A big announcement!

(Drum roll...) Our daughter has an American name! We would like you to meet Eliana. Eliana is Hebrew for "My God has answered", which we think is quite appropriate. You can click on the announcement picture above to enlarge it and see the Hebrew letters and Chinese characters more clearly. Eliana will be keeping part of her Chinese name, ZuGuo, as her American middle name. So, her American name is Eliana ZuGuo. Qing (pronounced "Ching") is her current Chinese last name, after the city in which she lives, Qingyuan. The first part of her given name, Zu, was given to all of the children at her SWI (orphanage) by the Director in the last few years. It is a connection to her 'brothers and sisters' that she has spent time with there and we felt it was an important connection to keep for her. We are already communicating online with the families of several of her "Zu" siblings. Guo is her Chinese given name and is what she is called now. I am going to try to post audio files of how her Chinese name/American middle name is pronounced in both Cantonese and Mandarin. To my best knowledge, in Cantonese her name is pronounced like "Dzoh Gwoh" and in Mandarin it sounds like "Dzu Gwah". Tone (rising, falling, flat) is very important in Chinese pronunciations and we are not very good at that! Eliana lives in a predominantly Cantonese speaking province (Guangdong), but we won't be 100% sure of how the people taking care of her address her until we get there! We hope you all like her name as much as we do. We will wait to see if any nicknames develop - Elli, Ella, Lia, Ana, Li-li are all possibilities. We will have to wait to get to know her!

Accordingly, I have changed the blog title again, from "Waiting for Guo" to "Expecting Eliana". If you have this page bookmarked, you may want to update your bookmark title as well - the web address will stay the same.

The crib arrived today and I love it! More decorating fun to come. I hope to post pictures of her room in the next couple of weeks.

Love, Eliana's mama :0)

Happy Birthday to me - new pictures of...

I received these updated pictures of Guo today from our agency - what a wonderful birthday present! We hope to also get new weight/measurements soon. I sure hope that some of the pretty little things I bought for her actually fit - she looks like such a big girl in the pictures! We can't wait to try to put a smile on that sweet face. Look for a big name announcement soon!

A couple of birthdays

Looks like I am behind on my posting again! I hope that all of my friends and family celebrating Christmas yesterday had a wonderful day and got lots of great goodies! Our Guo turned 17 months old yesterday and today I am also having a birthday. To determine my age you will have to work for it: multiply Guo's months by 2 and add 2 to get my age in years. My sister turned 40 this year and has been telling me all of the wonderful things that I have to look forward to when that magical age hits! In the adoption community, we are actually quite the young whippersnappers, so we will enjoy our youthful status there for a while.

Last Friday I put our son on an airplane to go visit with my sister's family in Georgia. Ben is having a great time with his cousin and Aunt & Uncle and also got to spend sometime with my mother, my Aunt Nancy (recovering from a hip replacement - get well soon!) & Uncle Charlie and even my cousin Kim, who was visiting from south Florida. Last year Ben enjoyed a ski trip to Utah with his cousin, but this year they are having a relaxing holiday at home in Georgia. Guess what - he got his hair cut! I tried to get him an appointment to have his long locks cut before leaving town but wasn't able to get one scheduled at the salon where I usually take him. I told my sister that if he wanted a haircut while in Georgia, that was fine with me. My brother-in-law was MORE than happy to accommodate Ben with a haircut and sent before and after pics from his cell phone to my cell phone - see below. I think it looks great! And for the bargain price of $9.95 - try getting a haircut for THAT in Northern Virginia! Small town living definitely has some advantages.

BEFORE...


AFTER...

THERE'S my boy! Looking good, Ben!

This week is probably the last time that Adam and I will have any 'alone time' as a couple for a long time to come! We have been a couple for 15 years and Benjamin has been with us for 13.5 of those years, so it always feels strange when he is gone. At the last minute, Adam and I decided to take an overnight retreat to Charlottesville, Virginia - home of the University of Virginia and Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. We left on a VERY foggy & rainy Sunday morning for the 2 hour drive south. We couldn't see a THING on the way there through the fog. Our package included a private tasting at one of the newer vineyards and wineries in the Charlottesville area and we wanted to get there before they closed at 5:00pm. The drive was uneventful and we arrived, checked in, got our very nice complementary corkscrew and headed out to DelFosse Vineyards & Winery. The fog was lifting and rain was stopping as we drove the 20 miles or so to the vineyard. The Charlottesville area is very beautiful - rolling hills and valleys with farms dotting the landscape.

We arrived at the winery and really enjoyed out private tasting, which included all of their reserve wines. Very nice! We chatted with the owner, Claude DelFosse and found out that he used to be a software developer in the defense industry and had even spent some time at Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton Beach - what a small world! Adam's hopes of one day owning his own small winery are rekindled. I told him that he could have his vineyard and winery as long as I could have some pasture land and a barn for my alpacas and sheep and a horse or two - maybe a little petting zoo near the tasting room? :0) [I guess the fact that my lineage includes farmers and blacksmiths has my brain genetically programmed to yearn for livestock. Adam, Ben & I even went to an alpaca auction at a beautiful farm in Leesburg once - THAT was an interesting experience! I never knew how much some of the award-winning alpacas sold for - amazing!] Anyway, the wines were great and we bought 15 bottles (you notice I didn't say we CAME HOME with 15 bottles)! As we were tasting, the skies cleared and the sun came out. We walked around the grounds and I got a few nice pictures of the vineyard as the sun was setting. On the drive back to the hotel, a beautiful, huge, perfectly full moon was rising in front of us as the sun set behind us. The pictures don't do it justice - it was quite stunning in person.

