Saturday

There's not much new going on here these days, but I thought I'd made a quick post anyway so that everyone knows I'm still alive! :)

The stress I've been feeling about life recently is getting much better. We got pretty much all the paperwork and other projects done that we needed to do and things are starting to calm down a bit. We were actually planning to go out of town this weekend but we had a little change of plans.

Every summer my mom does a cousins camp for all the grandkids, so we take the kids to her house and then spend a few days on our own, which is always fun! It's a four hour drive to my moms house and this year we were going to rent a hotel room for a few days and just have a relaxing getaway.

But everytime I went to make the reservations I just kept feeling guilty about spending money on another trip when we have our Korea trip to save for. Two nights in a hotel now could pay for two nights in a hotel in Korea. Saving for that trip is our #1 priority right now. We've been out of town a lot lately and that's been part of what has been stressing me out, so we amended our plan a bit.

I'm going to stay home by myself and Shawn is going to take the kids to my moms house and then he's going to go stay with his dad for a few days while the kids are at cousins camp. Shawn's dad lives about a half hour away from my mom and he hasn't had the chance to spend a lot of time with him for a while, so I think it will be nice for them to have a few days together to catch up. I've got things I can do around the house while they're gone, so I think this will work out best.

So they'll leave Monday morning and be back Wednesday night. While they're gone I think I might paint the guest room or make something for Clarissa's room or find another project to do. I could use a few days of peace and quiet. It will be good.

Today we had a fun little adventure with our Korean friend Larry! I've mentioned Larry several times, he's the Korean guy who used to work with Shawn before they closed the retail portion of Shawn's pharmacy. Once he lost his job at the pharmacy he got a good job in another town (my hometown, actually. The town Shawn is taking the kids to on Monday) so he doesn't live here anymore. He still has a girlfriend here though so he comes back here on the weekends frequently and he's practically become part of our family, so we get together whenever we can.

He was in town today so he called to see if we wanted to go on another field trip to an Asian market that we hadn't been to yet. I love going to Asian markets with him. We go through the aisles and he shows us all different kinds of food that we've never heard of before and then he buys the kids Korean cookies. It's always a fun time at the Asian market. :)

After that we went out for pizza with Larry and his girlfriend and then we went to the park to feed the ducks, which I absolutely love to do! It was a really fun afternoon and nice to see Larry again.

I talked to my new Korean friend in Seoul again last night and it was awesome! I'm so thrilled to have a friend to talk to in Korea. She's helping me learn some Korean words, although I'm a little intimidated because I'm not very good! Her English is much better than my Korean! One thing she's helping me with is learning to say something to Clarissa's foster mother when we go pick her up. I really want to tell her foster mother thank you for all that she has done for us, but I want to be able to say it in Korean. After all she's done for our family the least I can do is learn to thank her in her own language. So I wrote out a few sentences of what I wanted to say to her and my Korean friend is going to help me learn to say it. I've got a few months to practice so hopefully I can do it!

So that's all that is going on here lately. There's nothing much new with the adoption right now. We're still waiting for our legals to get here. That's the paperwork that the Korean agency sends to the American agency giving them guardianship of Clarissa so that they can start filing paperwork on her behalf. Until we get that nothing else can happen. It usually takes three weeks or so, so I'm expecting it soon.

For now I'm off to bed. I've made it through another day, which brings us one day closer to Clarissa! Yay!! :)