Catch up - but no further progress!

Thank you J for the beautiful referral presents that arrived for Isabella on Saturday. J sent three lovely silk Chinese dresses, a pair of matching shoes, hair band, panda toy and also a beautiful book for Isabella's bedtime stories! Isabella is so spoilt!

Also thank you to Sarah Greenleaf for the fantastic June cyber shower swap goodies that arrived today. The theme was Teddy bears picnic, I have posted a picture on the Wong's baby swap link.

I have been away for a couple of days in sunny Sheffield for our annual conference. A lot of work in organising it as usual but they day went very well and it was packed! We even had to turn people away so as a committee we were pleased by our continual growth in attendees every year. Luckily I wasn't speaking this year! I have recently done 3 conference talks in the last month so it was nice to have a rest!

No real progress on the adoption. No contact from our UK government department about sending our papers back to China despite them having them since Wednesday! I have emailed them and will telephone on Monday as soon as their helpline opens. Its just so frustrating beyond words!

I have also ordered Isabella's finding ad. We have a lot of details regarding her finding, but it is important to have a copy of it as well. It might give us some more information and hopefully an earlier picture of her.

My care packages are organised. I am sending one via blessed kids and one via the normal postal system. As this is a new orphanage I thought that a company who send care packages regularly and from China should be able to send one successfully. Additionally I have prepared one which also includes a small photograph album with pictures of us, our home, kitties and family. Hopefully these will be shown to Isabella before we get there so seeing us wont be such a shock. My lovely FIL typed us a letter in Chinese and also put labels on each photograph so the Nanny's could read to Isabella who was in each picture. However, until our acceptance officially is returned to China I cant really send them!

The nursery has been started. My sister and I assemble the cot yesterday. It was given to us by Terry's father, and can without instructions but between us we managed to put it together. We are keeping Isabella in our room for a couple of months after we get home to help with the attachment process. But I have put all her toys and books on the shelves, and her curtains up. I just need hubby to put the shelves up in our loft bedroom to transfer the books/files and eventually the computer desk. A task for next weekend!

We called the cat rescue centre this week for an update on white cat. Well its now micro chipped and neutered! And has been placed with a foster family to re socialise it. Hopefully when it gets used to being in a home and humans again they can then find white cat a home. I am so pleased that I caught the poor thing and took it to a rescue centre. At least white cat has a better quality of life than sleeping under cars and always being hungry.