That other story - mystery revealed

Finally, that other story revealed. Up until now there had to be a gag order just to make absolutely sure nothing would come of it. Our local friends and family know about this, but others following our story from a distance may not know. What made our trip to China even more challenging than usual is that we moved to a new house just two weeks before our trip. We wanted to keep it out of the public eye simply due to the ream of adoption paperwork that had our old address on it, and we did not want to risk any hiccups. It's not difficult to get a new home study and amend the documents. However, the timing left no wiggle room to get it done. Now that we are back, we will be taking care of it next week.

We had been looking for something with a little more room for a few years, and our realtor had shown us a few houses during that time. We were never really in a rush, but knew that Alex needed a bigger yard and with a second child on the way it would become even more important to be able to say "go outside and play!" Our old backyard was very small and not condusive to kids playing ball or even marbles for that matter (on a hill).

In early May, Angie drove by an open house and out of curiouisty stopped in and quietly looked around. She came home and not so quietly told me that she really liked the place and thought I needed to check it out. The following week we had our realtor take us through. Angie loved the house and she asked me to play devil's advocate and find things that were not quite right. I pulled her aside while there and said "Nothing I don't like, how can we make this happen?" So on May 9th we put in a contract and on May 10th it was accepted. Timing would be settlement at the end of July - we now had to pack! And we joked that, you know, we'll probably have to travel to China.

The joke was on us! On May 13th, just three days after buying a new house, we recieved the referral for Aidan. Trying to pack for a vacation to the Grand Canyon the following day, we had only a few hours to review the paperwork and send our acceptance back to Holt International. And of course, the travel date would be about eight weeks from date of acceptance which put us into mid-July. This would be interesting.

As the summer wore on the timing became clear - our travel date was August 7th. Coupled with bumping up our settlement by about one week we had two weeks to move in and get settled before the big trip. With the help of family we were able to get packed and moved over a weekend, and by the China trip we were somewhat unpacked and settled into a new routine. We still have our share of boxes yet to be touched, but we'll get to them.

Feel free to stop by and see the new place!