I've decided to "seize the day" when it comes to weekends sans children, because how much longer will I have this chance? I always joke around with my sister and tell her we're going to have joint custody of the peanut once we get settled in. She can have him every other weekend and then I'll get a break! In all honesty, I'm not sure I'll be a big sharer, but there will most likely be times when I need a break. Where was I going with all of this? Oh... my weekend!
Alex was on the 9th/10th grade spiritual retreat with school this week so Keith and I had an entire weekend to chill out! And that's exactly what we did. Us old fogies were fast asleep by 10:30 Friday night and once we rescued the kitten from the avalanche she created in our closet, we managed to sleep in until about 10. For those of you that know my husband you know that is unheard of. 8 hours max for him and never past 7 am. Me on the other hand.... let's just say I LOVE my sleep! 8, 10 , 12, 14 hours - you name it. It's never enough. I could be a professional sleeper, if just given the chance. Too bad you can't make money doing that!
We literally did a whole heck of a lot of nothing on Saturday. Keith and I did manage to figure out how to have a happy, peaceful shopping trip together! See, I like to shop and "let's just run to Target real quick" turns into Target, Archiver's, Best Buy, Costco, etc... You get the picture. Keith goes to the mall/shopping 1 time a year - Christmas. And that would be 1 time a year too many.
So, we hop in the car and I tell him we have to take a quick trip to Michaels and Costco to get things to make gift bags (I'm the sympathy committee chair for our Football Mom's club and we had a work day on Sunday). He patiently walks through Costco and then waits in the car while I run in Michaels so the chocolate I just bought doesn't melt. I come back out and he's happy and chipper. Hmmmm... who is this man? Why is he not wondering what took me so long? I decided to try something risky. "Can we run past Archiver's really quick?", I ask. "Sure!", he says. Oh my goodness! What is going on? Is it a full moon? I glance to my left and I quickly realize the reason he is being so laid back and agreeable. Underneath the armrest peaks out his laptop and wireless card!!! While I'm shopping, he's working. It's a win-win. I'm not complaining about him working on a Saturday and he's not complaining about me shopping. We will forever "shop" with laptop in tow. :-)
Sunday was a bit busy - picked up Alex from his retreat, went to lunch with his friend and his friend's mom and then headed back to school. Alex had a football meeting to review films and I had my work day for the mom's club. I came home to a clean house and all of the laundry was folded. I love my husband! :-)
On the adoption front... I received my travel pack from the agency (did I tell you that yet?). All that means is that I now have a handbook on traveling - do's, don'ts and what to expect. I have more papers to fill out and sign. I feel like I'm in a slump right now - just don't want to do anything adoption related. I think that's because I know I have such a long wait ahead of me so I'm at the point where I try not to get excited about the little things.
Off to watch some TV and then head to bed! Tomorrow is a busy day and we have back to school night Tuesday as well as our first Varsity football game on Friday!
Hugs and Best Wishes!
Becky
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Friday, August 17, 2007
Our One Month Anniversary
"Huh? You've only been married a month??" Noooo silly gooses! It's the one month anniversary of our dossier going to Russia!! Whooohoooo! I know I posted few posts back about time flying, but it truly has. It feels like just yesterday that I marched into UPS with a stack of notarized, certified, apostilled papers in my hand, scared to death to let them go for fear I might have to do it ALL over again if it got lost! Thankfully, it got there safely, was 100% correct and off to Krasnoyarsk it went.
I called our coordinator at CHI (who I love so far, by the way) for a little "hey, remember me! What's going on?" talk. As I suspected, not too much is going on. :-) As I mentioned previously, Kras is a new region for our agency and right now two families are acting as the "Pioneer Families" in this region. They have both gone on their first trip and are now in between trips. The idea is for these families to complete their adoption before anyone else heads over. This allows the agency to get more comfortable with how the region operates, to be able to build relationships and to understand the region specific requirements.
