Referral Day!!!

Jan 5th 2006,

Wow, what a crazy ride this has been the last few days!! We were informed on the 29th of Dec that our referral was sent from China and would more than likely be here on Jan 2nd. Our hopes were dashed when we found out that is did not arrive. Kevin and I had made reservations at a motel in Denver as we wanted to be at CCAI personally to get our referral. We had to call and change that reservation. On the next morning we were all sure that the referrals would be in, at around 9 am we were informed that the package with our referrals were stuck in customs in NY and our agency did not expect them in their office for another day or two.

We were crushed!! Our boys reluctantly went to school expecting us to pick them up early to head to Denver on Wed the 3rd, and now we needed to give them the bad news again. We put off the task as long as possible, calling the motel and changing the room date for the second time. The motel staff was wonderful about it and went out of their way to help. (Thank you Lord) I went off to lick my wounds and drive around for a while. As I am an Animal Control officer I was able to use patrolling as an excuse.

At 11:15 Kevin called rather jovial and asked why I was working when we needed to head to Denver. I could not believe my ears. He had just gotten word that the referrals did make it to our agency and we needed to get on the road, "Go pick up the boys, I'll pack the car" In a flash I informed my boss who wished me well and sent me on my way.

We got to Denver and had a nice dinner where we ended up being seated across from a family that had two little girls from China! Torture!!! I could not eat! Nor could we sleep. It was a very long night. We were told to expect a call around 10:30 the next morning, I was awake by 3:00 am. At 9:00 am we went for breakfast and at 9:30 we got a call from Emily at CCAI.

We really did not want any information over the phone. We wanted to be there looking at a picture and getting the info at the same time, but despite our best efforts, Emily could not understand that we had driven to Denver the night before. We did get alot of Laney's information, and when Emily stated that her package would arrive tomorrow, I cut in and again told her to not send it off as we were just down the street!! She was shocked and pleased.

Once at CCAI, Emily opened the file and showed us our daughter. She is sooo beautiful!! and that was all I could say for a while. Later that day I thought back on that moment and knew that my Heavenly Father was having the time of his life!!
"The Lord you God is in the midst of you, a Mighty One, a Savior. He rejoices over you with joy... He will exult over you sith singing" Zephaniah 3:17. Laney was the most beautiful song I could have heard at that moment. I could feel my Lord smiling over our family.















She had three pictures and a good medical report from two months earlier. Another sweet sound was, that we had received her referral on her monthly birthday. She is 11 mo today!




































She is in Guangdong Province and we will get to stay in Guangzhou the entire trip!! That is the exit city, where all the adoptions are finalized, by the US Consulate. No extra travel for us, and great weather to boot!!! It has the same climate as Florida, and has been in the 70's.

Needless to say, we signed the acceptance of Laney without hesitation and now.......

We get to wait again of course!!!!!! But at least we have pictures this time to help us through(I think!). The agency estimated that the earliest we would travel would be February 19,2006 through the first week of March. That would be Great!!

It was great to see the boys reaction today. I think it finally hit them today that it is for real and they were excited for their sister. They will be some really good big brothers. Now they're just as eager to travel as we are.