Over the last month ...

Goodness, I haven't posted on my blog for just under a month!

We certainly have a long way to go, Scott and I, before we'll reach the exciting part of the adoption process. As time goes by, I'll probably only update this blog when something of importance happens so as not to bore anyone with our day to day trivialities (sp? is that even a word?).

New Friends ...
A couple of weeks ago we had the greatest of pleasure meeting a family who adopted two darling little boys from Thailand, they are now 7 and 4. Both were adopted at aged 3 and a bit. The youngest has been home only 8 months or so. From the minute we arrived, it hit me - it was as if the boys had both been living in that house forever - they were (and are) completely and 100% their parent's children :)

Both boys openly, happily and without reservation, spoke about their adoption process, what they remembered about Thailand and the orphanages where they spent their first years, places they'd been and the people they knew in the early days. To the credit of their parents, these little fellas were open, relaxed, affectionate and well-attached to their Australian life without having to sacrifice any of their Thai beginnings. Such an amazing thing to witness! I hope we can do half as good of a job with our parenting as our friends have done.


WEDDING Update ...
We're now exactly three weeks away from our wedding day and things are travelling along nicely with the arrangements and what-not. Oh, apart from the fact that up until the 31st of October I didn't have a wedding dress. The "designers" in the USA ... well, the less said about them the better ... short version, the dress took ages in arriving and much to my dismay turned out to be nothing like I desired and hideous to boot. A short panicked minute later and a chat with my Aunty (a *very* talented dressmaker who lives in Sydney) and I was back on track and heading up to the city to find a replacement wedding dress with only 3 weeks to go!

Needless to say, I was rather fed up, disappointed and a little bit crazed thinking that I would have to wear a hessian sack to my own wedding if I couldn't find anything suitable at the 11th hour.

Note to self : NEVER buy clothing from overseas that is custom made unless you can get a good referral from someone who has done it before you! Sometimes it takes more than just good old trust.

Anyhow, hopefully I will have something definite worked out in a couple of days time. Fingers crossed.

All of the other things, ceremony, reception, flowers, guests, blah blah blah are all happening just as they should. Without much doing on my part at all really. There are definitely people in the world you can depend on when you need to! Thanks Judy + team (Fleurtys - wedding/reception place), Wedding Cake Maker (who shall remain anonymous as I don't know her name but nevertheless she's doing a great job!), Dot & Terri (Florists), Margaret (Wedding dress store lady) -- you are all such gems and I can't thank you enough!

It's getting exciting now as we'll have our nearest and dearest with us for at least a whole weekend as our Wedding is on the Friday night, we'll stay overnight at a lovely place called Peppermint Ridge Retreat for our wedding night and then hang out with friends and family on the weekend. Then on Monday it's off to Piermont Retreat (there's a lot of retreating going on here) for 3 nights/4 days. This is the one I'm really looking forward to - it's an absolutely lush, beachfront cottage setup that was built with bio-sustainability as it's greatest priority.

Here's the description that Piermont gives on it's site: "Featuring walls of local stone almost half a metre thick, local timbers, and roofs of Kashmiri slate, each cottage is built bio-sustainably, with quality fittings and wood fires. Fully self-contained, each cottage features a neutral magnetic field to guarantee restful sleep and that feeling of personal renewal that guests say is Piermont's signature." Sounds like a place I could get used to.

This is the life I was born to live and I intend to live it up! Yes, Scott's coming along too ;)

So long as my bad karma doesn't kick in any further (apart from the dress incident) we should have no further dramas. Knock on wood, just to be sure.