New start date

So we were thinking about our timeline, and realized there really isn't any reason for us to wait any longer to start the adoption process than our 5th anniversary (May 31). Once we reach that milestone, nothing else is really going to change for awhile. We figure we'll have saved enough money for the initial costs, we're already starting way before we need to, we kinda want to get the initial homestudy out of the way anyways, etc, so why not? So we're going to get things rolling earlier than we had previously anticipated. We will still have to wait until our future bio baby is at least 6 months old before the homestudy can go to Taiwan, so our overall timeline isn't changing any - we just get to start earlier :) I updated our ticker, which was quite satisfying - what with jumping forward in time considerably!

Taiwan presidential election

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/presidential%20election/2008/03/23/148413/Jubilation-over.htm

So it looks like the KMT party won the presidential election....I don't know how this will affect things in Taiwan, but I know that KMT is somewhat more "pro China" than the opposition party--so there probably will not be any huge disputes between the mainland and Taiwan anytime soon, so that is good.

ASIA?

So now we are considering an agency called ASIA (Associated Services for International Adoption). I'll post their website link under the 'agencies we are considering' area. I think they may work out really well...they work with the orphanage Chung Yi, and the process is a little bit different. I'm still learning, but as I find out more I'll post about it! Marci, the woman with ASIA that I've been talking with, is really nice and responds really quickly to my emails - that is always a good sign :)

No more FHSA for us :(

So I got an email from the Florida Home Studies and Adoptions agency (who I have been in contact with several times so far in 2008), telling me that since January of this year they are only working with residents of Florida. WTF? They tell me this in March?? So I'm disappointed, as they were our front runner. Right now we're down to one option now (Commonwealth), and that makes me uncomfortable. I am off to research other agencies so we can hopefully have two options once again..........

Confucius Institute

For anyone local to the Kansas City area, the KU Confucius Institute sounds really awesome! They have Chinese New Year and Dragon Boat celebrations, summer school culture and language classes for kids, language classes for adults, etc. In the month of March they are having a Chinese film festival on Saturday mornings which is just a couple blocks from our house! Check out their website, I'm excited to have found it (I heard about it on NPR):
http://www.confucius.ku.edu/index.shtml

I also found a link about the Chinese garden that is being planned for Kansas City! http://www.chinagardensociety-kc.org/ChineseGarden_KC.htm
I don't know where it will be located exactly, but it definitely sounds like it's going to happen! I'm really excited about that.

And I also found a website for the Kansas City Chinese Association which sounds really neat: they are hosting the film festival http://www.kcca-ks.org/main/home.html
I am very happy to have so many Chinese cultural things here in town that my family can go to and experience :)

Chinese New Year!

Today is the first day of Chinese New Year. The house is decorated, but we won't be doing any serious celebrating today. I'm sure I'll wear red today, but our family party is tomorrow night. My sister Kachina and her two kids plus my dad and step-mom will be coming over for a big dinner. I'm going to make tea eggs (first attempt!), fried rice (new recipe!), egg drop soup (slightly altered!) and blooming tea (first attempt!). Should be fun! I intend on taking a number of photos tomorrow with the intent of eventually using some of them in our adoption photo book. That is exciting for me :)

Waiting, and Passports!

We are now officially less than 6 months away from starting the adoption process! This is very exciting to me. For many years we thought we would be adopting from mainland China, and thought we would have to wait until I was 30 (i.e. 2011?) to even begin. So to now be so "close" to starting.....it makes everything seem so much more real. We are leaning heavily toward the Florida Home Studies and Adoption agency, because a) they don't have any problem with PAP getting pregnant during their wait, and b) their upfront costs are lower - so the fees are more spread out over the almost 3 year period. That is very helpful for us, since we will have to be saving/raising/borrowing the money along the way.
Another piece of cool news - we got our passports yesterday! It took less than 3 weeks to get them, which surprised me. We didn't have them expedited or anything. Passports are one of the few documents/items we can collect ahead of time - unfortunately most docs are time-sensitive and we'll need to wait until the last minute to collect them.
Anyways, that's all for now!