United Nations Boots

Dear United States Postal Carrier,

The package you are delivering is very special. These are United Nations Boots. These boots were bought in Palestine Texas for our Russian born, Texas raised daughter to wear as she visited her birth country in March of 2006. Her feet had never before touched more than 1/80th of an inch of snow until she stepped on the ground in Moscow Russia at age 5. The soil and dried snow debris is purely Russian.

As you can plainly see, the boots were on clearance for $7.00 and they are for boys. In East Texas during late February, snow boots are a very rare product. We took what we could find.

The boots are now on their way to Minnesota, where they will be worn by a little boy who was adopted in Guatemala.

The next time these boots touch soil or snow, the Moscow soil picked up by a Russian/American/Texan girl will be scattered on the ground of Minnesota by a Guatemalan/American/Minnesotan little boy.

Now if that's not United Nations, I don't know what is!

Sincerely,
Suz

"RED AND YELLOW, BLACK, BROWN AND WHITE;
THEY ARE PRECIOUS IN HIS SIGHT. JESUS LOVES THE
LITTLE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD."

And so do we!

Wednesday Update

The Adoption: I worked all day today on updating the dossier. It's nearly finished. Hubby has to do an update of our financial statement since the first of the year brought an increase in salary (yay!) and our home situation is all different. Still waiting on the letter from the owners of the house we're renting. Then we'll be up to date on paperwork and ready to send to Austin for apostilles.

The House: Two days of no work :o(. Yesterday was thunderstorms and tornado watches so nothing was done. Today was beautiful, clear and high near 60*. The contractor had a delay in the delivery of the solar decking sheets for the roof. But when hubby drove by the house around 5 p.m. tonight, it had been delivered! So hopefully they'll get started tomorrow on putting the lid on our house!

Here are the latest updates in pictures.

Monday, January 7 - They worked on the eaves and corrected a misplaced window on the front porch. When I posted those last pictures, I realized we weren't going to have room for our shutters and that is because they had placed a window incorrectly in the family room. They got that corrected and a few other odds and ends that aren't outwardly noticeable.

Lots of Progress on the House & a Little Progress on the Adoption

THE HOUSE: It now has it's roof frame and is ready for the decking next week! We just got finished sweeping and cleaning the house and the yard area where the workers just drop their cups, cans and bottles any and everywhere. I'm sure the neighbors will be happy the trash won't be blowing into their yards! It looks great now, so clean! It was the first time I cleaned my new house :O) I wish there were a way to post the smell of the wood online, I love that smell!

Here is D "sitting on the toilet" in her new bathroom. Not much privacy from the neighbors at this point!

December 31 - they started enclosing the framework with solid wood!

January 2 - More enclosure!

January 3 - They started putting a bunch of bracing in to prepare for the roofing. They also began doing the plastic insulating wrap around the house. They've got the back side of the house wrapped but for some reason they haven't finished.

January 4 - they began building the roof framework!

January 5 - yes they worked on Saturday! They completed the roof frame-work and now it's ready for the decking to be added hopefully next week! I didn't get a picture of it completed, I'll have to get that later.

THE ADOPTION: I spoke with our casemanager and they are scheduling our home study update and we should hear next week when that will be. I finally dug out all our last dossier to see what we really need to get done. This will be dossier number four. Our I-171H fingerprints expire today. Our I-171H is good till September, though, so hopefully to goodness we'll have a child by THEN!

Christmas has come and gone and 2008 is on it's way

We had a nice Christmas. We've all been sick for the whole month of December so we've had a pretty slow and simple Christmas.

D asked Santa for a stuffed Skunk and a Webkinz Duck and he came through for her. She also got Polly Pocket Race to the Mall and a Leapster from Mommy and Daddy (along with several other odds and ends)

The began the framing on our house the Friday before Christmas by doing the outline of the house on the floor in 2x4's. The didn't do anything else on it till yesterday and today they've just about got all the perimeter and the interior framed up!



Well, it doesn't look like our agency will hear any good accreditation news this month and if there is anything to come in January, I'm sure it won't come till later in the month since the Russians will be celebrating Christmas and New Years for half the month.