The next day we packed up and headed out to Monticello. We really enjoyed the tour of the house and wandering around the garden and grounds. Thomas Jefferson was a fascinating person and the history of Monticello is also quite interesting. When Thomas Jefferson died on the 4th of July 1826 - the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence - and the same day that John Adams died, he was actually in debt. Jefferson's daughter eventually sold Monticello and most of its contents at auction. A few years later, Uriah Levy, the first Jewish Commodore of the United States Navy and an admirer of Thomas Jefferson, bought Monticello and he and his descendants kept it very near its original state for the next 90 years. His mother, Rachel, lived there and is buried on the grounds. Levy bequeathed Monticello to "The People of the United States" upon his death in 1862, but the US Government said 'no thanks' - it was rather busy dealing with the Civil War. Seventeen years passed before the mess got resolved, and Levy's nephew got control back of Monticello, made the repairs required after 17 years of neglect and some abuse by the Confederate army, and eventually sold the home to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation in 1923, which now maintains the home and grounds and runs the tours. We also drove by the former residences of two of Jefferson's friends and fellow Presidents, James Monroe (Ash Lawn-Highland) and James Madison (Montpelier). Madison didn't have a fan like Levy - the duPont family bought the home and it is now undergoing extensive renovations to return it to the state it was in Madison's time. All three homes are in the Charlottesville vicinity and an easy drive from where we live. We hope to return to visit Montpelier and Ash Lawn-Highland, bring Ben to Monticello and also to explore more of the plentiful vineyards in the area. Mount Vernon and colonial Williamsburg and Fredericksburg are also on our 'To Do' list. Here are a few pics - my battery was low and no pictures were allowed inside, so I only have a handful:

One other thing Adam & I had the chance to do last weekend was to go to a large baby store in Maryland. I found a crib I really liked and it is being delivered tomorrow. It is a white painted iron crib and I think it's lovely. This afternoon/evening I will be on the hunt for some bedding for the new crib. We have also been trying out some names for our daughter - practicing referring to her with them to see if they work for us. I think we are almost there! I still need to paint and decorate the room and maybe refinish/repaint the furniture as well - it was mine when I was a little girl. After all the waiting I now feel that time is flying and our little girl will be with us before we know it!

Have a wonderful holiday and a Happy New Year for 2008! It will be a big year for our family and we look forward to sharing it with you.

Four things learned on 4th night + movie 4 of 8

1. My son is a ROCK STAR (on his new Wii Guitar Hero III) - see the slide show below.

2. My husband is definitely NOT a Guitar Hero rock star (he was booed off of the stage 3 times in a row)! Don't quit your day job, Adam. My husband is however, MY hero and quite handy with a set of jumper cables in the dark in a freezing cold grocery store parking lot! UPDATE: Adam spent the weekend improving his Wii guitar skills and can now hold his own.

3. I can do a fairly decent job on Pat Benetar's "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" with Guitar Hero.

4. One way to rapidly cool a smoking pan full of overheated okra-frying oil is to take it out on the deck and set in on a hot pad on top of a glass topped patio table that is covered in about 3 inches of snow. It also makes a really cool hissing sound at is sinks down into the snow.

Don't worry, the fried okra was already safely out of the oil and was quite tasty (if you've only tried slimy boiled okra & tomatoes, then you should really give nice crispy fried okra a chance). I thought that I had turned the gas on the stove down to off, but I didn't quite make it all the way around, so it was on high instead. I couldn't hear it over the sizzling latkes. Oops! The latkes were golden brown and delicious and we all stuffed ourselves silly.

I have fallen behind in my posts, but here are pictures of nights 3 & 4 and the 4th movie (a VERY young Adam Sandler in the original Saturday Night Live debut of his Hanukkah song). Enjoy!

Chai Y'all - Hanukah southern style - 3 of 8

Today was one of those days. Freezing rain falling, running late, family arriving tomorrow morning and I'm not ready... So, I get into my car after loading in the groceries for our Hanukah/Shabbat dinner tonight, get in, turn the key... click, click, click, nothing. Click, click, click, click, nothing. Oy vey! Dead battery. No jumper cables. I briefly considered popping open my hood and doing my best dramatic damsel in distress routine to see if a kind stranger would take pity on me. I decided to use my cell phone instead. Mother-in-law to the rescue! Thanks for rescuing me, Charlotte. I made it home with the groceries and am getting ready to start dinner. Car is still at the store and will be until darling husband takes me up there to retrieve it later tonight - with cables, this time.

