Friday Ramblings

I just got the Children’s Bridge update and we’re getting closer! Well, as far as Children’s Bridge Group numbers is concerned. The update says that they expect referrals for group 246 (log in date of Oct 25) and group 247 (log in date of Oct 26). If the referrals go for 10 or more days, they would then also expect group 248 (Nov 3 LID) to get their referral. That would only leave 3 groups to our group – 251!

OK, lets do the math. Last month, the cut-off was October 24. If they make it to November 3, that’s 10 days. If you’ve been following these posts for some time now, you’ll remember that A) the CCAA was processing about 15 days of paperwork per month and B) I said November (and the end of October) is a heavier than normal month. That would explain the drop from 15 to 10 days.
Lets assume they stay at 10 days for the remainder of November.
· The next referrals would come at the end of April and would cover up to November 13
· End of May would be to November 23
· End of June would be to December 3. We’re November 29, so expect a referral early in July as it needs to make it thru the channels before we get it.

Now lets assume they drop to 8 days
· End of April and would cover up to November 11
· End of May would be to November 19
· End of June would be to November 27
· End of July would be December 5. We’d get our referral in early August.

And lets get optimistic – 13 days of referrals per month.
· End of April and would cover up to November 16
· End of May would be to November 29. We’d get our referral in early June.

So, if all remains the same, we’ll be in the group of referrals at the end of June and get our referral in early July. That would put us travelling around the end of August, beginning of September.

That’s it from here. Enjoy your weekend. I know I will.

Friday ramblings

The Children's Bridge update arrived and they are saying that we should expect an 18-23 month wait for our referral. We’re almost 15 months into the wait now so 18 months would be good. 23 months would be a heck of a long wait.

This weekend is a busy weekend with Chinese New Year celebrations in Moncton on Saturday night and Fredericton on Sunday afternoon. It should be an exciting celebration in Moncton this year as there are close to 200 Chinese students at the Moncton Flight College right now and it looks like they’ll be there as well. Check under my local events header on the left hand side if you want more information on Saturday night’s events.

Work has been busy and the updates to the blog have slowed down. I need to dedicate some evening time to doing more updates.

Communication between other members in our travel group have picked up. Julia sent out a “questionnaire” for us to all fill out so we could get to know each other a bit better. Some replied, some didn’t. If people don’t start talking, we’ll be total strangers when we all arrive in China.

Caroline and Marvin are home to Summerside with their girl. They are doing well. Congratulations guys! Their blog is on my page if you want to check it out.

That’s it from here. Enjoy your weekend and the bright sun (and cold winds) and I hope to see some of you at this weekend’s CNY celebrations.

Friday ramblings

Nothing to report in the Children’s Bridge weekly update. The next batch of referrals is supposed to be out any time now and if the talk is right, they may make it thru 3 weeks of files this month. OK, they were closed for 1 week, but that would still put them 3 weeks closer to our file. Soon! We’re getting there. I’m still hoping for a referral on Jen’s B-day and Gotcha Day on my birthday.

It’s very cold here today and it looks like it’s going to stay that way all weekend. I am great at starting projects but not finishing them so Jennifer may get “her way” this weekend. I told her that as soon as we have a gross winter weekend that I would finish all the tasks. So, guess what I’m doing all weekend? I need to detour to Home Hardware to get what I need, then I’ll be put to work as soon as I get home. I guess I do have to get all those little tasks done as I soon won’t have any time. At what age can you have your child swinging a hammer or wielding a paintbrush?

I’ve been checking out some other people’s blogs and I must have the “quietest” observers reading my blog. Other people get lots of comments, lots of entries to their guestbook and our poor site hardly gets any traffic. Is there anybody out there? Just in case you don’t know how, click the comment link below this posting (or any posting) to leave a comment or click HERE if you want to sign our guestbook to let us know you’ve been here. We’re also looking for another 91 pieces for our 100 Wishes Quilt. The post for that one is HERE in case you need to refresh yourself on what that is.

Friday ramblings

The Children’s Bridge weekly update just arrived. Groups 240 and 241 received their babies at the beginning of the week. Groups 242 to 244 will be travelling before the end of February.

So, we’re 7 groups away. It’s into the single digits now! Children’s Bridge doesn’t expect to hear anything from the CCAA on the next round of referrals until the first week of February. The next cut-off date from the CCAA will shed much more light on how long our wait will be. The rumour is that the number of files waiting for October and November 2005 are substantially higher than the average (remember Nov 29, 2005 is our log in date). If everything remains the same except for the number of files, our wait could grow longer. If they happen to stay to the average 2 weeks of files processed per calendar month then that means that either the rumour was untrue or they worked extra to keep the timeline the same. Our files were in the Review Room longer than average so I would suspect that the rumour of the extra files is true.

Friday ramblings

The Children's Bridge update didn't contain much again this week. It talked some about timelines, but nothign that we didnt already know.

Danny and Carol have uploaded pics of their kid that they received this week. They are next to travel, then Darrel and Karen in SJ, then Penny and David in SJ, then us, then Chris and Tracy, Angela and Bryan and Chantal and Nathan from Moncton. This is only who we know. Who did I miss.

Anyways, off to a Wildcats game with my father tonight.

Friday ramblings

This weeks update form Children’s Bridge is in.

Groups 242 to 244 were matched this month which leaves only 7 groups until we’re matched! So that’s good news. There’s 5 weeks between when group 244 and 245 were logged in so this number will not be moving for quite some time. With the CCAA only matching 2 weeks of files per month (on average) this is looking like 10 weeks before we see any more progress in group numbers. BUT, time is still ticking away. Even if there is no movement in CB Groups, we’re still inching closer with every update from the CCAA.

The update from CB also said that they are telling people to plan on a 18 month wait from LID to referral but they did say it might stretch to 24 months. This is a number we’ve not seen before but it has been mentioned. I don’t think we’ll get to 24 months, but families submitting their paperwork today may.

Other than that, no news.

We’re in for a busy weekend. We went to see the Divorcees last night at the Capitol Theatre. (They sure put on one heck of a show. Their rendition of Johnny Cash songs was fantabulous), tonight we’re off to a small Christmas party we won at Jazz night at Club Cosmo and tomorrow night we’re off to see Shaun Majumder at the new Yuk Yuks here in town. Remember waaaay back last fall when I posted that we were going to the Stones and iwe could just go without having to make baby arrangements? This is another one of those weekends.
Enjoy your weekend. I know I will.

Children's bridge weekly update

I wish I had some news to report, but nothing is new. The weekly reports from Children's bridge used to be long and full of cheerful news. Now they dont have much to say.

It appears that Korea has stopped accepting paperwork for international adoptions. The Korea program has been underway since the 50's and nobody expected them to do this. Not too many people are commenting on why this was done. I'm suspecting that this will start to happen to more and more countries and along with these long waits that we;'re experiencing, it's just a way to seter people from choosing international adoption. I hope I'm wrong, but thats just what I think.

The family who was in China is now home a week today and are doing great. They're having an open house next Sunday for everyone to come see the baby. I'm sure we'll be there.

We're on vacation next week. This might be our last vacation for just the 2 of us for a long time. If you;ve been followng this blog, last fall whent he Rolling Stones were here, I mentioned how we could go and not have to worry about babysitting, etc... well, almost a year later and we're still baby-less. I dont think we thought it would take this long.

That all for now. Everybody have a wonderful weekend!

Scott