I'm not sure who the two families are, but a big THANK YOU goes out to them to be willing to go first in a new region and for paving the way. I know I've said it before, and let me say it again - Adoption is not for the weak at heart. At best, it is completely unpredictable. Please say a little prayer, make a little wish, hop up and down on one foot while wishing on a star - whatever it is you do - for these families and the success of their adoptions!
So, Rachel and I have been talking about our mini-milestones (check out her blog - she met a milestone today!). It's our way of making the wait shorter - well, not shorter but gives us little things to look forward to. Here are my mini-milestones: Sept 15th - IAD (International Adoption Doctor) visit in Birmingham, October 18th - Pre-Adopt II class at CHI in TN (get to meet Rachel and hopefully Carey and anyone else that is around!!). That gets me to November when hopefully things will be moving a little.
Another mini-milestone that I'm NOT too happy to report is September 6th @ 4:30 pm. Vaccinations, my friends, vaccinations. I wonder if Carrie and Michael will adopt me before they adopt their wee-little one since their insurance seems to be much more kind then mine. :-) hehehe... The total cost of the vaccinations we'll need is - drum roll please - about $975. Yep, pick yourselves up off the floor. Thank you Blue Cross Blue Shield for taking my premium each month and not letting me use any of it. Do you realize that $975 is just about the cost of a round trip ticket to Moscow?? Better safe than sorry, right? Right. At least that's what I keep trying to convince myself!
Off to relax a bit! Tomorrow is a cleaning day and thank goodness for my little sister, she is going to force me to finish cleaning up the two rooms! :-)
Happy Friday!
Becky
I called our coordinator at CHI (who I love so far, by the way) for a little "hey, remember me! What's going on?" talk. As I suspected, not too much is going on. :-) As I mentioned previously, Kras is a new region for our agency and right now two families are acting as the "Pioneer Families" in this region. They have both gone on their first trip and are now in between trips. The idea is for these families to complete their adoption before anyone else heads over. This allows the agency to get more comfortable with how the region operates, to be able to build relationships and to understand the region specific requirements.
I'm not sure who the two families are, but a big THANK YOU goes out to them to be willing to go first in a new region and for paving the way. I know I've said it before, and let me say it again - Adoption is not for the weak at heart. At best, it is completely unpredictable. Please say a little prayer, make a little wish, hop up and down on one foot while wishing on a star - whatever it is you do - for these families and the success of their adoptions!
So, Rachel and I have been talking about our mini-milestones (check out her blog - she met a milestone today!). It's our way of making the wait shorter - well, not shorter but gives us little things to look forward to. Here are my mini-milestones: Sept 15th - IAD (International Adoption Doctor) visit in Birmingham, October 18th - Pre-Adopt II class at CHI in TN (get to meet Rachel and hopefully Carey and anyone else that is around!!). That gets me to November when hopefully things will be moving a little.
Another mini-milestone that I'm NOT too happy to report is September 6th @ 4:30 pm. Vaccinations, my friends, vaccinations. I wonder if Carrie and Michael will adopt me before they adopt their wee-little one since their insurance seems to be much more kind then mine. :-) hehehe... The total cost of the vaccinations we'll need is - drum roll please - about $975. Yep, pick yourselves up off the floor. Thank you Blue Cross Blue Shield for taking my premium each month and not letting me use any of it. Do you realize that $975 is just about the cost of a round trip ticket to Moscow?? Better safe than sorry, right? Right. At least that's what I keep trying to convince myself!
Off to relax a bit! Tomorrow is a cleaning day and thank goodness for my little sister, she is going to force me to finish cleaning up the two rooms! :-)
Happy Friday!
Becky
Monday, August 13, 2007
School has started!
Do you want to know how I can tell it has started?? It's just now 9:10 pm and I'm sitting down for the first time since I picked Alex up from school, and only for a minute!
