Greetings From Hong Kong!

Well this will be a short one since I have only about an hour before dinner, and want to check my email as well, but wanted to load a few of the pictures I took in Hong Kong last night! Most of the adidas people who were here in Hong Kong (Christy, Brenda, Johnney and Myself) went with our Texon Friends to the Sha Tin Race course last night to the horse races! What a fun and exciting night it was! I'd never been to a horse race before, and neither had most of my colleagues! Here are a few of the photos:

I think this was right AFTER I won...I bet on a few races but lost...only one time did I win! Okay so the two times I lost it was only 10 Hong Kong Dollars each, which is about $1.25 US, but all the same, I was ever so excited when I won 53 Hong Kong Dollars! Yes that's right, 53! Yes, I realize that is really only about $7 US, but I'm totally okay with that. I'm what you would call the "low risk" bidder at the race tracks...!!

Here we all are at the race track! We had a box, with a buffet dinner...quite tasty food! From left it's Christy, ME, Brenda from Korea, and Johnney from Taiwan! Was quite a fun night, and however innocent Ms Brenda looks in this photo, don't let her fool you! She was quite the savvy better that night! While I was betting my 10 Hong Kong dollars on the "sure win" for a "place" (which means they'll get 1st, 2nd or 3rd), she's betting multiple horses for a quinella. I could barely pronounce it but this woman knew JUST what to do! And had the winning ticket to boot!

Oh, and lest you think I'm not paying careful attention to the amazing food here in Hong Kong, I photodocumented it...

Yes it was SO tasty....melon wrapped in prosciutto, roasted tomatoes, fresh tuna, salmon wrapped around something that was most likely cream cheese but just totally melted in your mouth...oh yes and then that other stuff we had for dinner, then Chocolate ice cream for dessert. YUM. But the REAL food came today! Christy & I walked back from the show late this afternoon to the hotel and I have to say she is a fantastic person to be in Hong Kong with. She is as adventerous an eater as I am. We went in search of street food and finally settled on Fish Balls (okay, spicy tasty, but they're not my favorite), but then we went in a bread shop and had all of the wonderful things I love about China. Egg custard tart...WARM- yum! bean paste cake, super sticky rice pounded to a paste wrapped around sweet red bean paste (yum again!), a coconut tart, and something they told us was "super special today only" I think called a wedding cake but looked more like a taiwan style moon cake with winter melon paste inside. That was not so good, the other 3 were awesome though! Dinner tonight will be at a Nepalese restaurant named (what else?) Nepal- my favorite restaurant in Hong Kong, up in the Mid Levels. Cannot WAIT to eat there again!

Baby Room progress

Okay, with a little help I have figured out how to get my photo under my name on the right side. or I guess, next to my name anyway, so now I can upload some interesting photos!

I'm not sure how small these will end up being, so this is a bit of tial and error! The first one is the space before walls. I had this fantastically huge dormer on my second floor that I had envisioned as a room long before I envisioned the baby in it! The smiling guy in the photo is my friend Scott- Honestly without his help I would likely have hired a contractor to do this! He helped with the planning, the building, and all of the electricity! I know a bit about all of these things, but he definitely was the one that knew a lot more about them all! The deal is: he helps build, I provide dinner. He's been a great sport lately since work has been so crazy my dinner offerings have mostly been lame offerings of kielbasa at Home Depot, ravioli from the freezer, and take out pizza!!!

The first studs in place! This was so exciting....! the cat didn't think so and hid downstairs (possibly as far downstairs as the basement?) whenever we were hammering or drilling or generally making noise that "bothered him." Something he made a point to tell us all about afterwards. For those of you who don't know my cat, he has a very loud "meow." and he's not afraid to use it.

Finally the studs are done! We had some tricky angles that we figured out. I think my favorite moment was reaching my hand blindly into a small hole in the ceiling waiting for the electrical wire that Scott was feeding from that little square hole you see in the center of the photo. I'm not generally big on putting my whole arm into dark holes but this was an exceptional case...

