Un-be-lievable

We had a baby shower last night! Yeah, a baby shower for our baby. I was floored by all of the wonderful gifts and all of my friends and family that came for the party. We had great food and fellowship and tons of damn good gifts. I was feeling really silly about the shower but soon lost my embarrassment as I was simply overwhelmed by everyone's generosity and thoughtfulness. There were paper lantern, fans, bead bracelets with Chinese characters and red eggs. Everyone signed a great big flag of china for our girly. It was really spectacular.

I need to say a big thank you to everyone that came and gave our girly such great gifts. And a gigantic thank you to everyone who planned and organized such a fabulous party! We love you all.

Festival of the Mid-Autumn Moon

Tonight in China we are hoping that our baby girl is looking at the same big ol' moon as we are gazing at. I know that she would have been looking at the moon about 12 hours ago but it still makes my heart smile to think that we may still be seeing the same big and bright moon. We love this girl of ours and can't wait to hold her in our arms and look at big bright moons together.

Back in the Camera Business

We finally decided on a new digital camera and actually bought it. This picture in real life is incredible. Our new Panasonic FZ7 came highly recommended and so far, has proven to be a suburb camera. We discussed getting a digital SLR but damn, those are giant cameras. The FZ7 does have some SLR functions and for the price and size, it's perfect for us. It's relatively small and super light. I know a little about aperture control and shutter speed and such but not a lot. So, to dump a ton of dough on a SLR at this point in my photography career (yeah, right...career...LOL) would be foolish. Maybe once I master the FZ7 we'll consider the SLR. But for now this camera rocks. Don't worry, I won't let it out of my sight.
 

September Referrals

September referrals are out. They include LIDs July 23-August 9, 2005. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that's August! Referrals have finally gone into August. First, let me send a congratulations to all of those who have been waiting forever to see their children's faces and now have. That includes 38 families using CCAI as their agency. How exciting!!!
Second, let me just say that with a LID of September 12, we are a mere 34 days away from the cut off date for this month! Now that seems like progress to me. If the CCAA continues to refer 18 days, that would give us our referral in November. That said, I'm not holding my breath. August 24 is a really big LID. Meaning that there are a lot of people logged in on that day. We all know that there has been as little as 5 days referred recently. It really is anybody's guess. But I'm very happy to know that we're finally into August. Congrats again you lucky families.!!
 

Thank You Secret Pal!!!

As this great secret pal exchange comes to an end, our secret pal pulls out all the stops and sends this mother load of gifts.

We love everything. The books are really cool with little stiff spongy critters and things that pop out to reveal some other critter and things underneath...kinda like a puzzle. Tons of scrapbook stickers that I'll be using to create wonderful pages about our girly. That awesome "color wonder" messless finger paint and paper will be a hit around here. And some fall cookie cutters and Wilton sprinkles to decorate the cookies with. Also, the really, really cute good luck ladybug.

We just love all of your thoughtfulness throughout this long, long wait. We have looked forward to your gifts every month. And without fail you have come through with flying colors. We feel so fortunate to have you as our secret pals. We understand that some in our group have not been so fortunate with their secret pal and we are so glad to have you. We can't wait to find out who has been so kind to us next month.
Thank you again!
It was nearly impossible to get these pictures of our great gifts. We still haven't replaced our camera and the old one is crap. Here is an example of what the pics usually look like with the old cyber-shot.

I took 26 pictures to get the two decent ones above. I say decent because If you could see them closely they're pretty much crap too.

Happy Birthday Danielle!!

Another beauty steps into The world of adulthood. Happy birthday to you Daniell! We love you and hope you have a great day today!
 

Back to the OBX

We went back to the OBX last week to celebrate our 9 year wedding anniversary and to take the sting out of our 1 year LID anniversary the day before our wedding anniversary. We traveled all day on the LID anniversary so we really didn't think about it too much. We went to Judy's and spent the night then got up early and were looking at the coast by 8 am. It was sunny and warm and that was the end of the good weather. This picture of the sun is the most sun we saw the rest of the week until, of course, on Sunday when we got up to leave. Most evenings we did catch a sunset right in our back yard. Lack of sun aside, we had a great time. We ferried over to Ocracoke for the first time and went to Manteo. And we enjoyed the heck out of the hot tub and some great food. The mosquitoes were vicious. Mike looks like he has chicken pox. This was our last scheduled vacation for the summer. Now I guess we'll be looking forward to a trip to Clemson for a football game and a couple of camping trips in October. I'd like to say we're looking forward to a referral but who knows when that will happen. We are looking forward to the baby girl's shower also in October, but I feel kind of silly about it since we don't know a thing about miss girl.