Daruma???

Meet our Daruma Doll. My sister who lived in Japan for the past 2 years gave us this little guy last year when she was visiting us for Christmas. What I heard her say was, " Color in one eye and when your wish comes true, color in the other eye." So, I made a wish, I colored in one eye, and when a year had passed and my wish hadn't come true I thought my little guy must be broken or cracked, Lol!

The next thought that came into my head was that there must have been something more that I should have done to make my wish come true...so I googled daruma doll...and found that you are actually "setting a goal" and when you look at the doll with only one eye filled in, it's supposed to remind you what your goal is...also...one explanation how this custom started says that in order to motivate Daruma-san to grant your wish, you promise to give him full sight once the goal is accomplished. So, yes I was trying to take the easy way out and put all of my hopes and wishes on this little guy...hoping that he would grant them without having to do any work myself. Now that we know how our little doll is supposed to work, we have set our goals...and since we only have one Daruma Doll, instead of making the poor little guy have 10 random eyes colored in all over his body, he will get his full sight once our main goal has been accomplished...and I'm sure you know what that goal is. :0)

Thought of the day...one of the best things about the adoption process is meeting some fellow adoptees who are also adopting or are in the adoption process. It is something that I really treasure!

Wonderful Weekend

Weekends are typically wonderful...that's what makes them the weekend, right? Here are a couple of things that made this weekend wunderbar!



1. We saw Wicked last night! (Thanks Beth and Joe!) I love musicals, and we hadn't gone for quite a while so it was a real treat! As always, I got goosebumps during the opening and closing acts. I've been listening to the soundtrack for the past couple of years, so I felt like I knew the story fairly well. I was pleasantly surprised by a few twists and turns.



2. We finished our homestudy paperwork. That's right, it's at the post office waiting for pickup tomorrow! Even though it took awhile to put together, I appreciate how it makes you reflect on your relationship, your childhood, and your future parenting skills. Even if you aren't adopting, I think the questions and reflections are great for any relationship. By the way, when I went by the post office there were people working, which suprised me since I thought all government offices were closed today.

Matt and I have pretty much done all that we can do on our part. The rest is in the hands of the social worker, agencies, government(s), etc... Let the real waiting commence!

I LOVE Animoto

One of my favorite Web 2.0 tools is Animoto. It's such an easy site to use. Pretty much you upload pictures and or video, select music, select the timing of the pictures and wallah! The company puts the video together for you.

I was trying to think of a Valentine themed Animoto, but decided to make the video on Hawaii. I LOVED visiting Hawaii. I felt like I was at home. If I could, I would live there. However, I would need to have enough money to be able to travel back to the mainland whenever I wanted.

Here are some of our favorite photos from Hawaii!

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Are We Done Yet?

Lol! I saw that I had put in the first post, we needed to work on paperwork to complete the home study, where in fact it's actually we need to finish the paperwork that needs to be completed to actually begin our home study. I talked to the representative at the social services agency that we are using and she said that typically it takes about 6-12 weeks to complete all of the home study. During this time we are also dependent on other people sending in paperwork, and she said that is typically what takes the longest. There are some other families in Texas that are just a little bit ahead of us in the process, so I am excited to see what their timeline is like in the process.

For the majority of this week, I was up in Austin for a Technology Conference. It's really amazing the tools and applications that are available for students to utilize on the Internet, as well as what is available for learning on smart phones. One tasty tidbit that I had no clue about was you can use your iPhone as a remote control for iTunes. If you go to the App store, search for remote. You will find the remote and it's FREE! If you happen to be using your MAC as a TV you can also use your phone as a remote for that, granted you probably already know that. :)

Here's a cool site that I didn't know about. If you love Wordle, then you're really going to love Tagxedo. One of my fellow colleagues said they tried it at school and couldn't get it to work, but I'm hopeful maybe we can get the district to help us out?!?!? http://www.tagxedo.com/ and...later today or tomorrow I plan on posting something using one of my alltime favorite sites Animoto!!!

Web 2.0 it's the way to go!!!

Snow, not Sand!

