Happy Birthday GRACE!!!!!

Grace turned 1 today!!!! It is bitter sweet. We got an icecream cake and went to Rob and Margarets (Mike's brothers) to celebrate. We are praying for Grace and asking God to be with her,to keep her safe,to heal her heart and for her to know she is loved. We can't wait until the day we can hold her and bring her home . It is hard knowing we have already missed the first year of her life. We are trusting in God's perfect timing and praise Him that before the begining of time God had chosen Grace to be our daughter.

We Found Our Daughter!!! NOV 13th 2006

Mike got home from work before 4pm our time in Germany. I have been crazy all day trying to keep busy till 5pm when the waiting children form is posted. We each had a lap top and sat down next to each other. At 5pm we were both glued to the computer screens NO FORM!!! refresh,refresh,refresh. All of a sudden the form popped up on my computer I was shaking trying to fill out the form as quickly as possible it kept coming back server busy on both computers finally at 5:20 our request went through for #412. We went in to have dinner and we thought it is in Gods hands, if this little baby is meant to be ours it will happen. I was truly thinking we would not be first to review her file. I brought the computer to the table and kept checking e-mails. About 20 minutes later we had a message from CHI which read Great News you are 1st in line to review #412. Thats when I lost it and the boys got out the video camera. We knew we had found our daughter!!! We left dinner on the table and headed out to Mikes work to receive the fax with all her medical and background information. Our neighbor is a heart specialist so he was at our house at 10pm reviewing her medical information. We called CHI at 12am our time and told them we had found our daughter Grace Noelle!!! Of course I couldn't sleep so I started calling everyone.

Visiting Rome Oct

We flew to Rome and when we arrived all the trains and buses were on strike. There was a huge line of people waiting for cabs. Mike got out in the middle of the street and worked a deal with 2 cabbys to take us and all our luggage to our apartment. Since the trolleys were also not running the cabby decided it would be alot quicker to take the trolley route with his cab. It was fast and also really crazy. We did make it to the apartment. We stayed right by the Vatican and only a few blocks from the subway which we were told would be running the next day. Most restaurants in Italy open around 7pm for dinner. We were always hungry around 5pm so we were told of a great Chinese restaurant down the street from our apartment. We walked down the block and they were closed so Mike knocked on the door. The owner, a sweet little lady, opened the restaurant for us to eat. So we ended up eating there 4 of the 6 nights we were in Rome.. We ended up talking to her and telling her we were adopting from China. Then she started giving the boys gifts and she gave me a small gold tea pot ornament. They were very sweet. There was so much to see in Rome and it's amazing how old everything is. We rode the subway everywhere and took the boys to an opera. We could of stayed another week.

Flying over the pond!! Aug 2006

We have been having a great time at Opa and Omas. We have been on the beach almost everyday. The boys spend most of their time riding the waves on their boogie boards. Our favorite meals to eat are pizza and hoagies. We come to visit every summer and are making such wonderful memories. We flew back with our friends that were here visiting from Texas and spent 10 days in NJ and then a few more days looking at land in Texas. We plan to move back there when we leave Germany. It is always such fun to visit the States. Everything is open all night and you can just go in one store and get everything you want. The conveniences of the U.S. Life in Germany is much slower paced everything closes down by 5pm and you have to go to several small stores to get what you want. Our refridgerator is the size I had in my college dorm room so I spend a lot of time back and forth to the grocery store. In the winter we use the back porch as a big fridge we really look like hicks.

June 2006

June 6 - a week in Normandy on the anniversary of D-Day. WOW. Talk about a great history lesson. The boys all got to hear first hand from many of the veterans tell first hand accounts of jumping in or driving towards the beach in their landing crafts.

We were happily surprised to see so many French flying the American flags as they remember that day that they and their families lived through. Our boys liked the "take the beach" time they had every day to charge up the sand and dodge the machine gunners nests. The top of Point du Hoc still has quite a few bomb craters that are perfect to regroup your troops in, then on to the next bunker!

The last puppy sold the day before we left for the trip! All went to good homes!

May 2006 - LID May 19!!!

All of our paperwork is officially done! Our dossier left for China, and our DTC is May 5. We got the call from CHI that our log in date (LID) is May 19! Let the official waiting begin... I think it all seems so much more real to us knowing that everything we need to do on this end is complete. While we are anxious to go meet Grace and bring her home, we know we serve a great and awesome God that has already planned all of these dates.

April 2006

Scooter and Dixie decided to help contribute to the adoption financial fund - they got together and have added four bundles of joy to our number which we will sell up the river next month. We love our dogs, talk about self-less!

Eamon turned 7 and manages to eat corn-on-the-cob and a big plate of ribs every Tuesday night at Chilis without any front teeth! Very impressive. Everyone came over to our house on the 8th and he and Tami had a joint birthday party.

We planned the KMC Christian Homeschool conference which took place the middle of April. Mark Hamby came in from the States as the keynote speaker.

I think the biggest, most significant event of the month (and their lives) was the baptism of Hadyn and Eamon. On Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006. We have been learning about the Covenant, who is in the Covenant, how do you get in it, who it's for and what it means. And what the mark of it is -- baptism. For I, the Lord your God, ... [will show] mercy to thousands of generations, to those who love me and keep my commandments. Deuteronomy 5: 8-11

March 2006

We are now the official Chinese baby-stalkers in Germany. It all started when we heard our neighbor was about to travel for their second Chinese adoption. We were fascinated... "Sweetie, come quick! They're coming out of the house and getting in the car with their little girl." We also told a woman at Chili's that we had seen her on the internet with her little (also adopted from China) daughter at Disneyland. She absolutley denied it was her and assured us that she had no pictures of her daughter on the web. It turns out, it was the lady across the table from here that was in the adoption process for the first time that had this family on their blog! How crazy is that?

God is so good. The lady with the child calmed down and actually was able to help us out a great deal when we had questions about filing paperwork from overseas!

Feb 2006

We left for the States on Feb 10th and wen't to New Jersey, Alabama and Texas to visit just about everyone we're related to. Our first stop, of course, was to get a BIG COKE with lots of ICE from the Johnny Joes. That's right, there is no ice in Europe.

Jet lag isn't so bad; it's kind of fun waking up as a family at 4:30 in the morning at Landy's house. Of course Nathanael woke up all by himself, my boys had nothing to do with it.

70 mph is really slow on these nice, huge, straight roads!

Back to Germany on the 26th! Cold soaking happens when the heater has been broken for more than a couple weeks. You guessed it, 43 degrees inside! Another reason you should always live near a brother or someone you really like hanging out with. Manfred, our German landlord, fixed the heater and the house warmed up after three long days of homeschooling in one bedroom with the door shut and the space heater on full blast!

Jan 2006

The second Annual McQuade Ski Trip to Austria was a huge success. The boys all were in ski school while I followed Jenn over every bumb on the mountain. I'll let you guess who our neice and nephew called slinky on skis. Great snow the first night after getting there! Super vacation. We kept thinking we'll need a room for 7 next year.

I know we've been saying "the paperwork is almost done" for quite some time, but we think the paperwork is REALLY almost done.

Dec 2005

We had a wonderful Christmas in Germany. We went to several Christmas markets and also caroled with our church and neighbors. We also did lots of sledding this year. We are finishing up the adoption paperwork and waiting on our clearances from Texas to come back. It seems like everything takes 12 times longer than everyone else doing this in the states! Try to explain a customs form to the secretary at the Chinese consulate in Houston over the phone! There goes another Express Mail packet, this time with a signed customs form. It's good to know that God's timing is perfect in everything and that He has known the day we'll meet Grace since before time began.