Hi, Mei Mei!

After our crazy long LOA wait, we've been pulling our hair out of our heads waiting for our I800 approval and NVC pdf.  The anxiety around here is through the roof.  I feel like all I've been doing is hitting "refresh" on my email.  So, what a sight for sore eyes it was when I hit "refresh" for the zillionth time yesterday and saw we had an update on our beautiful sweet Rosie!  She is absolutely precious, and absolutely TINY!  I'll just let the pictures (all taken on March 19th) do the talking...

Tiny!

The cutest moment *ever* was when I told E that we had some new pictures of R, she came running over and hopped up on my lap.  I flipped through the pictures and E said, "She's boooootiful!"  And, then, melted my heart...she waved at the computer screen and said (with NO prompting from me), "Hi, Mei Mei!" 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I have to be honest, these were not words that I uttered prior to marrying P.  But now it's just another of the many different holidays we celebrate in our house.  Of course it's even more fun now that E can decorate the house, and I can decorate her in an adorable St. Patty's Day outfit!

Baba and his Lucky Charm.

"Didn't you make me hold one of these heavy, cold things last year
to take a dumb picture?"

The only Irish thing that Baba wanted for the day.  He requested tomato
bruschetta and Italian sausage and butternut squash risotto for his dinner.
Hey, it's his day!

What family doesn't round out the St. Patty's Day festivities with
a stop in Boston's North End?

E and Mama doing the grumpy face.  Notice rather than green, I'm in
a Carmela Soprano velour sweatsedo.

We did this silly picture ONCE at a cafe, and now we have to do
it **every** time...

Zeppole (for me) and cupcakes (for them) with a pound of green frosting.

After 75 long days...

...we got LOA!

It's taken us a little while to get over the fact that pretty much everyone else got theirs in around 30-something days, but as my dad said, it's not like we can go back in time.  We're a little frustrated to think that little R will probably require 1-2 more transfusions in China (assuming she's getting them) as a result of all of these delays, but as we've come to learn with adoption, it's out of our hands.  We can look for someone or something to blame, but one thing we know is that it's not anything we did or didn't do...we worked as quickly as we could to do our part, and the rest was up to someone else.

So, now it's on to celebrating and being thankful that we are one step closer to our little daughter whom we can't wait to hold and love and bring home.  Last night E said, "I want to marry Ro-rie when she gets here!"  Hopefully it won't be too much longer!

We left the house finally

OK, for the past several weekends around here, it's either been a blizzard or snowstorm or some other form of icy pellets falling out of the sky that's kept us from doing anything too exciting.  As soon as we heard that we were finally going to get a break this weekend (and a break means just not blizzarding...we'll take 40 and gray out), we decided to get outta town.  Not that far outta town, but out of this house nonetheless.

Baba has been dying to take E back to a pool, especially ever since she started "swimming" in the bathtub every night.  I absolutely abhor (yes, the emotion is that strong) indoor pools so I figured I'd just sit in the overly hot and swampy indoor pool-atorium and cheer from the sidelines (assuming I didn't pass out from the chlorinated heat).

We had a nice hotel all picked out, but when I called them to make a reservation, we found out that the indoor pool was closed this weekend.  Since we had already told E that we were taking her to a hotel with a pool and she was jumping up and down saying "pool peeeeeze, pool peeeeeze" fully clothed but wearing her floaties, we figured we better find a substitution quick.  That's how we ended up at a Hampton Inn on 28 in West Yarmouth.  Now, I'll go ahead and say that the hotel was really lovely, but Baba noted that "before E came into our lives, there is no confluence of circumstances that would land us there.  Ever."  Not that we are being snobby, but the indoor pool would have been a non-issue, and we would have been at a B&B or luxury resort with good off-season rates rather than a chain hotel on a highway.

So we packed in the car and headed to the Cape for a weekend of fried seafood, candy, and chlorinated fun.  When we checked in and found out that there was a boys hockey team taking over the hotel for the weekend, we thought we were in the Seventh Ring of Hell, but it turned out that they were off playing hockey most of the time.

The weekend was deemed to be a success because E absolutely LOVES hotels and hotel rooms.  I mean, when she plays with her blocks, she doesn't build the usual towers or houses, she builds "hotel room" and "outside of the hotel."  She loves reading the free tourist guides, drinking complimentary tea in the lobby, playing with the phone and radio, putting things in and out of the mini-fridge (it's right on her level), using the elevator, and getting to sleep with Mama and Baba--we got one king bed because two doubles just turns into the 3 of us crammed in a double bed.  She loves using the card to open the room door.  All of this is so ironic, considering in China she hated every single thing about the hotels, and just the action of P taking the card key out of his pocket to open the door of our room would send her into screaming fits.  We've come a long way.

This cutie loves hotel rooms.

E and Baba had a nice time swimming around, although Baba said E was overly concerned about things getting stuck in the pool filter, to the point that she had to "save" any pool toy or ball that floated in it's direction.  She was like the maintenance crew.  Every time E got a noodle for herself to float around on, she'd pull another aside and say, "This one for Rorie!"

See those noodles in the filter?  As soon as we took the pic, E had to
go and "save" them.

E and Baba having a blast.  I was sitting in the 90 degree swampy pool
area and melting.  I know, I know...what a "stick in the mud."

E and Baba's idea of a post-pool treat.

Mama's idea of a post-pool treat.  (Look at E in the background...I think
she thought I was taking a picture of her.  Oh, no, not this time, sweetie!)

Since it was a balmy 40 degrees out, we were able to walk on a few beaches.  We ate at our favorite fried seafood place, where E did a mean job with some fried clam strips.  Give her fried food, she eats.  We stopped by to visit a statue of a bear outside of the Zooquarium, and all she talked about for the rest of the weekend was the "Angry Teddy Bear" that was following us, chasing us, coming to get us.  We also spent some time visiting Falmouth, a lovely town that we are not very familiar with.  We shopped and ate on it's quaint Main Street and drove around taking in some breathtaking ocean views.

Outside the Zooquarium.  Anyone remember when they used to just have
a friendly dolphin statue out front?  Maybe they should go back to that.
Check out the look of fear on her face.

Even today at the supermarket, E was asking if the "Angry Teddy Bear"
was still following us.

True New Englanders on the beach in March.

It was really a great weekend, but we are all missing R very, very much.  E talks about her constantly.  Last night, she asked where R was, and I told her in China.  Then she asked where she was going to sleep (referring to our hotel room).  I asked E where she thought R would sleep, and she pointed to the couch.  We said, "NO!  R isn't sleeping on the couch, she's sleeping with us!" and E said, "But where will she FIT!?!?!"  We'll make room...

Rorie will fit in just fine.