Ralph's outing

Last Friday, friends & I (Heather) took Ralph to Joyful Honda. It is a large department store near Yokota that is a mixture of Home Depot, Petsmart, Michaels, Wal-Mart, and a food court. People take their pets there to shop and eat in a special pet-friendly section of the food court. Ralph enjoyed the outing, while the ladies and I looked over all the goods.

Projections

The Rumor Queen's next projection for 4/6/06 log-in dates (LIDs) is November:

chinaadopttalk.com/2009/07/23/projections-25/

Don't know if I believe it. Dec, Jan, Feb.... maybe even later would be realistic, too. As we've learned, you never know what weird things can happen to slow or delay things at the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs.) But the bottom line is, we are getting close. 11 LID days left, not counting weekends.

For a fun diversion, here's a video called "Elmo's in the Way":
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hbuvZhfViI

This month's referrals!

Well, not the furry or feathery kind, but we are happy for the families that just received their referrals. It still appears the cut-off was 3/22/06, so we know they've been waiting a long time:

http://chinaadopttalk.com/2009/07/21/babies-25/


(Photo in upper right is from a 2005 visit to Sandie's house. Ralph was meeting Spike the Bird for the first time.)

Rumors of a new cut-off

It appears the next cut-off date is March 22, 2006. Our LID (log-in date) is April 6, 2006. So maybe only 11 real LID days to go. I think our referral will happen sometime between November and February, but we really don't know. Getting ready nonetheless! What else can we do?!

I'm attaching a few recent pics of the boys with our neighbor's dog, Sarah. She & Ted liked to hang out in the kitchen asking for snacks.

Ted: 14 years of loving

Our little Teddy crossed over the rainbow bridge on July 17th. He went peacefully and I (Heather) got to snuggle him through his last hours. Jeff was in the US for work, but we got to Skype him often, so Ted got to hear his dad's voice just a few hours before. He had been sick with cancer, and lived happily about 3 months longer than we anticipated, so we were grateful for the extra time with him. We will miss our little baby so much.

First post

Welcome! We did it! (Well, I did it in Japan while Jeff is asleep in Florida.) We started our adoption blog. I don't really know what to write, and am totally new to blogging and using Blogger. It's Friday, July 17 here in Japan. It's convenient to be on China time, although we have to wait for Rumor Queen to wake up in the US for our information. Ted & Ralph are relaxing in the pen as I write.