Starting early

Today I started my Christmas decorating. I wanted to get things done early as I am having my running friends over to the house next week for wreath making and a cookie exchange. We go up in the woods behind my house and cut boughs and bring them back down to the house to make wreaths. When we get back from the woods, I put on the Christmas carols and I have gingerbread baking in the oven. The smell is divine. Once the wreaths are finished, we have gingerbread and hot chocolate. Yummy! This is one of my favorite Christmas traditions and we've been doing it for years. I can't wait for the day when there is a child in the mix to make everything a little more exciting! This year I decided to make oreo truffles for our cookie exchange. Today was my first time making them but I think they turned out okay. After our cookie exchange I sample every cookie and I have them all (4 dozen cookies) eaten in a week. They don't even make it to Christmas. Needless to say, I have a big sweet tooth!

We are in the process of renovating our basement now. We're putting in an extra bedroom and bathroom as well as a big storage room. We figured that once the child comes home we will use one bedroom for the child and the other for a playroom. At least when someone comes to visit us they get to stay in the basement and have a little privacy. Brian is doing all the work himself so he's quite busy. Hopefully it will all be clued up by January or February.

I've also been quite busy scrapbooking. I made a scrapbook for Mom of all the little vacations that we have taken together over the years. Next I'm doing one of the cruise we did in September. It's very time consuming but I love it. I've already bought the scrapbooking paper to use when I make a scrapbook of our trip to the Philippines. Now we just need to get a referral!

18 months today!

We are now a year and a half into our wait. It's hard to believe that 18 months has passed since we received ICAB approval. In a one way the time has flown by, in another way it seems like we've been waiting forever. I was hoping to hear something by Christmas but since hearing that the number of applicants in 2008 greatly increased, I'm expecting that we could wait another 6 months. Still, I'm trying to think positive and am hoping to hear by Christmas and to have our child home before next summer.

It is very exciting that one of my blog friends is bringing home her son very soon. Her and her husband leave on Tuesday for the Philippines. Hopefully it won't be long before we are headed there. Until then I'm going to enjoy preparing for Christmas and hanging out with my husband, dog and friends.

The last of the pictures

These are the last of the pictures. I'm sure that I have you all totally bored by now but I love looking at pictures so I hope that the rest of you are the same. The Colosseum at night.

Assisi. An almost 2 hour train ride from Rome.

St. Francis of Assisi church.

Taken from the top of St. Peter's Basicilia in Rome

St. Peter's Square early Sunday morning. I carried the camera duing our run so I could get some early morning shots before too many people got around.

Trevi Fountain during our run. Trevi fountain is always packed full of people unless it's 6:00 in the morning like it is in this picture.

The Spanish Steps. Again it's usually packed with people but there wasn't another soul in sight that morning.

This was taken in the town of Amalfi when we took a tour of the Amalfi Coast. It was beautiful with all the towns on the sides of the cliff and the roads were so narrow and winding.

This was taken our board our ship. It had 2 big waterslides which we all tried. Lots of fun, especially since there we very few children on board. We had the slides all to ourselves!

Dubrovnik, Croatia. It was beautiful there with all the red rooftops. The city is surrounded by a big wall which you can walk on top of.

Sunset in Dubrovnik. It was amazing.

Home Alone

On Saturday morning I took the dog for a walk and did the grocery shopping and I felt fine. At 1:00 that afternoon I started to get a sore throat, body aches, fever and chills along with a headache. It all came on so suddenly I thought it was the swine flu. I spent the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday in bed. By last night, the symptoms were all gone except for my cough and a headache. I went to work this morning and they sent me home because they said you have to be symptom free for at least 24 hours before returning to work. I know that makes sense since we work with small children many of which have comprised immune systems but today I don't feel too bad. So here I am at home with not too much to do so I thought I'd post a few more pictures.

Today's pictures are from Venice and Sicily.

Venice. Taken on Murano Island where they make the glass.

Rialto Bridge and of course I'm eating gelato.

St. Marks Square. We didn't spend too much time there as it was pretty crowded.

Sailing out of Venice.

Taormina, Sicily.

The Greek Theatre in Taormina. They still hold performances there today. I'd imagine it would be an amazing place to go to a concert.