Happy Birthdays and the wonders of high speed internet

We are 36 today, by we I mean Florencio and myself. And yes, we were both born on the same date and on the same hospital, for those of you who were not aware of it. Incredible, right? Yesterday we had a pool birthday party, with my dh's family, since both my father in law and my nephnew Luis Fernando also share our birthdays. You can see both Luis Fernando and Mariela his sister in one of the pool pictures with Florencio and Sebastian. The other little boy you see in the pictures is my godson Esteban, who is Sebastian's best little friend.

For the longest time we first had dial up, and then we got tired of its high speed (wink! wink!), and then we had nothing, until finally a couple of weeks ago we were able to have the highest speeds of the internets in out computer. I never knew it could be like this. Finally, I am dowloading pictures again. As you can see, Sebastian is huge (16 months), and so funny, and cute, and oh, you could eat him up... How did we deal without him? Can't wait for Mei Ling to come home. Of course, by this time we surely thought she would be here with us. Tomorrow it will be our 2 year anniversary!!! Yah!!! And today everything would be just perfect if could have our Mei Ling home with us, because we already know our angel daughter Bibiana is out there looking out for us.

To Florencio, happy birthday, you are the best friend and husband a girl could ever want!!!

The Wonders of Jenny Craig

Wow, it has been a long time. More than 2 months since my last entry. What has happened in the adoption front? Zip, zero, nothing, only that we are about to hit our 2 year lid anniversary. YAAYYYY!!!!

On other things, Sebastian is huge. He is 16 months old now and walking and being very very entertaining.

Also, I finally got myself on a diet. The Jenny Craig diet that is, and have already lost 14.5 pounds in the last 6 weeks, only 5.5 pounds to go, and it feels GREAT to once again get my smaller clothing out of the closet.

Finally, the ordeal is over

Although only a few people knew about it, last June 2007, one year ago, I sent the squares, as well as a check and all of the expensive trimmings that make a quilt comfy and nice, to a quilter who had been referred to me. This person has a website and seemed so nice. She promised we would have our 4 quilts (the One Hundred Good Wishes Quilt for our future daughter Mei Ling Mercedes, as well as 2 matching beach themed quilts for Mei Ling and her big brother Sebastian, and one quilt for my godson Esteban) by mid November. She said everything was going great, and then by mid October she disappeared. No more answered emails. By this time, she was already living in the States, since prior to, she had been living abroad. I sent emails literally begging her to return our stuff, and nothing. I am an attorney, and so I told her I would take legal action. Nothing. Well, apparently she figured I had no way to reach her in the States, but she figured wrong. I had gotten her address from a friend of mine. And so, this time, my dh sent her an actually nice letter. Better him, because I was not feeling nice by this time. And she finally saw we knew where she was and could not get away, and miracles of miracles, yesterday I received a huge box with a check with our money, and all of our stuff.

I don't know if this has happened to anyone before. I don't think we are the firts. But I can tell that this really messed me up. As everyone who has collected squares knows, a lot of time and good faith, and nice thoughts are invested in the collecting of these squares. We had over 60 squares from family members and friends, as well as squares from many new friends from my One Hundred Good Wishes Quilt web club. I could not believe that someone who knew (I had told her about our past history and about how we came about getting into the international adoption route) what had happened to our family could do this to us.

However, I have decided not to publicly say who this person is. However, if anyone who is planning on sending their stuff through the mail wants to send me an email, I can confirm whether at least it is not the same person we used. I still can not believe this person's gall, to play like that with our feelings. To think that at one poing my dh was even thinking that this was a sign that maybe the adoption was not meant to be. That has long taken care of, but the thing is that this person's actions did affect our family, and it really pisses me off. She certainly returned our things, and I am thankful that at least now I will have the opportunity to still have the quilts done, but shame on you, if you ever read this.

And please, if someone from Puerto Rico knows a local quilter (I am not mailing this stuff EVER again), please send me the information. I would really appreciate it.

PLEASE DONATE... IT IS FOR A VERY GOOD CAUSE

As everyone should have heard by now, things in China are not peaches and cream right now, since a huge 7.9 earthquake has really affected life in every level. The latter is especially true when it comes to their little ones. Not only are there awful stories about literally the children of a whole school under the mud, but the children in orphanages are doing without a whole lot of stuff. There are quite a lot of children, including babies, living in tents outside buildings that are just not safe right now. They really need cribs, tents, diapers, a lot of stuff. This is just heart breaking for us.

Half the Sky is a wonderful organization. They do a lot for the orphanages, and they have people right now helping out. Please help. You can donate to HTS at this link: www.globalgiving.com/pr/2100/proj2086a.html

Thanks,

Sebastian is ONE Year old Today

Our little baby, Sebastián Ignacio, just turned 1 today. He is huge. Where did the time go? We are going to go out to eat with both sets of grandparents, and we will then eat the cinnamon cake I baked for his birthday. Then on Saturday we will go and celebrate his b-day with a couple of his friends at Chuck E. Cheese's.

YES, I AM STILL HERE

Well, I never thought I would stay away from the blog for so long. A couple of things have happened. Today marks our second anniversary of starting this whole process. April 18, 2006 was our first appointment at the Immigration office. Wow, time has flown. Today we also received the approval for the renovation of our 171h, which is now good until October 11, 2009. I wish I could say that I am sure that Mei Ling Mercedes will be home by then, but I do not know.

This process has become crazy, and lately I have really been missing that little girl who is still probably not even born, but who lives in our hearts. I long to give Sebastián Ignacio a little sister. However, I guess we have to be patient.

Sebastián Ignacio is huge. He is turning 1 year old next April 24th. Where did time go?

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR: YEAR OF THE RAT

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!! YEAR OF THE RAT... HOPEFULLY THIS WILL BE THE YEAR OUR MEI LING MERCEDES WILL BE BORN, AND COINCIDENTIALLY IT IS ACTUALLY BOTH MINE AND FLORENCIO'S YEAR. WE WERE ALSO BORN IN A RAT YEAR, ALBEIT IN 1972. Today we will go celebrate in Great Taste, our favorite Chinese restaurant.