Somehow in the last two weeks the big dormer in my second floor went from something I described as "this is GOING TO BE the baby room" to "the baby room." I think it coincided with the last of the drywall getting up. Don't let this picture fool you though, I was only cutting a piece off...Scott actually screwed most of the drywall on. My job was measuring and cutting...From all of his work I've promised him he's earned primary position as "Di Yi Shu Shu" or "first uncle". Maybe we'll have to upgrade that to "Zui Hao Shu Shu" or "Best Uncle"

There are some update photos on the room, we've done several coats of drywall mud, but still need to do some more. Guess that will have to wait until I'm back from Asia in 3 weeks. Can't wait to see all of the sweet little babies in Guangzhou...I'm certain it will make me want to run right home and finish the baby room!!!

This is me...until I figure out how to get the image at the top right corner like everyone else, this is where it will have to live. "learning to upload photos" is listed as the "March/April" activity on the "Master Plan" list that Sharon & I made, so I better figure it out soon! I also have lots of house photos to add as there has been quite a bit of construction dust at my house these days! Today was "electricty day" in North Portland. Okay, more specifically it was "electricity day" at my house in North Portland, I'm not sure it's a well known holiday and I don't expect everyone to observe it, but if you need to fix some ugly old electrical wiring and need to put in a new Living room light, I'd suggest doing so on March 25. Maybe I'll work on that as an international holiday as well? I've decided this year to declare February 10 at International cake day. My new goal is to have it observed as a "hallmark holiday" by my 40th birthday. I've got 7 years, I think I can make it happen. I'm not sure Hallmark would pick up on "International electricity day" with quite the same enthusiasm as they have with the red hat ladies or Easter or St Patricks Day...

I've begun blogging!

So I'm officially joining the blogging world. I thought this might be a good way to keep everyone up to date on the adoption progress. I started this process back in August of 2005. Really if you count my decision process I suppose you can say I started when I was about 10, then thought about it again when I was about 28, and last March/April I started thinking about it again. Only this time it wasn't a fleeting thought anymore, but a decision! So by August I had put enough thought into it to realize I couldn't NOT move forward with the process. My daughter was waiting for me, and it was my responsiblity to go bring her home! So I started the process of looking for an agency which had a singles slot for their China program in 2006. China has an 8% quota for single parents- only 8% of all adoptions can be to single parents. I had thought from my research that it could be 6-8 months before I could even secure a spot with an agency, and only then would I start the step called "paperchasing." It turned out that my persistent personality paid off, and in just two and a half weeks (and calls/emails to 36 agencies!) I found a slot for 2006! So, in September 2005, I started the Paperchase! They call it the paperchase because it's really all you are doing, you are requesting a variety of papers set to show that YOU will be the ideal parent...employment verifications, financial statements, guardianship statements, physicians reports, criminal history checks, homestudy reports, and finally, a personal letter from ME to the China Center for Adoption Affairs explaining why they should trust one of their most precious children with ME. After you obtain/complete all of these papers, and you have had them all notarized, you then have to take them to the Secretary of State and have them authenticated. This is just a letter they staple on top of your original notarized document stating that the notary who notarized your document is indeed a notary in your state, and their signature on the document matches the one in their records. After receiving all of the authenticated documents, you then need to send them to the Chinese Consulate with authority over your state. In my case it was San Francisco. They look at each document again and they provide another authentication letter which is stapled over the state's letter, this time authenticating that the secretary of state's seal & signature are matching what they have on record.
Once you have signed over a few months salary to FedEx in shipping fees, your papers all together are called your dossier. Once your dossier is finally complete, and it is sent to your agency. I was trying like anything to get my dossier to my agency for the Jan 15 cutoff date so it could be sent to China by Feb. 1. Somehow I missed the Jan 15 date, but my dossier still went with the Feb 1 group!! So the most exciting news came in mid February! My dossier arrived in China on February 6 at 10:03 in the morning! 4 days to the MINUTE before I was born! The dossier arrival in China is called your DTC Date. (Dossier To China) I will know my Log In Date probably in a few weeks. The Log In Date (LID) is when the real countdown begins. I'm hopeful my daughter will be home by the end of this year, but wait times could be increasing, so I'll just remain hopeful and work like crazy to make sure I am ready for her when she comes!