The Good, The Bad and Everything in Between

My perfect Lily in a my weed bed. It stands so straight. colorful and proud, it doesn't matter what surrounds her, she will be proud and beautiful. The edges looked like there was a bite taken out of it, but they are just curl down. And she smells so nice. Jade calls it the perfume flower. So remember be proud of yourself even when surrounded by things not so pretty.
The Good: We had a gorgeous day on Saturday which was Katie's 7th birthday. We celebrated both hers and Monika birthday (will be this Thursday). The weather was perfect and the company was awesome. We don't do friends party at this time. This is them waiting so patiently to open gifts. After the party was all done....Katie got to pick her place to eat and she chose Snuffy's which is a great hamburger/malt shop and is a place that I used to go to when I was growing up.


The Good: Monika's cake was made by Katie, frosted by Monika, writing by mom and Aunt Cindy and decorated with 8 dog statues by Monika. Katie's cake was made from scratch my her Godmother per Katie's request. Both cake were delicious.

The Bad: I didn't blog this on Katie's birthday and am 2 days late. Sorry Katie.
The Everything in Between, Jade is holding the first picking from the Garden, she is so dedicated to it, weeding it everyday and watering it. We are hoping for a lot more.
A good way to end a birthday party is cooling off on a slip and slide. Monika racing her cousin Steven.

Now The Good, The Bad and Everything in Between with bringing our sweet Erin home.

We got good news today that we did get our article 5 last Thursday just like we were suppose to. It took them until this afternoon to informed us because they had unexpected things to come up with a couple of the workers last Thursday and Friday. The Everything in between news the TA's are slowing down a little bit. Instead of one to two weeks, it is now two to three weeks. The bad news, if it is more then 2 weeks Jade might be able to be with us for a few days in China, if it is 3 weeks, she won't be able to travel to China. This really sadden me for many different reasons. She was so excited to show us her birth country, even though there is a lot of things that we or others may not agree with China, China is beautiful, the people are wonderful, the culture is so rich and it will always be my girls first home and my adopted home. We were looking forward meeting her family. She would be there to help us with Erin. If there was something Erin needed to tell us she could tell Jade and Jade could translate. We have heard about stories about some of the guides that don't tell the child what you ask them to tell them or they tell the child something that could harm the bonding process. There is another part of the importance of Jade being able to go with us, that I feel can't be shared at this time but would have meant so much to everyone involved. I continue to pray that we will get to China in time for Jade to travel with us, still have a glimmer of hope and that is what I am doing now, just hoping and yes I know there is a perfect plan for when we get Erin and I just need to wait and see what pans out, doesn't make it any more easier but it is in Gods' hand and hopefully we will see our options and chose the best one. We also talked to a grant committee today and we are going up in front of the board next week and pray that we will be good enough to qualify for one of their grants. Please keep us in your prayers.
The Best news is we are a step closer to Erin and that is the most important thing.