It was good to hear, though, that several more agencies received their accreditation last week, so hopefully we'll be next.

Last week hubby and I had a talk about how long will we wait? I admit, I've had thoughts of just stopping and being content with our precious D. But I just hate for her to grow up as an only child. And I'm not quite ready to set aside my dream of having another child. My arms and heart still feel as if there is an empty spot. We haven't set a deadline yet, but we'll see where we are after we're in our new house if nothing has happened accreditation-wise by then (heaven forbid!).

I've thought a good bit about losing Viktoria these last days. I pray that she is in a loving family and will enjoy her first family Christmas. The hardest time that it hit me was when I set the table for Christmas Eve dinner and there were still just three place settings. The absence of that fourth was very apparent to me.

I hope 2008 will be a very happy year for all the waiting families and the children who will join them.

Hallmark Card Contest

A young lady in our church, Meredith, is a finalist in the Hallmark Card contest. Please help her by voting for her card!

Her's is called "Connecting the Dots."

Thanks!

Catching up and adding pictures

Well, it's official - I will not be having any internet at home until we move into our new house. The mobile home was "wired by owner" and the phone connection is not compatible for even dial up. I tried for over 35 minutes yesterday to just get ON the internet, much less do anything.

So, today I am at hubby's office, filling in for the receptionist while the staff has their Christmas luncheon. So, since I have no duties except to answer the phone and say hello, I'll update my blog.

I went ahead and brought my camera card too, so I'll just do my pix from here.

We have a foundation, but it must sit and cure for 5-7 days, so there has been nothing else done to the new house since last Friday. I've been hoping they'll get started this Thursday with the framing. It will be so exciting to see the walls finally going up!

Still nothing new on the adoption front. We've got to get our home-study update done in the near future. Also, our fingerprints expire in January, so we'll have to see about having those done again too. I haven't gotten to check blogs, or FRUA in ages. So I feel so out of the loop.

Ok, I'll add some pix of our latest house adventures!

November 6 - The culvert was added so trucks could get onto the property


November 19 - We were so excited when after 2 weeks of NOTHING happening, we saw the port-a-potty had been delivered!!! This meant things were about to begin. See the little white paper posted on the pole? That is what held us up for two weeks - the permit!


November 27 -Seeing these forms go up was one of the most exciting things we had experienced up to that point! We were just ecstatic to finally see the outline of our new home!



December 3 - And the then plumber came and laid the foundation pipes!
It is great to look and think, "ok, there's my corner tub, the potty, the sink,
the dishwasher etc, etc."

December 5 - The Electrician came to do the initial foundation wiring!

December 6 - The concrete crew came out and prepared the slab for pouring the foundation! I thought it was interesting how they dug a deeper area for our fireplace (it'll be in the corner of the family room)


December 7 - On the way to school, D and hubby stopped by "the land" and saw the concrete crew had already been hard at work for a while. Our foundation was being poured!


A crew of 12 men worked quickly and by 10:00 our foundation was poured. The rest of the day they trowled, smoothed and leveled it.


And that brings us to today where we just wait for it to cure. It's been raining a bit every night, but that shouldn't hold it up from curing. It looks so small right now, just looking at the cement slab, but everyone warned us that it would!

So firm a foundation . . .

We will have a foundation poured tomorrow on our new house! I'm very behind in keeping the blog up to date on the latest advances in our new home construction, but things have been happening every day and it is very exciting!

Since I last posted, we have had the forms framed around the perimeter of the house; the plumber has done his initial pipe-laying work; the electrician has done his initial work and the cement crew was out today working like a little army of ants getting everything ready to pour cement tomorrow!

I've got pix of every step, but with the dial up we have now it is nearly impossible to post from home. I am at hubby's office right now, but D is playing on the computer where I can upload pix.

I'm heading up a Christmas Cookie Exchange tonight at our church. It should start in 15 minutes. No one is here yet, that doesn't bode too well, does it? We'll see if anything comes of it.

Gotta run, just wanted to check in!

update . . . the cookie swap was a success! We had about 10 participants and now have 10 different varieties of cookies to eat and share for the holiday!