Happy New Year!

Okay, I know that for most of you this is about 27 days too late, but for the Chinese community January 29th is the beginning of the New Year and this year is the Year of the Dog. The Chinese calendar has been in continuous use for centuries, which predates the International Calendar (based on the Gregorian Calendar) we use at the present day which goes back only some 425 years. The calendar measures time, from short durations of minutes and hours, to intervals of time measured in months, years and centuries, entirely based on the astronomical observations of the movement of the Sun, Moon and stars.

Today we spent the morning at the TACAS (see our links) New Year festival here in Raleigh. We gathered with many of our friends and their children to take in the beautiful sights and sounds, share so great food and to immerse ourselves into the culture that we will soon share when we travel to China to pick up Savannah! We cannot wait!

Mommy in Training!

We have had a whirlwind couple of days since we received our referral packet and are still recovering! Ann Marie and her Mom have decorated the houses with photos of Savannah (I didn't know you could spend that much money in a photo copier!) and the families are preparing for the new addition!

We want to thank everyone who has sent us notes of congratulations and called to let us know how beautiful our daughter is. We feel that we are truly blessed to have been chosen to be Savannah's parents and cannot wait until the day we hold our daughter for the first time.

On a side note, we wanted to document all the coincidences that have come with the referral of our daughter. First, I (Mike) had a dream a week before Mothers Day last year that our daughter was born somewhere in China and noted as much to Ann Marie in her Mothers Day card. Savannah's documented birth date was May 6th, Mothers Day was May 9th, pretty close to the dream! Also, she was born on the LID (log in date) for our dossier in China. Another was after we heard the referral process was slowing down I made a guess in my PC Outlook calendar that we would receive our referral on the 27th of January, it came on the 26th! One of our friends told us that the referrals would mail from China on the 20th of January, they mailed that day! Is all this coincidence? Maybe so, but I still think it was all meant to be!

Well, this is getting long and its almost time for the hockey game so I will log off for now. To end all I will say is the light is still on in the window and our hearts are still longing to bring our daughter home. We love you Savannah! Mom & Dad