What I'm looking forward to

I can't wait until April so that I can run every morning and watch the sunrise. We have the most amazing sunrises here in Newfoundland.

I am also looking forward to the Canada vs USA hockey game tonight. It's goint to be a great game and hopefully Canada can pull off a win.

I'm looking forward to Thursday when Mom and I leave to go to Halifax to watch the Brier. This is the Canadian Men's curling championship. Very exciting!

I am most of all looking forward to a referral!! Hopefully we'll be matched before this summer. There are definitely so many things to be thankful for!

Finally a little good news.

I am finally starting to find a few things out about the update process here in Newfoundland. We were told today that we will definitely need to complete our Provincial update before our update will be sent to ICAB. They told us there is currently at least a 3 month wait to be matched with a social worker to begin the update process and then we'll need to redo our medicals, criminal checks, references etc. Once the update is completed, it will go through 3 levels in order to get approved. The entire process would take around 8 months. If we use a private social worker, it will only take 4 to 5 months to complete which is still a VERY long time. We are getting some information on the private agency and then we will probably go this route.

The good news is that the adoption consultant sent off an e-mail to ICAB stating that we are still interested in adopting and that they are in the process of completing our update. They didn't tell ICAB that the update will take forever to reach them. At least ICAB now knows that we are still interested and hopefully they will not delay matching us with a child until they receive our update.

It was two years ago today that our original dossier was sent to ICAB. Where has the time gone! We had a great weekend away with our friends. We enjoyed playing cards, scrabble, playing pictionary and of course eating lots of great food. We did two beautiful hikes with the dogs and watched alot of the olympics. Another great weekend over!

Long weekend

We are heading out of town tomorrow for a long weekend away with our other couple friends. I can't wait. We are planning on snowshoeing, having a fire on the beach, playing board games at night, and of course cooking up some big meals. It will feel so good to get all of this adoption stuff off of my mind. I was told today that we will have to complete our provincial update including criminal checks, references, medicals etc before they will send ICAB an update. This is very frustrating considering it can take between several months to one year to complete the provincial update. This is all driving me crazy but this weekend I plan on forgetting all the troubles and enjoying myself!!!

21 months

We are getting close on 2 years since ICAB approval. Today marks 21 months since ICAB approval so we are only 3 months away. I wonder will we actually reach the 2 year mark without a referral. Right now it certainly seems so but you never know. There have not been many referrals lately although there was one posted today on the Yahoo goup. We still are no closer to starting the update of our homestudy. The person who I need to talk to is away for another week. I've tried several other people, all of whom said I have to just sit back and wait. Boy is that hard! So for now I'm spending all my spare time watching the Olympics. I'm glad that there is something else to help distract me. I especially love the hockey and curling both of which start tomorrow!!

Valentine's Day

Well today is Valentine's Day and still no referral news so I guess those of you who guess today were incorrect unfortunately. Hopefully those of you who guessed before Easter will be right. My fingers and toes are crossed!! Happy Valentine's Day to everyone.

Baby news, but not mine!

In all the panic of receiving the update letter I forgot to mention that I am now an Aunt!! My brother and his girlfriend had a baby boy a week ago. He is very cute and I was lucky enough for him to spend his first night out of the hospital at our house. They were unable to drive home due to a snowstorm and had to stay with us. He slept in the crib that we have for our child, if he or she ever comes!

Also on another good note, I have figured out that we only need an update stating that we are still interested in adopting and stating any changes in our lives in the past two years for ICAB. They don't require any further info but we still have to complete our provincial update which requires all the criminal checks, references, medicals etc. I am hoping that since we only need a quick update for ICAB, that they will match us with a social worker faster so that we can get it done and sent off ASAP. That's my hope, now lets see what happens! Please keep your fingers crossed.

Frustration!!!

This morning at 8:30 I starting calling to try to get set up with a new social worker to start our update. After 1 hour of constant calling, I finally reached someone who told me that 2 of the people I need to talk to are out of the office for the next week and a half. I finally did reach a social work intake worker and she said that there is a 3 month waitlist to meet with a social worker to start my update! I am also on a NL adoption yahoo group and a member of that group said that after updating your homestudy and redoing you medicals, references etc it would need to go through for provincial approval which is another 3 month wait! This just seems crazy!! I was wondering if ICAB would still send us a referral if our update was not complete. At this point I'm expecting our update not to be finished until August or September. I can't even imagine having to wait that much longer for a referral. I don't know if you guys have any thoughts on this.

Update time!

We just received a letter informing us that it is time to update all of our adoption related info such as our homestudy, medicals, criminal checks and so on and on and on!! I dread having to start all of this again as it took so long when we did it all 2 plus years ago. First I have to track down a new social worker as our old social worker took a new job just as she was finishing up our homestudy. I can't wait until we get this all clued up and I hope and pray that we will receive a referral before we have to go through this for the third time!

Hypothermic half marathon completed!

Well since Friday we have had over 50 cms of snow, which is quite alot. The roads are still fairly snow covered and wet but the race today was fantastic! The snow finally stopped and the sun even came out for a little bit. It was only -2 degrees celcius which is around 28 degrees farenheit I guess. There were 4 people in our running group completing the race and we finished in 2:01. I would have liked to have finished in under 2 hours but we took our time and enjoyed the run. The brunch afterwards was fantastic. I ate 2 bowls of healthy fruit and then had 3 brownies!

Hypothermic half

Today we had a huge blizzard here and pretty much everything was closed. I love snowstorms! I am running a half marathon on Sunday called the Hypothermic Half. I 'm hoping that the snow will be stopped by then but I'm sure that the road will still be fairly snow covered. That will just help to make it more interesting. The race is followed by a hot buffet breakfast and that is the part that I am looking forward to most!!

Food and fun

On Friday I went for Chinese food with the girls at work. My fortune cookie said "your perserverance will soon pay off". I hope that that means what I think it means!! On Saturday Brian and I went out to dinner with another couple. We went to this neat restaurant that serves interesting burgers and pizzas. I had a burger with blue cheese and bacon. It sure was yummy. We then went to a Blue Rodeo concert. It was a blast and our seats were great. I've been a huge fan of Blue Rodeo since I was 12. I've seen them six or seven times in concert and they get better every time.

Mom and I are booked to fly to Halifax in early March to go to the Brier. The Brier is a Canadian curling championship. The curling is fantastic and a few nights away in a hotel will be a lovely break. We're away for 5 nights and I'm off work for 4 days. Hooray!!!!