DEREK'S NEW WHEELS

Sunday was a fun day for Norm & I as we set out on a shopping trip. We decided it was time to buy Derek his first set of wheels. We ended up coming home with 12 wheels. Check out the pictures below...


Being that Norm is a huge Mustang lover we found it quite appropriate to get Derek a Mustang as his first "ride". Great little car and boy will he be a cutie in it. Truth is...Norm has one too and I loved when he used to come pick me up for a date or just a ride around town in it. We are hoping that Derek will be home for the local parade in September so he can ride in the parade with us in Norm's convertible. Gotta get him started early!!!!


So while we were at Toys R Us we found the little 4 wheeler on sale too. This is adorable. The girls can ride Norm's while Derek rides his. They'll have a ball with that.


And...of course he needed the lawnmower too. Hey it was on sale!!!!

I love a great sale and I love shopping for Derek!!! Alyssa & Jessica are getting to fussy for me to buy things for that suit them so it is nice to have a little one to buy for that won't curl his nose up about it. Don't get me wrong...I still try to buy for the girls but I usually strike out and everything gets returned. I have learned to drag them along with me.

Still no news on the progress of the adoption but as you can see we are getting ready to bring him home!!!!

Travel Talk Post

Yesterday we had our "Travel Talk", which basically consisted of going over our travel guide and having Ray answer our questions and to just thoroughly explain all topics of concern. Part way through Ray decided I guess that it got the best of him that we were being so good about not pressuring him for a travel date that he asked the question..."Doesn't anyone want to know when is travel?" Of course before we were to hang up that was the ONE question Norm was going to ask. Ray told us that it is just an estimate but he believes we should travel the end of June. We are so ready to go. That's only 4 weeks!!!! This is getting good. We still are waiting for the commitment form as this is the last step of the approval before getting our G&R date. Ray said some of the hold up may be because VN just had election...like us...on May 20th and sometimes they celebrate things longer than we do so hopefully now that the election is over we will get that form.
It was interesting to hear about the orphanage and we are going to be able to go there on the 2nd day to meet Derek. We will actually have to leave him there though that night and then the next day we will have our G&R and he is OURS from there on out. So we can't wait to get there and at least cuddle him for a little while.
So the news seemed good and hopefully we will continue to get progress and our date will be here shortly!!!!

Yesterday we received a phone call from our CM stating that it is official that we will have 1 more form to complete before receiving our G&R date. There is no word yet when we will get the form, how much legalization must be done with the form before submitting, nor how long it will take after returning the form to get our "date". So we are sitting ducks at this point yet.
We are still scheduled to have our travel talk on Thursday so we have a few questions to clarify but other than that I am curious what all we are going to get to talk about.
We'll let you know as we get moe info. Pray for good to come this week!!!!

GREAT NEWS!!!!...
No...no new adoption news.

Today my SIL stopped in and pulled a piece of paper from her hand and oh what excitement. She had her ultrasound pictures. She is 8 weeks pregnant and is due December 22nd. What a Christmas present that will be. We are hoping for a boy for a playmate for Derek and since she has 2 girls a boy in the mix would be nice. As my MIL said...we need to even out the bunch. Right now it is 6 girls and 2 boys, includes Derek. So boys would be good.
Our CM returns to the office tomorrow so hopefully she will have some sort of news for us about the new form that we need to complete. We want to get it rolling so we can just bring Derek home and settle in. It is still looking like a late June to late July travel though.
I am preparing for my yard sale next weekend so I have been cleaning out closets and drawers. It's amazing the things that the girls have accumulated. The money I make will go toward our trip to VN. So I hope to do good!!!!
Keep praying and hopefully soon we will get word about travel. Remember next Thursday is our Travel Talk so I will be curious to see what we get from that.

NOT SO GREAT DAYS

We found out yesterday that our anticipated date to go bring Derek home has been extended significantly. Now it is being said as late June to late July. I am devastated. Of all day to find out too it was on Mother's Day. We initially upon referral were told to expect to travel late May to mid June at the latest aned this has been reiterated over and over since then until yesterday...BAM!!! Big explosion!!!!
We found out that Ray has received new information and a change of procedure has taken place. Surprise..surprise!!! I am about at the end of my wit's with all of this. We now have yet another form to complete before we can be given a G&R date for Derek's adoption. At this point we have no idea how close we are to getting that form nor how long after filling out the form it will take until they issue a date. Therefore I am not really sure why we have to be in a hurry to have this Travel Talk since we may not go until July. I'll forget what we discussed until then. I guess I should record it for safety sake.
In case you cannot detect it...I am a little bitter about all of this. I just have had enough of this roller coaster and I can't figure out how to stop the ride so I can get off.
I continue to pray but I must be doing that wrong too because it sure isn't being answered.

Here we are at the end of yet another quiet week. Fortunately we got our travel talk date now all we need to know is when we are going to travel.
I haven't been handling this very well over the past 2 weeks especially. I have been having one continuous stress headache that doesn't seem to want to leave my body. I can't understand what it thinks is so great about staying here with me. I am hoping once we get our G&R date that this will go away.
Mother's Day is approaching quickly and I was hoping to have the G&R date as a M.D. gift but by the looks of things it isn't happening. I feel a quiet day coming on today too. Let's continue to pray for some news next week.

