2012 Year in Review

I just know that 2013 will be our best year yet!!

As we anxiously wait for our phone to ring letting us know it is our time to travel to become Miriam's parents, we are thinking about the last year and how far we have come.

January 2012 - went on hold with Gladney as we were approached by a woman due to give birth in a few short weeks.  We scrambled to get everything ready for her arrival; she was born and placed in her mother's arms.  We were not to be her parents.  We.were.crushed.

February 2012 - grieving but moving on as we were already working with another birth mom due in April!

March 2013 - Eric celebrated a birthday and we went away with some great friends for what we thought would be the last getaway before the baby.  We had a great time in Philly!!

April 2012 - quickly realized that this birth mom never really planned to place her child; it appeared she was in it for the money.  We both could not believe someone could do that.  To get away from it all packed a bag and headed to Jamaica for a getaway!  We both came back with sadness in our hearts.

May 2012 - spent time deciding what path was right for us.  We also had a great weekend away in Crisfield, Maryland with some friends.

June 2012 - I celebrated a birthday and we celebrated our 6 year wedding anniversary!!

July 2012 - trip to Maine!!  We also decided to leave the Gladney Ethiopia program and signed up with IFS and their Ethiopia program.

August 2012 - worked super hard redoing parts of our Dossier!!  Unbeknownst to us our little princess was born this month!!

September 2012 - dossier resubmitted to Ethiopia!!  Also celebrated a friends 40th in NYC!!


October 2012 - referral for a baby girl in Ethiopia!!

November 2012 - celebrated Thanksgiving in Maryland with Eric's family.  We enjoy getting updates of our little girl weekly :)

December 2012 - celebrating some good friends marriage, enjoyed the holidays with both our families and took my mom on a little getaway to Crisfield.  We are eager for 2012 to be over and 2013 to begin!

I will forever remember the year 2012 as the year we saw Miriam for the first time but 2013 will be the year she comes home forever!

Wordless Wednesday

And you, my child, shall be called . . .

After much discussion, not unusual in these instances, and the test driving of new names each week, we have settled on the perfect (naturally, we think so!) name for our Ethiopian princess:

Miriam Arline Manas

Miriam is a Hebrew name, used by many Africans too. It has a few meanings, though our favorite, and especially appropriate, is "wished for child" -- how perfect is that!

Arline was the name of Eric's grandmother who passed away a couple years ago.

We simply cannot wait to be able to share her photo with everyone!  We are of course biased but several slightly less biased admirers agree, she may just be the most beautful baby ever, for real!

2,517 Days Later........

So as to comply with that old adage of journalism "don't bury the lead" . . .  We received a referral for a beautiful baby girl, born just west of Addis Ababa on or about August 17th.

The call came late on Tuesday, October 29.  I had drifted off to sleep while Eric lay awake next to me reading.  I briefly opened my eyes and he casually mentioned that my phone had been ringing downstairs. I don't get many calls, especially at 10pm I immediately jumped up sure it was an emergency.  I went downstairs saw that the missed call was from Randi and was trying to listen to the voicemail while yelling to Eric "RANDI CALLED"!  I realized that the Ipad was downstairs....so down I went again.  Finally we called Randi back and she said the words we have waited so long to hear...."Congratualtions, it's a girl!"  We chatted for a few minutes and then got off the phone to just read over the documents and stare at the pictures we had.  I sometimes worried about what it would feel like to see her face for the first time, will I know this is our girl? . . .  OMG YES, she is the most beautiful little lady I have ever seen and we both fell in love immediately.  There was not much sleeping that night as we were just too excited, and couldn't wait to share the news with our family, who have been waiting as long as we have.

We cannot publicly share pictures until we officially become her parents but here is just a glimpse.

Now we wait for a call informing of that we have a court date in Ethiopia, just a few short months to go now, in fact a few weeks have already quickly passed.

Thank you to everyone who has walked beside us during this journey....we are almost at the finish line!

This song by Tracy Champan makes me think of our little lady in Ethiopia...

Peaches!!

Couple cute shots from taking our nephews Peach Picking this weekend. 

Can't wait for a cool crisp fall day to go Apple Picking!

Pulling the Plug!

The Manas' have decided to make a big change in our lives.....and I am a liitle nervous!  Effective this Friday, we will no longer have TV in our house.  Well, at least not cable television!  Or satellite TV!  This has been in the works for a few weeks but finally, today, I was able to put on my big girl panties and pull the plug, literally!

Some of you know us and we like shows.  Well, good shows.  Or at least what we consider good shows!  Not just your ABC, NBC, CBS shows but what I call the real shows:  United States of Tara, Dexter, Homeland, The Newsroom, Girls, True Blood...and the list goes on and on.  It has taken over our lives!  So, we pulled the plug.

We have decided to keep the internet (that is a must) and purchase a Roku Box, purchase a couple antenna's and see how long we can survive.  I will admit that I just said to Eric yesterday, should we AT LEAST buy the NFL ticket for football season?!  I mean what am I suppose to do while I eat my vegan chili on a cool Sunday afternoon...read a book :) ??!! 

I know we will survive and what I am hoping is that we spend the time talking more, laughing more, reading more, cooking together more and just being without that most insidious and American of distractions, T V.

Yes, by making this big change we will be saving about $150/month or $1800 per year and get to give a great big middle finger to those bastards at Comcast and Verizon.

Wordless Wednesday - Jamaica Memories!