A Picture Says 1,000 Words

Yay! As I had hoped, new photos and updated info regarding Maya's passport!! We rec'd several photos over the weekend, and also the news that the passport should be completed the first week of June. A couple of the moms who picked up their babies sent me emails to tell me that little Maya is amazing!! She is doing very well and is very happy, smiley, sitting up, playing with her little friends! Great, great news!
Yippee!!! So now we are in crazy- mode, trying to get everything ready. We have to travel to Chicago this weekend for a wedding... so that sucks 3 days of preparation out of our schedule. Actually 4 days. ACK!
Seriously, we should be fine. We are just in severe high-stress mode right now b/c we are both Type 'A's and need to chill! The only major item we are missing right now is a glider/rocking chair. And of course several small things. And all of the nursery furniture that is still on backorder. But we will manage! We have our 'virtual shower' coming up, so that will be nice. Of course, that is probably only days prior to our travel, so we are cutting it close!
DEEP BREATH... DEEP BREATH... ok much better.
Thank god my assistant started working today. She's awesome - I think it will work out very well. She has also been a nanny for many years, so we're going to incorporate some nanny work in the future as needed.
On a ick-note... I have to have an endoscopy done tomorrow. :( YUCK. Probably just an ulcer... but the thing has been hanging on forever and didn't respond to the first round of meds. Fun-Fun. Definately need to try fixing it before 2 weeks of Indian food!! Now THAT could be painful! {Mostly due to the fact that I LUV spicy indian food and i have no self-control}
Well I guess that's it for today's update! I am looking forward to the wedding this weekend - as we get to see all of the family (Ajay's family and mine both). AND I have a couple of GORGEOUS dresses to wear!! One is an Indian Salwar Kameez, and the other is a type of sari. Can't wait to wear them! :)

Caffeine Addiction Level: HIGH

Being a coffee-a-holic, I felt that I had to post this Blogthing!
First of all, this blog was boring me. But more importantly - I LOVE great espresso, and I live for daily lattes. I have a machine and try to motivate myself to make my own. IMHO, my lattes are better than lattes that I get at most coffee shops. Unfortunately, the process involved ends up taking ~15 minutes. That does not sound long, but try to motivate yourself for a 15-minute process when you are bleary-eyed with a bad attitude! Also doesn't work well when DH is working from home and has set up his laptop ~5' from the machine. 'tis quite a loud process and doesn't mesh well with conference calls.
Take this quiz - I found the results to be very on-target for me!

You Are an Espresso

At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energetic At your worst, you are: anxious and high strung You drink coffee when: anytime you're not sleeping Your caffeine addiction level: high

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

On a different note... we have sooo many bees in our yard every year, so I bought some yellow-jacket traps. I was a bit dubious, but they are GREAT!! We put two up in the backyard on Sunday, and both have at least 6 giant yellow jackets in them now!
Kind of an odd thing to get excited about, but you had to see how many dam bees we had last year! It was insane. Now to tackle the paper wasps...

Another Day

The nursery mural is complete! It is so amazing. Photos just do not do it justice - but here are a couple of samples. The amazing thing is that the entire room is painted - including the attached bathroom. It all flows together like one large scene. The trees are painted up the wall and onto the ceiling - it makes you feel as if you are in the scene. So sweet!!
So yes, we are still waiting on word of Maya's passport. I thought it was difficult to wait earlier in this process? I think this is worse! It's a great feeling to know that we will travel soon, but it is painful to wake up early every day and pray that this is the day that we will receive 'THE' call or email telling us to book our tickets!
We have begun to pack. I have a long list of items that still need to be purchased and packed. We have finished all of our education - other than a few book reports and homework sheets to fill out. We've compiled all of the legal docs we need to take with us to India, etc. I have interviewed and narrowed down potential assistants to two people. I hope to complete that process today and have an assistant begin working by next week!
We are so close to being ready!
At least one Dillon family returned home this week with their baby. So happy for them.. and so hoping that they were able to snap a few photos of Maya! It seems like every time I jot something like that in this blog, we hear some news soon after. Here's hoping that coincidence continues!
Well, now I guess it is time to begin cleaning and somewhat-organizing my office so that my assistant does not run screaming out of the house next week! :)

Oops!

Omg... I received Maya's legal paperwork from India today, and get this: we had misunderstood/misread her birthdate!!!
Wow - our first parental error! haha!
The previous info had been quite smudged and not extremely clear - and we misread/misinterpreted it. Her birthdate was SEPTEMBER 9th, not October 9th!!!
My lord, she is turning 8!! months next week, not 7! Her paperwork also said that she was born at 10:30 pm. It's nice to know that information - whether or not it is 100% accurate. Any little details are nice to know.
So there are a couple of families in India right now picking up their babies!! I am so happy for them! Can't wait to see updated photos of Maya also, so I hope she is available when they are there. It is so seriously surreal right now. I can't believe we could be traveling in a little over a month. Wow.
We needed new luggage, so I ordered it and it arrived today. Now we can begin packing! ACK!

Stephanie - No worries on my taking photos! I am actually a professional photographer, so I am drooling myself!! I can't wait to get to India and see some of the area. We are flying (at least i hope) through Singapore - so if we can swing it, we are going to try to stay in Singapore a day or two. I'd at least like to have a looong layover so we can pop out of the airport and take a quick tour. I have been told that this is a possibility.

I CAN'T WAIT!!!

Happy, Happy News!

Big News!! We found out today that Guardianship has been issued!!! YAY!!!
2 steps down, 1 to go. The passport process has been initiated - it has been taking ~4 - 5 weeks recently.
So it looks like we are still looking forward to hopefully traveling in June! We have a lot to do before then... and it looks like we are going to be need to cancel our Mexico trip. But no worries - we need to prepare for India. Hopefully we can take a day or two to site-see before we pick up Maya. This will be my first visit to India and I'd love to soak up as much of the culture as possible while we are there!

Looking Forward

A few of the other Dillon families who were awaiting passports found out in the past couple of days that their babies' passports have been issued! They are now preparing to travel. One couple will be leaving at the end of this week.. and offered to bring something to Maya from us.
Tomorrow I will be picking up a little outfit and toy for her and shipping it off!
Hopefully Maya will be close by when they visit the orphanage and we will get new photos!!
Very exciting!

Still no word on the legals... but hopefully we will hear something soon. If the timeline that others have had is the same for us, we should be hearing something in the next couple of weeks.

Can't wait!!