We received an email late this afternoon asking for Norm & I to be available on May 24th at 11:00 to do a conference call about our Travel Talk!!! Woohoo!!! This is a step in a GREAT direction! We are now hoping that we will get our G&R date prior to that conference call. We know it is getting so close. If only we could make the phone ring!!! Good news seems to be jumping in our laps the past few days so keep praying...it is working!!!!!
Thanks,
Teresa

Yesterday morning was a wonderful one!!! I got out of bed shortly after Norm left for work and decided that maybe I should check my email even though I was sure there would bnot be any update yet. Well much to my surprise I had an email from our CM titled: "Updated picture for Lahr". Well you can only imagine how excited I was, but I knew not to open it until I called Norm. I fumbled with the keys on my phone, as I was very excited at the moment, and called him to come over to the house to see what was inside the email with me. He came over quite quickly I must add. We opened the email and attached was an absolutely beautiful picture of Derek. We couln't stop looking at it. Norm's first reaction was a tearful..."that's our boy!" It is so wonderful to be experiencing this with him. He is so compassioante about the process and so anxious to bring him home. We just can't wait to hold him in our arms for the first time and forever. I quickly printed off numerous copies of the picture and began distributing them to family. I emailed it off to everyone right away. We quickly began getting email and telephone responses. We were very pleased to see that he isholding his head up while propped on his arms lying on his belly very well. This is a great developmental sign for us and puts ease into our minds and hearts that he is doing well. He had no hat on so we got to see that he has pretty much hair!! WOOHOO!!!!
Yesterday one of my clients who has a daughter and a son brought me 3 large garbage bags FULL of clothes for Derek. I had a ball going through them and they are going to be so cute on him. She has supplied me with many things we needed. Thanks Denise!!!!
Today I have a million things I'd like to accomplish. We are moving our computer as it was in Derek's room and we needed that corner for a rocking chair so we moved it downstairs and I am not happy with that so we bought a desk on Sunday and we are going to put it inside our hall closet which is very large and then it is out of sight but easily accesible. Just a few wiring fixes and we'll be in business again. I need to put all of these clothes for Derek away and I would like to clean the downstairs today. Quiet in the salon til tonight so I need to take advantage of the time while I can.
Well we are still hoping to get our G&R date this week or next. We are supposed to have our Travel Talk the middle of the month so I hope we know by then.

First of all I better begin this entry with our newest news:
Derek's new stats have come through, still no picture but the update on measurements is great to have. We can now plan our packing a little better according to his size.
Here they are:
Weight: 18 pounds
Height: 27.5"
Head Circum: 18"
Foot Length: 3.9"

I really don't know how these stats stack up according to the average size of a 5 month old. If anyone has an idea can you let me know...please!!!

Next...I looked at how many times this blog has been visited aqnd when I began this I never imagined that it would be looked at 1500 times. WOW!!! Thanks everyone who is foloowing along on our journey and those who are praying for us. We truly appreciate every one of you!!!

Next...This weekend our community had our Relay For Life activities. I am so PROUD and happy to announce to you that we surpassed our goal by mucho money!!!!! For those of you who are unfamiliqar with the area we come from here is a little briefing. This is a small rural community that is mostly farming and there are very few large corporations. Therefore the financial support through businesses isn't the strongest. We all dug in our heels and set out to top our goal of $83,000.00 for this years event. After alot of walking and great amount of socializing, and a ton of fundraising we got to the closing ceremonies today and found out that we not only made our goal but we went above aqnd beyond to the amount of $97,858.42. Not bad for a small community...right?!?!?!?! We are so PROUD!!!! My daughter Jessica collected money for the Penny Walk, which she took first place in last year, and beat her goal. Last year she raised $91.00, this year her goal was to raise ten more dollars and she was blessed with $102.00. She took 2nd place this year. We will beging raising money already for next year now. This is a special event to us as Norm has a sister who is a 12 year cancer survivor, my father, who went to be with the Lord 1 1/2 yrs. ago, was an 8 year survivor, and I myself am a 4 year survivor. So we have been blessed and thankful to all who have supported the American Cancer Society!!!!! Next year Derek will be able to participate as well!!!

So we are anticipating pictures the beginning of the week so stay tuned!!!!

I just wanted to let everyone know that we received an email yesterday from DeNese, new CM, and she told us that Ray is expecting Duc to send him new photos of Derek this week. Today was their Independence Day and that has held things up briefly. We are praying that along with the photos will come info for us about our G&R date. We anticipate to be hearing this date sometime within the next week. As of Saturday Derek will be 5 months old and we will have had his referral for 2 months now. It seems like that 2 months went fairly quickly.
Yesterday I spent a few hours working in Derek's room and it is almost finished. I also did a ton of packing. The suitcases are getting heavy. I have one completed at least until we have our Travel Talk and then I will probably have to rearrange it. We are really getting VERY anxious to travel.
I'll let you know if we get those pictures and you'll have to stop in the salon to check them out if you get time. I can't legally post them until the adoption is final but I can maybe post a good description.
Keep watching!!!!!