To warm up in this nasty weather, we will be spicing things up a bit tonight. My wonderful son's favorite comfort food is my Kosher turkey spicy meatloaf. I know - it sounds disgusting - but it is actually quite good (if I do say so myself) and pretty good for you, too. Thanks Dana for the original Weight Watchers version, which I modified so that my son & husband would actually eat it - not as low fat, but still not too bad. Adam is back home and so tonight I'll be cooking the first potato latkes of the holiday (although Adam & I went to Chutzpah Deli last night and ate some there while Ben was busy elsewhere - shhhhhh - don't tell on us)!

In honor of our southern upbringing, I will be also be frying up some okra, Emeril style - BAM! Chanukah is the holiday for frying in oil, in honor of the miracle that happened so long ago. When the Jews, led by Judah the Maccabbee defeated Antiochus and the Greeks and cleaned up the Temple which had been desecrated, there was only enough ritual oil to burn for one day. But as you all know, it burned for eight whole days. Nes gadol hayah sham - a great miracle happened there! That's why we light candles for eight nights and that's why we eat yummy things fried in oil - to honor that victory and ensuing miracle. That's also why we have to eat low fat turkey meatloaf - it cancels out the latkes (kind of like drinking a Diet Coke with your Quarter Pounder). That concludes Hanukah 102.

In keeping with the southern theme of the evening, I present to you Mark Rubin & Friends singing the Dreidel song - southern style! I think this is the first time I have heard a Jew yodel!



P.S. "Chai" means "life" in Hebrew, but is pronounced similar to Hi - with a little chhhhhh guttural throat noise in it (like you are about to hock a - well, you know).

Menorah fun - Hanukah movie 2 of 8

Yea, Shelli! You win the prize for the menorah question. (Thank you for being the only contestant). It is missing the Shamash, so it really isn't a Chanukiah. Actually, most menorahs (I guess the plural should really be menorot?) have 7 or 9 candles, so I am not sure what is up with the one in the movie.

Here is the background info for my non-Jewish bloggers (stolen straight from Wikipedia):

During the festival of Hanukkah, a special Hanukkah Menorah, also called a Hanukkiah (or Chanukiah), is lit. The Hanukkah Menorah is a candelabrum with eight branches of equal size that all sit in a row (one for each night of the festival of Hanukkah) and a separate candle holder for the "Shamash." The Shamash candle is used to light the other eight candles since it is forbidden to use the Hanukkah lights for any purpose other than viewing.

Okay - enough of Hanukah 101. Here is the 2nd movie. I actually changed my mind about which one to post today. This one should be appropriate for all audiences, but parents may still want to preview. Now THIS is what a Chanukiah should look like! I wish my menorah could do this! :0)



Happy 2nd day of Chanukah! Tonight we will be lighting 3.

Chanukah/Hanukkah/Hanukah movie 1 of 8

Okay - I got this one posted before sunset on Day 1. It counts!

I found this amusing. The only correct answer to the question to the title of this movie, "How do you spell Chanukah?", is actually - with Hebrew letters! There is also a problem with the menorah in this movie given the holiday (okay - who can be the first one to solve that puzzle)? Nevertheless, this was cute and "G" rated. Tomorrow's movie (which I may post after sunset tonight) will be rated "PG" (fair warning).

Happy Chanukkah - we are DTC!

Sorry for the 10 day gap in between postings. We had a small 'glitch' with our paperwork (we were missing a required paper) and I didn't want to post until it was resolved. All is now well and our last piece of paper is hopefully being translated and the originals are on their way to China! I hope to know our log in date (LID) soon and we can count the days until we receive our Letter of Acceptance (LOA). I am still holding out hope that this will miraculously come before the Chinese/Lunar New Year holiday period begins on February 7th. We really would like to travel in March and make it home before the start of the April trade fair period in Guangzhou (which makes travel reservations extremely difficult and expensive). This may be overly optimistic, but you have to at least hope, right?

The first night of Chanukkah was last night - Chag Semeach/Happy Chanukkah everyone! Unfortunately Adam is traveling and missed it, but he will be home soon. We also got our first snowfall of the year last night and today. Adam always seems to miraculously be in a warmer climate when our snowfalls occur. Hmmmmmm...

Here is a picture of Ben with his silly Chanukkah hat before opening his first gift. (Click it to see it enlarged). Notice his little sister's picture on the counter to the left of him with her own brand new "Manny the Menorah" in the background (battery operated - the bulbs light when you touch them & plays Ma-oz Tzur) and stuffed Pooh Bear with dreidle (a hand-me-down from Ben). Next year will be so much fun with her! Ben can teach her how to spin the dreidle and I am sure that she will enjoy her first taste of latkes. I wonder which she will prefer for latke dipping - applesauce or sour cream? I am betting on applesauce, but I am a sour cream girl myself. [Note to all of my family/friends - yes, I know that my son is a long haired hippy and needs a haircut, so please save yourself the trouble of commenting on it. I have purposely have made it a non-issue with him and he is now about ready to cut it shorter again. :0) Teenagers are so much fun (in a very challenging way)!]