FINALLY - LID!!

Lilah Rose taken in February 2009

We haven't been talking about it on the blog, but we have been sweating it waiting for our Log in Date from China. For those of you who don't know, this is China's acknowledgement that they received all of our documentation to adopt our Lilah Rose. Now the "official" waiting begins (as if the other waiting didn't matter!) for the next big milestone the Letter of Acceptance which is taking 2 to 3 months. To spare you all the bureaucratic crap, we hope hope hope to travel in mid July, but in reality it will probably be in August. I have been hoping to bring her home a tic shy of her 2nd birthday, which is August 2, everybody pray for that!

Oh and by "we plan to travel" we mean Anne. Yes, we decided that Mike needs to stay home and take care of the ranch, and being self employed now, in this economy, means never having a large chunk of time off. Casey is desperate to go again, but alas unless 3000.00 appears magically, she won't be able to. So that leaves me. I love to travel, but the thought of leaving my family for two weeks is enough to make me loose my will to live. Oh well, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, and little Lilah needs me and I need her, so off to Asia I go to fetch my sweet baby. Enter Carol. My friend for 10 years, who's lovely daughter Emily was my Ross's first best friend. We were out for a glass of wine one night, and I was telling her all the above and jokingly said, "Do you want to go?" Her answer without any hesitation was "Oh yes!" I was shocked! No thinking about it or anything! I asked her if she needed to consult with Trey her husband, and she said "Oh yeah, but I'm going for sure!" You gotta love a girl who can make an executive decision! And true to her word, both she and Trey are totally on board, and I've got a travel partner! I am so thankful she is going with me, she is unflappable, low maintenance, like me able to take a nap at any time, and so funny. For example, I sent her a text whining about how I need to work harder on looking younger so that I'm not mistaken for Lilah's grandma in China. Her response was, "Don't worry, we all look the same to them." Lilah will be so lucky to spend her first 2 weeks away from everything she knows with two women, one her loving mama, and the other an experienced mama, she will surely have her every need met during that difficult time.



All my homies! Carol far left, Amy, me, Casey, and Shanin

The picture at the top of the post of Lilah was taken by my sweet blogging friend Heidi, who went to Nanchang SWI, to get her darling son Tai, and was able to meet Lilah! Here is an excerpt of what she told us:

Oh, Anne she is just precious. A tiny, dainty little thing. She has a beautiful smile. I kissed both of her cheeks and told her that she had a mommy and daddy at that they were coming to get her very soon. I told her to hang on, it wouldn't be too long. She has the most beautiful big brown eyes. Her smile is that of a very sweet, shy girl. You are going to love her!



What a gift! We can't thank Heidi enough for making the effort to visit Lilah Rose. It is agony and ecstasy everytime I read that. Such joy to know more about her, such pain not to have her now! We sent a care package and a cake to her so hopefully we will get another picture of her soon....