This year is going to be a "fun" year! Alex is now in 10th grade and he can expect quite a bit of homework. So far he knows that he has a quiz each week in Language Arts on 90 vocabulary words (SAT Prep), a major term paper due (his first ever!), a book report due in a month (on a book not yet read or chosen), a test on 95 Spanish verbs on Friday (good thing I can help him since his Spanish teacher last year was really a Language Arts teacher!), a quiz on his Chemistry syllabus tomorrow (yes, syllabuses in high school!), a book to finish by Thursday (that should have been read over the summer), and last but not least, Algebra II homework that, thankfully, was done in class! And yes, folks, this is the first week!
Did I mention football practice Mon - Thurs from 3:20 - 7:00 and Friday from 7pm - 9pm? I was really meant to be a teacher because I get such joy from hearing about homework, helping him study for tests and proofreading papers. Someday, when I'm rich, I'll be a teacher so that I can do it for fun!
I dropped Alex off at school this morning and then headed to work. As I was driving, I was thinking about Alex and his first day and I just had this overwhelming sense of pride. I'm so proud of everything he has accomplished the past year - going from having no homework in 8th grade at his old school to being overwhelmed at his new school yet still making President's List! I admire his drive, his dedication and his excitement. God, I love that kid!
Onto another topic - THE GYM! I've been going to the gym lately and today I got on this contraption - an elliptical of sorts. Well, somehow the manufacturer's of this piece of equipment thought it would be a brilliant idea to make you enter your weight, etc... while your MOVING. Ummmm... hello! Meet Miss No Coordination! So, I punch some random numbers in and within 2 minutes I feel like I'm going to die. The girl next to me decides to strike up conversation and I can barely breathe. I finally realize that somewhere along the way I missed entering the level and realized I was on LEVEL 12! I tried to turn the level down, but that whole coordination thing got in the way and too top it off little miss cheery chatterbox was really irritating me so I decided to ungracefully hop off and move to the weights. Never, ever again will I go near that thing.
Nothing going on in the adoption world. I read some interesting things about Kras in the Russian Adoption handbook that I will share with you as soon as I find the time/energy to type it up!
This year is going to be a "fun" year! Alex is now in 10th grade and he can expect quite a bit of homework. So far he knows that he has a quiz each week in Language Arts on 90 vocabulary words (SAT Prep), a major term paper due (his first ever!), a book report due in a month (on a book not yet read or chosen), a test on 95 Spanish verbs on Friday (good thing I can help him since his Spanish teacher last year was really a Language Arts teacher!), a quiz on his Chemistry syllabus tomorrow (yes, syllabuses in high school!), a book to finish by Thursday (that should have been read over the summer), and last but not least, Algebra II homework that, thankfully, was done in class! And yes, folks, this is the first week!
Did I mention football practice Mon - Thurs from 3:20 - 7:00 and Friday from 7pm - 9pm? I was really meant to be a teacher because I get such joy from hearing about homework, helping him study for tests and proofreading papers. Someday, when I'm rich, I'll be a teacher so that I can do it for fun!
I dropped Alex off at school this morning and then headed to work. As I was driving, I was thinking about Alex and his first day and I just had this overwhelming sense of pride. I'm so proud of everything he has accomplished the past year - going from having no homework in 8th grade at his old school to being overwhelmed at his new school yet still making President's List! I admire his drive, his dedication and his excitement. God, I love that kid!
Onto another topic - THE GYM! I've been going to the gym lately and today I got on this contraption - an elliptical of sorts. Well, somehow the manufacturer's of this piece of equipment thought it would be a brilliant idea to make you enter your weight, etc... while your MOVING. Ummmm... hello! Meet Miss No Coordination! So, I punch some random numbers in and within 2 minutes I feel like I'm going to die. The girl next to me decides to strike up conversation and I can barely breathe. I finally realize that somewhere along the way I missed entering the level and realized I was on LEVEL 12! I tried to turn the level down, but that whole coordination thing got in the way and too top it off little miss cheery chatterbox was really irritating me so I decided to ungracefully hop off and move to the weights. Never, ever again will I go near that thing.
