El Grande Night Indeed

August 8, 2011: El Grande Night


Costumes:
Cambel-Basketball player
Ada-Ladybug
Daddy-Batman (he was wearing all black)
Mommy-Teacher (because it meant not changing my clothes)

Activities:
Balloon toss
Seminar on what is in a backpack survival kit (given by Cambel)
Ice Cream
"What I like about my family"
Phone call from our adoption program coordinator telling us that we have a referral!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*
 (not originally part of the actual El Grande night plans)

We were ready to wait at least 2 months for our referral, so we were completely unprepared for this call. To say we were excited is an understatement. We were forwarded pictures of the sweetest 16 day old boy and what little information is known about him (which is basically nothing at this point). Of course we agreed right away that we would accept this referral.
I spent the rest of the night calling family, staring at his picture, memorizing his picture, wondering what he is like, sending Kevin to Walgreens to pick up prints of his picture, and looking at his picture some more.  (I would love to post his picture here, but until the adoption is official, we are not allowed to do that. I can however assure you of his supreme cuteness).

It is hard to describe what we feel. It feels a bit surreal right now, but we are extremely excited. We are anxious to bring him home and dreading the long wait ahead. We are sad for his birth family, that for whatever reason they were not able to care for him. We are already in love with him--his sweet face, his tiny hands, his curly hair. We are grateful for his foster family that will be caring for him and loving him in our place for the next several months. We are longing to hold him and have him home.

And we are also laughing that we found out about him on El Grande Night. Welcome to the weirdness little one.

So now the real wait begins. We first wait for the paperwork to be completed in-country. This could take up to 4 months. Then we start on paperwork here. Then more paperwork and court dates in-country. Then more waiting. We are hoping that while we wait we will find out more about him. But we don't need more information to know that we love him and he is ours.

I'm not sure how we will top this El Grande Night...I suppose it will be when our little one is here to participate.



*Though not usually a fan of the multiple exclamation marks, I am making an exception for this post. Seeing pictures of your new baby deserves some gratuitous use of punctuation.