huge huge huge news!!!

yesterday was the two-year anniversary of logging our paperwork in with Chinese Children Adoption International. today we found out that the chinese government accepted our application!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

adopting from china is an extremely long process. we have been pursuing this adoption for over 3 years now. being approved by the chinese government is HUGE because now all we need to do (besides re-newing our US government papers and doing another homestudy, etc.) is kick back and wait to be matched to our baby girl!!! that will probably take over another year, but this is an enormous hurdle we just jumped over. we were notified months ago that our paperwork would probably be flagged and cause a problem in the chinese government. but it did not!!! this is just a miracle!

we have passed inspection!!!

we have been accepted!!!

china, here we come!!! (well, here we come in 2010 - which is our 10th wedding anniversary!)

we are so thankful for our blessings from our loving Father in Heaven! i don't think it was just coincidence that we were accepted on the second anniversary of our LID (log-in date). it think it was a little wink from above!

God is good!

yoo-hoo!!!

hi there everyone!!!

we have returned from our self-imposed blogging exile.

our neighborhood is having a community garage sale next month. we have set a goal to go through all of our junk and all of the boxes we never unpacked after moving here. (yes, we moved in 3 years ago. and yes, our garage is still full of boxes.) i want to get rid of tons of stuff and make some money...

i'll let you know what kind of crazy stuff we come across.

we went to las vegas again last weekend. carmella (vinny's mom) took us. it was the first anniversary of vinny's dad's passing and we thought it would be good to head out of town. it was her first trip to vegas ever... i think she thought it was a den of sin. but she liked the fountain at the bellagio and the bakery at the paris.

here i am at the bellagio: