Jumpy

It's the last day of April, and still no referral! I can't believe it's going to be MAY when this finally happens. I was telling my friend Mary today that I am just ready to be done with this phase of waiting and move on to the next. Of course, the next phase will have its own challenges, but it will be shorter and just DIFFERENT.

Aaron and I contacted our social worker this week and we have a plan for how she is going to contact us with a referral. The plan is she is going to call Aaron first, and then he is going to call me and we're going to meet up to get all the details together. I was hoping she'd slip some kind of time frame in there, but, no such luck of course! Needless to say I jump each time the phone rings.

I also stopped by the library this week and picked up a few baby name books since we aren't set on any names yet. We are planning on keeping part of our baby's Ethiopian name, so it's hard to pick an American name to go with another unknown name. We can keep the library books for a month AND renew them, so we'd better have a referral by then! We're taking any suggestions you'd like to give, especially for girl names. :)

In other news...Macdaddy Music had a record number of sales for the month of April! So that's exciting.

Last weekend Aaron's mom, sister, and our niece Peyton came up to do some bridesmaid dress shopping for Jesse and Jodi's wedding. It was fun to have some time with the girls; if you want to see any pictures of the dresses we picked (I know, you are all DYING to) you can check it out here on Aimee's blog. Jodi's having all the bridesmaids wear different dresses in the same color (a navy blue - it's really pretty) and we had a fun time trying on different styles.

We went to a murder mystery dinner theater thing last Saturday with Aaron's brothers, my sister, and, of course Jodi. We had a great time, here are a couple pictures.
Hopefully the next time I post it'll be referral news, but, as I've been saying, I won't hold my breath.

Another concert plug

Posted by Aaron:

Just a quick note to let those of you in the area who are interested know...

My band (amp 11) has a show at Beaners here in Duluth Friday, May 9th @ 8:00pm. There's a $5 cover charge and there will be a couple of other bands playing as well. We're opening the night and will play about a half hour or so. The last show we had there was packed and went well - thanks to those of you who came out!

For details on Beaners - check out www.beanerscentral.com

If haven't already checked out some of our music and you care to you can hear some at www.myspace.com/amp11music

It'd be great to have as many of you who are able to be there!

We're getting close!

I'm convinced that it can't be too much longer before we get our referral! As you can see, we're #10 on the unofficial list. However, 6 of the waiting families before us are waiting for siblings, which puts us as the #4 family waiting for a single infant! FOUR! Crazy. It's been a couple weeks since the last batch of referrals were handed out, so I'm hoping we'll hear something in the next 2 weeks. I guess one can never know for sure, but, here's hoping!
As a side note, about a month or so ago I asked Aaron when he thought we'd get a referral and he said "April 29" without looking at a calendar or anything. So, we'll see.....!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AARON!

it is April 13

April blizzard

Weather forecasters up here annoy me. It seems like whenever they predict it to be warm and sunny they are ALWAYS wrong - it ends up being cool and rainy or something along those lines. BUT, when they predict a blizzard in April and I want them to be wrong they are right. Drives me nuts. Anyway, here are some pictures from before, during, and after the storm.I might try to get some pictures with us outside so you have more of a reference to how much snow is out there. On the last picture, the snow piled up on the right side of the driveway goes up to Aaron's shoulders.

It was SO windy during the blizzard - snow was plastered to most of our windows so it was hard to see out of them for most of the day. The wind also packed down the snow so much that we could walk on top of the freshly fallen snow - which, as you know, is usually impossible. We are very thankful that we had power during the storm and that no trees fell in our yard, although we did have a piece of siding blow of the very top part of our garage which we found in our yard. The good thing about the storm was that I got a day off of work due to the city basically being shut down for most of the day on Friday!

I'm hoping the snow melts this week - we're supposed to be around 50 degrees all week, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. It is supposed to be SPRING for crying out loud!

Adoption update - we moved up a couple spots this week! I think an April referral is VERY unlikely, but it is nice to see some movement. Somebody below us on the list got a referral this week, so, I guess you never know when it is going to happen!

Is the end in sight?

On Thursday I emailed our contact person at CHSFS and asked her if it was a possibility that we would get a referral in April. To my surprise, she said that an April referral IS possible, although, it would be the end of April at the earliest. Her answer surprised me because I fully expected her to say "I just don't know!" Right now the people at the top of 'the list' submitted a dossier in mid July (reminder, we are August 8).

So far nobody to my knowledge has had to wait a full 9 months for a referral...but...who knows, maybe we'll be the first! And just to warn anyone out there, please don't say "Oh! It's just like a pregnancy! 9 months!" because it isn't AT ALL like a pregnancy. We started this process over a year ago, and when we get our referral we still have a few more months of waiting.

In summary, I think we can realistically say we can count down in weeks rather than months! Stay tuned!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

Today marks the 3 year anniversary of Aaron being the CEO of Macdaddy Music FULL TIME!! WAY TO GO, AARON! I am very proud of you. God has blessed us with Aaron's business, and we are very, very thankful. (Gary - nice job on the logo and web design! www.macdaddymusic.com and www.macdaddymusicstore.com)