April Referrals - 27 months waiting

They've made it through January 9th, 2006. That's 18 days ( including weekends) until our LID. Without weekends, 14 days.
Someone told me once that China does assign LID's on weekends, but our agency doesn't have any weekends assigned to them for January. I like the sound of 14 days better, anyway! In any case, we're still so close. With this last batch being slightly smaller, I'm now guessing we'll get our referral in August. July would probably be asking for too much. I've been assuming they'll do between 6-8 days on average each month, so that's how I've come up with my dates. If they can do at least 6 day batches, we'll be on the cusp of a July/August referral. August might be good for weather reasons. Maybe it cools down in China in September? Or maybe not. I'll have to research that.

I emailed our home study agency that we'll need our pre & post placement fees back since we're moving to the same area our adoption agency is in. They'll take over both the home study updates and post-placement visits. Then we can get our fees back. I think we only paid around $200 for post-placement updates, but I need to research a bit more.

The house sale is still on track. We passed our home inspection. Very little was found to be wrong, so we'll fix most of the little things for the new owner.

Hubby will be flying out to Denver soon to lease a townhome or condo while we look for a house to buy. I've been researching places on line, but it's hard to know if they'll be a nice place to live until you get there and see it in person. If it's temporary, we'll be able to handle almost anything. Fortunately we've been able to locate quite a few 3 bedroom w/a garage. If we're lucky, we'll get a 2-car attached garage. That would be best.

Our baby dog Louie is turning 8 today. Happy Birthday little Louie!!! We're going out for ice cream in a little while. The dogs LOVE vanilla soft serve. And for his birthday gift? The Furminator! It's a grooming device that gets rid of a lot of the hair dogs shed. It's a bit pricey, but all the reviews claim it's worth it. I watched a demo of it on a dog, and man, it gets rid of a lot of hair! My dogs do love to be brushed though, so this won't be torture for them.

My brother bought a house the other day. It's new construction, so he gets the thrill of picking all his upgrades and options. I remember how surprisingly stressful that was to remember deadlines and options, but it's worth it. Congrats to my baby bro'. The house is huge, over 2800 sq. feet (for me that's big), and it's his first house. It sounds really nice.

We went to a food/community festival this weekend. I, of course, found the one booth that was selling handmade baby items. Lots of blankets, onesies, bibs, etc. Fortunately I have a relative who is pregnant, so I was able to buy some cute surf-themed stuff for her. I did sneak in a small small diaper sized blankie-thing for Kristen though. I don't think my husband will have read this far down into the post, so he might not catch it....

Anyway, it's time for Louie's vanilla cone!