Timmy T's B-Day

Birthday Dinner


We had a fun night on the town with friends for Timmy T's B-Day.

The Great Lawn Project, Stage 2

step one, rototilling

I do not think this rototiller was made for tall people
trash buried in our yard. No wonder our lawn was full of weeds.
step two, raking
this photo was taken after step three, which was putting top soil down
I was a big help (I believe Tim said he could not have done it without me)
This is the way the yard looks now. The next step is to re-rototill then put seed or sod down.


No, we did not check the forecast before we decided to work on the lawn this weekend. Yes, it rained all day.

We had dirt delivered on Friday. Tim rented the rototiller this morning then we got to work. Tim, of course, did the majority of the work. I helped a little and did the clean up work.

Next step, sod or seed?? Stay tuned...

Fly & Shadow

Fly and Shadow today.
Fly and Shadow last weekend at the beach.

As you can see, the dogs have a rough life.

More Adoption Info

In response to Mendie's comment from my last post.

Unfortunately, we do not know how many people are in front of us, but we do know it is a lot. We are waiting with people from all over the world, not just the US. So, we have a long wait in front of us!

Based on what our agency told us, Oct and Nov 2005 had an unusually large amount of dossiers logged in with the CCAA. Hopefully next month the CCAA will process more than two days of referrals. I will keep you posted.

Adoption Jargon

My cousin, Mendie, has requested some clarification on my last post. I am so used to speaking the adoption lingo with Tim and my friends that I forget that not everyone is hip to the jargon.

The CCAA is the China Center of Adoption Affairs.
Referral means when the CCAA matches your dossier with a child - this is what we are waiting for. Our dossier was logged in with the CCAA on March 7, 2006, so our LID (log in date) is 3/7/06. Right now, the CCAA has matched all dossier with LID of Oct 26, 2005 and before.
So, we have a long time to wait. Referrals usually come the first or second week of each month.
We can only hope that we get our referral this year and travel to China either this year or early in 2008.

On a side note, I am definitely going to keep busy with fun stuff while we wait. I just got done booking a girls trip to Vegas for June and Tim and I are going to LA for Memorial Day weekend to visit Marie. And of course, the second annual Gamboa family reunion at the Oregon Coast in July. Also Hood to Coast in Aug. Yikes! I have a lot going on in the next few months.

Adoption Update

Not much new to report on the adoption front. We had our fingerprints re-done by the county for our home study, which needs to be updated for our I-600A, which expires in July. Once our Social Worker sends our updated home study to the CIS (Citizenship & Immigration Service) the CIS will schedule an appointment for us to get our fingerprints re-done for the U.S. Government. After we get our fingerprints re-done, they will be good for 15 months.

Referrals came out a few days ago from the CCAA, it was not good news. The CCAA only did two days of referrals this month, the norm is about two weeks of referrals per month. We can only hope next month is better.

Weekend at the Oregon Coast

Haystack Rock, Pacific City, OR - Our home away from home (PC, not the rock)
Tim and Fly in front of the Rock
Proposal Rock, Neskowin, OR
Tim

Neskowin
Tim was checking to see if we could walk around the rocks, as you can see, we had to take another route.
Neskowin has hand made signs all over town telling you to slow down, this was our favorite.

Proposal Rock, Neskowin, OR
Never out of touch with his friends.
On top of Cape Kiwanda. We had to have a beer after the long hike up the hill!
View from the top of the Cape
Top of the Cape
Tim and Resa on the Cape
Tim at the Pelican
As you can see from the photos, we had a very nice day in Pacific City, which is rare in April. We explored our neighboring town, Neskowin, which is about a 10 minute drive from PC. Neskowin is a beautiful town. After exploring in Neskowin, we headed back to PC for lunch (yes Dad, we went to the Mexican place) and then up to the top of Cape Kiwanda to take in the the wonderful ocean view. We then headed to the Pelican Pub to relax and watch the surf with a nice cold beer.

Happy Easter

Jim and Judy are hopefully in China spending time with their new granddaughter, Alma. My parents, Grandpa Tony and Grandma Irene are having fun up in New York with my Godson (and their grandson), Liam, and his parents, Tonia (my sister) and Bobby and Gigi (my grandma).

The Lowers (my sister, her husband and my two beautiful nieces) came over for Easter dinner. The Easter Bunny was able to stop by our house because he knew the girls were coming for dinner. As you can see from the photos, the Easter Bunny hid eggs in our back yard and dropped off Easter baskets for the girls.

I hope all my family and friends had a happy Easter with their family and friends. I especially hope that my Aunt Joey and Uncle Greg made it to Montana in time to spend Easter with their second grandson, Harrison.

House Guest

The in-laws are on their way to China to visit their new granddaughter, Alma and Alma's big sister, Talin, and of course they are excited to see Jim and Rose. As you can see, we have Shadow while they are gone. He was not happy to be left behind and he waited by the door for about 20 minutes hoping Judy would come back and rescue him. He is now on the ottoman, which I think will be his favorite spot, as he can look out the window and wait for Judy.

The Great Lawn Project

Our lawn (if you can call it that) has been the disgrace of the neighborhood for some time. We thought we could bring it around with some weed killer (yes, we know that is bad, but we were desperate), but it did not work. We finally decided to put down sod, instead of seed.

Yesterday, Tim rented a sod cutter and today we took two loads of sod to the dump, which was a nice and refreshing experience. I took these photos after the first truck load. We hope to have the new sod down in a couple of weeks, stay tuned...