Autumn Waiting

Well, we survived Halloween (those of you on the Daily Tyler email list know the details of that - and yes, Tyler is the very Charlie Brown-esque ghost above!).

We are now 8 months into our wait for referral. The wait to referral continues to be about 14-14.5 months , and it's still anyone's guess as to whether it will speed up or slow a bit more.

China did seem to speed up a little bit with the October referrals, but it's too soon to tell whether that's a continuing trend. Our agency's Group 48 is in China right now, and Group 49 will receive their referrals toward the end of this month. That means they will travel in late December/early January and we will be able to start the New Year with Group 50! (We are 52!) So we really are getting there!!!!! Hooray! To see the 7 cute babies (including one boy!) in Group 48, go to the link at right that says Agency China Trips (or something like that) and look for the FRC link. Then just check out the pictures for Group 48 and enjoy!

The nice people at the CCAA (Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs) are now reviewing family dossiers that they received in March 2006, so we are being scrutinized as I type! As soon as we get the official word that we have moved from the "review room" to the "match room," we will paint Baby X's baby room! We had a great visit from Mama Bea over Halloween and look forward to welcoming Marc's dad and Tone in November. Then on to Xmas!

On Wednesday, our kitchen is being photographed for Kitchen and Bath Ideas, a Better Homes and Gardens publication. That should be a riot! We'll be sure to post you as to when it will appear (probably next spring).

To sum up, with any luck at all (ha!), we could get our referral sometime between May and July and travel 6-8 weeks after that. Love from the Chodera household (which now includes Fluffy the hamster, adopted from friends who moved to Hawaii)!