Surprise, surprise, I had to document this. We actually have a Snow Day! Although, it's somewhat bittersweet that we will have to make it up, for having less than an inch of snow on the ground. (I think there may be more in some areas.) There is a huge layer of ice covering the roads and sidewalks. Since the majority of the students have to ride a bus to school, and I'm sure the drivers do not have a lot of experience driving in icy conditions, it makes sense. I am happy for everyone who grew up in South Texas and hopes and dreams of a snow day every year. However, I hope this doesn't become a yearly event.

Growing up I remember hearing the plows at midnight so that all of us could go to school, work, etc... the next day. Also, they say that for school to be canceled our superintendant would want to see over 3 feet of snow out his front window before he'd close the district down. That's probably an exaggeration, but I know we didn't have that many snow days. Matt probably had more, due to the windchill in Nebraska.

Names

My brother in law texted me today. He said here are predictions of names from my niece and nephew.

My niece Amalia (6 yrs old) predicts we will get a baby girl and her name will be Diamond.

My newphew Robbie (2yrs almost 3) predicts we will get a baby boy and his name will be Sebastian.

Pretty cute, if I say so myself! Have we considered names? Not too seriously. We do have a book, and it has different lists, like presidential names, scary names, artsy names, etc... It makes me laugh reading some of them. However, in reality, it's just too early. :)

I'm not sure how often I'll post, but I'll try to do it once a week. It may or may not be about adoption stuff.

For example, today was very cold in San Antonio. It's 26 degrees Fahrenheit right now...and now that everyone up north has stopped laughing... we went without power twice (1st time was about an hour, 2nd time was fairly short) at my campus. Some campuses only had power for 2 hours for the whole day! Now you would have to agree, that it would be pretty cold in the building without the heaters on. My room felt like a freezer! It was also the 100th day of school in NISD, so it made it fairly memorable I must say! Stay warm everybody wherever you are!

Our Adoption Journey

Hello! So glad that you have dropped by our blog! We are excited that you stopped by! This will probably be the eaisest way to find out our adoption updates over the next 24 months. Right now we seem to have hit the ground running. However, I believe at a certain point, it will seem like everything has come to a stand still and the waiting will begin.

• Finish our paperwork to complete our home study
• Home study needs to get approved
• Wait for our referral- can take 5+ months from approval of the home study
• Travel to Korea to pick up Baby Parker-approval to travel can take a few months to a year

You're probably wondering if we requested a boy or girl. At this point, we said we would love to have a baby boy or girl. In general, more girls are adopted than boys domestically, (total opposite of China) so there a lot of baby boys that are interternationally adopted. Just like our nephew! So, I would guess that we will more than likely be matched with a baby boy. Also, since I was adopted way back in the 70s :) , babies are placed on a domestic adoption list for 5 months before they are placed on an international list. So, I came to America when I was only 6 months old. Our baby/toddler will more than likely be at the youngest 9 to 10 months at the oldest hopefully under 2 years.

Something exciting that I discovered proabably about a month or so ago is a Korean Adoptee group in the Austin/San Antonio Area. There are a few adult adoptees as well as many families who have adopted. We are excited that our little one will have the opportunity to grow up within this group. Of course, we have our cutie pie newphew who is also an adoptee, and our good friend David who will be an honorary "Korean Uncle" :) .

While we wait, my goal is to learn more about the Korean culture, I admit I don't know as much as I should, learn how to cook some traditional dishes, and read, read, read! Oh, and maybe I'll finally be able to convince Matt to eat a whole bowl of Kimchee. Lol!

Although there are a lot uncertainties, especially when we look at time frames, we are excited to know that we will be parents with an adorable baby fairly soon. :)

• We want to say thanks to all of our family and friends! We know how early we are in the process, but we know that we will have your love and support throughout our journey. We also know how much love is going out from you to our baby, their birth mother, and foster mother as some incredible decisions are being made over the next months/years. (think about it, if our child is older he/she could already be born!)
• I want to say thanks to Amanda, one of my besties @ school, who I consider a blogging queen! She helped me get my blog a rolling!
• I want to say thanks to one of my newbie adult korean adoptee friends, Kim, who inspired me through her own video to make our announcement on the right. Actually I should just say that I blatantly copied her idea, but don't worry, being the gracious lady that she is, she is not going to send the copyright police after me!

Thanks for reading!

Love,

Jen & Matt