I'm Finally Writing Again!

I cannot believe how long it's been since I have written. I did feel guilty about not writing but I am always doing so many things at once and I wanted to concentrate when I wrote for this. Anyway, want to hear my travel news? Me too. I don't expect to hear anything about travel until the end of September though. I think my caseworker said something like, "We will start talking about travel in ten weeks," when I was given my referral. I am really bad at suspense. Really, really bad. Like I am one of those people who had to find the Christmas presents as a child because I couldn't handle the wait or suspense. Did it ruin the surprise on Christmas morning? Of course it did. But it was fun and it did make the wait before Christmas a lot easier so it was definitely worth it. I didn't jsut do it once either, I did it several times. Until my family members found out and set me up by wrapping gag gifts for me. You think it would have cured me. I'm sorry to say that it didn't. I think this goes beyond character flaw, it's more deeply embedded than that. It's more like one of the things that was determined when my parents chromosomes matched up to create me. It's not any more in my control than my eye color. So, if I can't handle the wait for Christmas and birthday presents (did I tell you the story about how I found out what I was getting on my birthdays?) you can imagine how hard it is to wait to travel to get my baby.
The only real way for me to handle the wait is to keep busy. So I am coming up with various fundraisers in order to bring clothes, supplies, toys and books to the orphanage when we go get our little girl. I am hoping we can raise enough to make some kind of difference. I have several different fund raising ideas in my head and I am trying to work a few of them out. Ray and I have bought over 60 pairs of pants and about 15 shirts. I hope to bring 60 complete outfits (shirts, pants, socks, and hats). I also want to bring things for the children at the orphanage who are not adoptable for one reason or another. I was told there are about 45 children between the ages of 5-18. I have heard that etch a sketch pads, art supplies, books, Polly Pocket Dolls, and math or word game books are great to bring. Now I need to work on getting a bunch of things like these and getting them there. I am also planning to bring money (here is where the fundraising comes in) and buy things like baby blankets, formula, shampoo, toys, books in Vienamese for the older chidren, balls...when I get there.
We got new pictures of our little girl last week. It was a little sad, because she actually looks younger in these than the last ones they sent us. She looks like the flash from the amera startled her. Poor thing! She had been missing hair on the top of her head and it all grew in. We received eight pictures with her referral and just received four more, which is great. I am hoping we get some more in the next couple of weeks since a family from our adoption agency is waiting to travel.
I will write again in the next couple of days. I want to include pictures of the things we sent in the care pakages as well as the first gift we received from our Cyber Shower.