We have big news!!!! Or, How Disney World really is a magical place!

Well, we have some pretty big news to share.  A few days ago, we were spending the day at Animal Kingdom at Disney World in Orlando.  The Director of the China Program at our adoption agency called and said, "You didn't think you could go on vacation and not get a call from us, did you?"  She was calling to give us the details about our next little girl!  Her first name will be Kenzi and we haven't yet decided on a middle name.

She just turned 1 year old and she has an unrepaired cleft lip and palate.  This is the same condition that Jacinda had, but Jacinda's lip was repaired while she was still in China.  We are unsure if Kenzi will have her lip repaired before she comes home or not.  That is something we will be discussing with our agency and the staff in China.

The news is still sinking in for us ..... we were totally shocked to receive a referral this week.  It's been a whirlwind these past few days ......... shopping, going to Disney World, seeing family, consulting with doctors, doing adoption paperwork!!!  We're just absolutely over the moon!

Travel ...... our agency is saying that we should travel 4-8 months from now.  We are really hoping to go by the end of this year. 

Updates ......

Well, there's nothing too exciting to update.  But I'll tell you what's going on these days.

1.  Referral - We are still waiting to be matched with a child.  It could be at any time.  Our agency does expect us to be matched this summer, most likely.
2.  Yard Sale - This coming Saturday, we are having a yard sale to help raise money.  We are not pricing anything, we'll just be asking for donations.  Hopefully, we'll raise a lot of money!  But also, we're clearing out a lot of stuff from our house!!!!!!  It's been great because a lot of our friends have stepped up to donate stuff to sell, or to help out with the actual sale.
3.  Money - I think I mentioned previously that we are being audited by the IRS because of Jacinda's adoption tax credit.  We still do not have our tax refund yet, and we don't expect it until August or later.  It's a very frustrating situation, but at least we'll get some interest on our refund!  It won't be much, but every little bit helps!
4. Donation - You'll notice on the right side of our blog, that we've added a Donate button.  That is a way that people can donate directly to us through Paypal.  I believe that if you use a credit card, you don't have to have a Paypal account.  Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about that!
5. Jacinda's Speech - Jacinda finished up the school year going to speech therapy 3 times a week.  She qualifies for "summer school" for speech, but it's only for a few weeks, twice a week I believe.  We do have some things to work on with her this summer at home.  When the next school year starts, she will go to speech therapy 4 times a week.  Luke will be in Kindergarten at the same school, so I'm hoping I can coordinate her times with dropping Luke off and picking him up.  The school is close to our house, but I still don't want to be back and forth 4 times a day!!!!!  Jacinda's teacher in her class at church tells us that each week, she can understand more and more of what Jacinda says.  That is awesome!!!!
6. Summer - We have lots of fun things planned for this summer.  Luke wants to learn how to read, so we're working on that.  We are tagging along on a vacation to Florida with Aaron's family.  They have a timeshare in Orlando, and they have graciously invited us to stay with them!  If it wasn't for them, we probably would not be able to go on a vacation this summer, so we're looking forward to that.

That's about it from here.  We're just trucking along, scrimping and saving every penny we can.  We have become the coupon king and queen!  We rarely go out to eat any more, but when we do, we use coupons!!!