Nothing going on in the adoption world. I read some interesting things about Kras in the Russian Adoption handbook that I will share with you as soon as I find the time/energy to type it up!
Sunday, August 12, 2007
How did it get to be August?
Seriously - time is flying. You don't necessarily have to be having fun for it to fly, I've found out. Just plain old doing stuff makes it fly!
Tomorrow is Alex's first day of school. Back to normalcy and organized chaos compared to the insanity and unorganized chaos that ruled the summer. It's going to be a tough year for Alex, but I know he'll do well. My new school year resolution is to nag less. :-) That's going to be quite difficult for me!
On the adoption front, I have nada to report. It's the quiet time, folks. Nothing happens. Still awaiting accreditation, still haven't heard of any movement in Kras and still haven't finished cleaning out the room upstairs. I do have my lists put together, but what good are lists if you don't use them? :-)
So, instead of boring you with my whining about the quietness of this adoption, I'll tell you a few things we've been doing the past few weeks. Last weekend, Keith, Alex, Kaylee and I went to Stone Mountain for a company picnic. Stone Mountain, for those of you that don't know, is a big ol' granite rock. You can hike up it (yeah, right!), take a tram to the top and on the 1 clear day we have in Atlanta per year, you can see the city from the top. Unfortunately, it was so freaking hot out so we couldn't see anything. We stayed for the laser light show - that was a first - and lots of fun!
Tuesday, I spent the day in Pensacola for work and then flew back and went directly to the Justin Timberlake concert with my sister and step-mother. Yes, I went to a JT concert. :-) It was fun - not as good as I thought it would be, but fun all of the same! Thursday we had family night at Alex's football camp, Friday night I spent the night downtown with some friends and we had a blast. I always laugh myself silly with those girls!!! Saturday we went to a women's conference and I wound up leaving early. I had a horrendous headache and had burned the candle at both ends throughout the week. I crashed as soon as I got home and slept for 3 hours! It was much needed. And, today, was cleaning day.
I sometimes find myself thinking - how am I going to be able to keep up with a toddler if I'm as tired as I am right now!
Night night!
Becky
Tomorrow is Alex's first day of school. Back to normalcy and organized chaos compared to the insanity and unorganized chaos that ruled the summer. It's going to be a tough year for Alex, but I know he'll do well. My new school year resolution is to nag less. :-) That's going to be quite difficult for me!
On the adoption front, I have nada to report. It's the quiet time, folks. Nothing happens. Still awaiting accreditation, still haven't heard of any movement in Kras and still haven't finished cleaning out the room upstairs. I do have my lists put together, but what good are lists if you don't use them? :-)
So, instead of boring you with my whining about the quietness of this adoption, I'll tell you a few things we've been doing the past few weeks. Last weekend, Keith, Alex, Kaylee and I went to Stone Mountain for a company picnic. Stone Mountain, for those of you that don't know, is a big ol' granite rock. You can hike up it (yeah, right!), take a tram to the top and on the 1 clear day we have in Atlanta per year, you can see the city from the top. Unfortunately, it was so freaking hot out so we couldn't see anything. We stayed for the laser light show - that was a first - and lots of fun!
Tuesday, I spent the day in Pensacola for work and then flew back and went directly to the Justin Timberlake concert with my sister and step-mother. Yes, I went to a JT concert. :-) It was fun - not as good as I thought it would be, but fun all of the same! Thursday we had family night at Alex's football camp, Friday night I spent the night downtown with some friends and we had a blast. I always laugh myself silly with those girls!!! Saturday we went to a women's conference and I wound up leaving early. I had a horrendous headache and had burned the candle at both ends throughout the week. I crashed as soon as I got home and slept for 3 hours! It was much needed. And, today, was cleaning day.
I sometimes find myself thinking - how am I going to be able to keep up with a toddler if I'm as tired as I am right now!
Night night!
Becky
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