Two years ago today...

We got in a line for adoption with China. That line at the time was expected to be six to eight months long. The line a year ago was updated to be 17 months long. Today that line is 27 months long and growing with each passing month.

One year ago today this is what we knew
1. We had no idea when we would get our referral
2. We had no idea when we would travel (see number one)
3. The name
4. Anticipating our first Christmas as a family
5. We would see the Talleckson's and Ventura's with their daughters
6. Katelyn Ventura is a ham
7. We were in the chat rooms thanks to Mellissa and we were angry
8. We attended a parent training class
9. The wait was getting tremendously longer and we were getting angry
10. The Talleckson's brought Sofia home and she is a sweet little girl

This is what we know today
1. Referral and travel dates are still a mystery
2. We are part of a Lansing area waiting families group, one of the couples in our group should be receiving a referral with the next batch, they missed the cut-off by one day, so they are definitely next.
3. The name
4. Christmas as a family of three seems far far away
5. We see the Talleckson's and Ventura's every now and then with the girls. The Ventura's are adding a second daughter to their family this spring. They are adopting a special needs child from China. Vince will be heading to China again to meet their daughter and bring her home.
6. Our file is somewhere between Chicago and Detroit, we hope.
7. We will have to be fingerprinted for the third time this summer for the Department of Homeland Security because, you know, they change...WHATEVER!
8. As of today, there are 104 days ahead of us in line.
9. Our placing agency received referrals last month for 4 families, three of the four were referred a boy...which gives us something new to think about.
10. We are the only home on our block that does not have a child.

Some things that we have done or have happened in the past year:
We finished remodeling our Rockford home, only to put it on the market 60 days later
We lived in separate states for 5 months
We have celebrated 13 years of marriage
We have sold our home in Rockford (one of the lucky ones)
We bought a home in DeWitt, (the land of plenty, wanting for more)
We shoveled our way out of a long Michigan winter (we hope its true that this was unusual)
Attended two MSU games, one football, one basketball.
Attended theatre performances at MSU
Attended the East Lansing Film Festival
Jenn was promoted to Accounting Manager and is supervising people from home
Jenn is taking golf lessons
Kevin has been working a lot, getting things situated

Not much else has been happening, which is why we haven't been updating this site as often as we were in the past.

We can't believe it has been two years already. With an average of 7 days of referrals each month, we can only expect to wait another 14 months from now for referral. We hope it gets better, but it doesn't look promising.