Holidays and waiting

We just put my in-laws on a plane yesterday. They stayed with us for almost a week for THanksgiving. Always an interesting experience. And now that things are quiet again, we continue to wait. We have done all we can at this point and are at the mercy of others. We are waiting for those who have agreed to write us references to get them mailed in to the social worker. We are waiting for the states to mail our official criminal background checks in. Judith (our social worker) has already written most of the homestudy at this point and has to hold off on finishing it until she receives the above mentioned paperwork. If all goes well the homestudy will be finalized by the end of the year and we can submit our I600A to the US government for approval to bring an orphan into the country. That usually takes a month or two. Once that is in hand, we can officially send all of our documents to China and wait for a referral. People who had every submitted to China in April on 2005 are receiving their referrals now. Which means if we can get ours in by Feb or March, there is a good chance we may have her home for xmas 2006. Then again with bird flu, earthquakes and politics, who knows....