.

Updated with some photos.  Cirque Shanghai made a special appearance and they were simply amazing.  We all had fun at the Mayan Waterpark and are exhausted.

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This past weekend we went down to Chinatown in Chicago for the annual Dragonboat Races. This was the first time we’ve been to this event  and we had a lot of fun. We came a night early and stayed at a hotel that had an indoor waterpark for Savannah. She loved it!

This year Dragonboat festival fell on June 19, but the races in Chicago were on the 21st of July. Chinatown was a-buzz with lots of different things to do and see because of the races. There were lots of vendors with samples, performers and art booths. One booth for Saint Alp Teahouse gave out free samples of their tea creations. The green tea and milk drink was so good we went and visited their store on Archer to get a small cup to go–so refreshing. The shop was so cool. Very hip and modern, just like their drink ideas–combining the awesome tea of China with the idea of mixed coffee type drinks of America. This was a fun new find for us.

The races were fun to watch and cheer for. I’ve posted some pictures to the website of the races.

Of course, we ate at our favorite restaurant Lao Sze Chuan for lunch which was a special treat. And we stocked up on tea again for the year. It was a beautiful day in the windy city–not too hot and some lovely wind. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  Unless we are out of town next year (crossed fingers that we will be in China) we will surely not miss this event in Chinatown next year.

Well, these last two months we have gotten word from our adoption agency that the wait time has increased (time from logged-in-date in China to Referral) one additional month. That means we are now at twenty months. If this time frame continued without lengthening further in the months between now and then, we would get a referral in April of 2008. However, we personally feel that if it gets much longer, we may not end up getting to travel until late 2008 because we feel in our hearts that China will not be granting adoption travel approval during or around the summer Olympic games to be held in Beijing in 2008.

Savannah will be starting Kindergarten in the Fall of 2008, which would make it a really dicey time to travel (as transition times are always hard for her). Another thing that is weighing on our minds is that we really would like to move to a certain area locally that has a high Asian percentage of children so Savannah would attend school with other children that she can feels at least look like her. (This is so important to us, as she already is saying things like “I don’t like my black hair.” at the age of four.) However, since our adoption funding is tied to the equity of our home we cannot move until we have completed our adoption.

We know that this is all in Gods hands and we trust him with it all. If you think of praying for us though, we’d certainly welcome your prayers. Thanks so much.

The wait time from log-in in China to Referral is now eighteen months. That would put us at a referral of February 2008 at this point. But we are not very confident that the wait time will remain the same the rest of this year.

One ray of hope is that some feel the new restrictions that start on May 1st of this year will greatly decrease the number of people applying for adoption to China. Also, I think a natural self-weeding out is taking place too, as not many people want to join a program that takes 18 months to get your child after the 3 to 6 months that you’ve already taken to get your paperwork ready.  On top of that, many who choose to adopt internationally have already dealt with infertility problems for years and it is hard to wait this much more time when there are other international programs that move much faster. So, all that to say, maybe the process will speed up?