Kung Hay Fat Choy (May You Prosper)

February 18 marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year. Chinese years are typically referred to by an animal, where 12 animals represent the Chinese Zodiac. Children born in 2007 will be born in the "Year of the Pig". Pigs are characterized as a splendid companion, an intellectual with a very strong need to set difficult goals and carry them out. They are sincere, tolerant, and honest but by expecting the same from others, they are incredibly naive. Their quest for material goods could be their downfall. The Pig would be best in the arts as an entertainer, or possibly a lawyer.

Since our child will already have been born, we will probably be adopting a "Dog". "The Dog will never let you down. Born under this sign Dogs are honest, and faithful to those they love. They are plagued by constant worry, a sharp tongue, and a tendency to be a fault finder. However, they would make an excellent businessman, activist, teacher, or secret agent." (Remind you of anybody you know....Ron is a Dog, but you already knew that.)

Shirley, on the other hand is a "Snake" (bet you didn't know that). "Rich in wisdom and charm, Snakes are romantic and deep thinking and their intuition guides them strongly. They are procrastinators and have stingy attitude towards money, but have a sense of humor about life. The Snake would be most content as a teacher, philosopher, writer, psychiatrist, and fortune teller.

And Rusty, well Rusty's a cat, silly!

And with that, we wish you a "Happy Chinese New Year".

PS...In case you didn't notice, we have added a "Message Board" link in the left margin. We look forward to hearing from you.

Chinese New Year - Images from Vegas

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Step 4 - The Referral

OK...so now that we're getting close to our date, what's next. With The Wait phase done, it's almost time to get back to paperwork.

Once our information has been fully reviewed and a child has been selected for us in the Matching Room, a package of information known as The Referral is created and forwarded to our agency, Children's Bridge. Of course this will be in Chinese and will need to be translated before being sent to us. Children's Bridge will call us as soon as the referral arrives and provide us with the child's name, date of birth, social welfare institute (orphanage) and basic medical information and measurements that they can glean prior to translation. They will also email us photos of our child - yes we will post them. At this time we need to make appointments with our doctor and Adoption Practitioner. Time is critical, and we need to have all reviews and forms completed within 5 working days of receiving our translated referral.

Included with our referral will be additional forms that need to be completed.

• Letter of Seeking Confirmation from Adopter where we confirm that we accept the child that has been referred to us.
• Notice to Director which is completed by us and our adoption practitioner and sent to the provincial ministy who will issue a Notification of Agreement which is forwarded to the Canadian Embassy in Beijing.
• Adoptive Family Background which includes our names and the name we have given the child. This is sent to China and will be used to complete the adoption paperwork.
• Visa Application which is required for each of us and our adopted child.

Once all of this has been submitted to Children's Bridge, translated and sent to China, China will issue us a Notice of Coming. From what we can gather it looks like this should take about 6-8 weeks, from the time Children's Bridge receives the referral until the time we receive the Notice of Coming. During that period we will also confirm our travel dates and travel arrangements. Notice of Coming is the final approval we require prior to travel.

One more step done...travel awaits.

CCAA Update - February 02, 2007

The CCAA has now completed the placement of children whose adoption application documents were logged in before October 13, 2005 (LID).

Net impact - moved forward 16 days, 13 days 'til our LID (Oct. 26/2005).

Referrals are sent once a month, usually at the end.

So let's see, in last 4 months the dates have moved forward 16, 19, 14, and now 16 days. If the trend follows, there's a possibility we could be next. Having said that, we have seen it move a lot less so we're trying very hard not to get too excited - like that's easy!