Beachcombers R Us

We spent last week at Monterey, California and God blessed us with unbelievable weather for April on the coast!  Sunny and gorgeous!  My friend, Connie, got our whole family hooked on searching for sea glass…. I’m not quite sure why it is so addicting.  Possibly because it is FREE and the colors of glass are so amazing.  We found this little cove, after much climbing and crawling over large rocks, where the waves were bringing new pieces of glass with each crash and roll.  After my entire tennis shoe went under the water, in pursuit of a huge green treasure, even I joined the freezing barefoot ranks and took the plunge.  Usually I prefer to view the water, not feel the water.

The majority of our discoveries were green and brown….. 7-Up and beer bottles in past lives.  But we did find some rare gems in PINK!, red, yellow, white and royal blue.  My 15-year-old son saw a shining royal blue bottle in a thrift store and asked if we could buy it and throw it in the ocean…. for our next visit in three months!  GREAT idea!

What do we do with the sea litter, you ask?  There are mini jars at the beach house that have sorted-by-color sea glass…. so I added my finds to that happy color display.  For homeschooling we count this as math…. sorting.  :o)  It could also be categorized as history, science and social studies.  Whatever we call it, it was the BEST kind of schooling, in my humble opinion.  The rest of the family brought home their glass pieces …. I’m not sure why.  Possibly because they were FREE and the colors of glass are so amazing!

And no, we didn’t color coordinate our clothes with the ocean… it simply worked out that way.  It was a matchy-matchy sort of day all the way around.

No More Hot Wheels under the Purple Bed!

Not a day goes by that I don’t think of, dream about, pray for and long to hug and kiss our little Zaza who is STILL in Colombia waiting for us.  Nov. 7th officially marks our 9th month of waiting for our adoption referral.  When we initially heard 2 to 30 months….. we hoped and prayed it would be closer to the 2.  Well there’s still five months to go on the “closer” side. 

The Colombian courts close from Dec. 15 to Jan. 15, much to this adoptive mom’s chagrin.  When we do receive the referral, we get the profile checked out by a pediatrician familiar with international adoption and the we give our answer.  (YES!… duh!)  Then we travel within two weeks.  So FAST, it’s scary.  The clincher is that depending upon which region Zaza is living in, we could stay from 4 to 8 weeks in Colombia.  It’s all up to the courts. 

Sadly, there is now not enough time before their Christmas break to fit in the 2 weeks plus 4-8 weeks.  So it’ll be 2009 when we meet our girl.  Yes, we started this whole deal in 2006…….  I can’t say that waiting makes it sweeter… just longer.

Anyway, we’ve been in process so long that our USCIS approval needs and extension and an update to our homestudy.  Since our agency closed a few months back, we had to find a new social worker in AZ who is Hague compliant.  (Hague is the new international regulators/rule makers for adoptions.)  So this Saturday from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. we meet our new case worker and she tours Zaza’s prospective home.  Not a big deal if you keep your house clean and tidy all the time.  BIG HAIRY DEAL if you only keep the downstairs clean and tidy.

Zaza’s room is ready for her…. has been since January.  The walls are painted yellow.  Her vintage, wooden, carved canopy bed from Auntie Connie is painted purple.  The ribbon-encircled lamp is glowing on her curvy, vintage dresser from Auntie Julie.  The lavender butterfly rug from Auntie Donna is snug by the bed.  The blue turtle from Auntie Jill is sitting on the shelf.  The Beatrix Potter book from Auntie Darla is sitting next to the blue turtle on the shelf.  There are even frilly dresses on pink hangers hanging in her closet from Auntie Jilly too.  Just last week Mom and I found a darling, carved wood, two-drawer bedside table… from Grandma.  I still need to repaint it and find knobs, but I had to run up and put it in there to envision Zaza opening the drawers to hide her treasures.

However, our son Keeve decided to keep the bed warm until Zaza gets here.  So, with the 2:00 visit only 48 hours away, Keeve and I cleaned up the Hot Wheel tracks, rolled up the city road rug, put G.I. Joe back in his box, and put Lightning McQueen in the garage sale pile.  It looks like a girly-girl room again and there are officially no more Hot Wheels under the purple bed.  Whew.