Moon Festival

The Chinese Moon Festival is on the 15th of the 8th lunar month. It's also known as the Mid-autumn Festival. Chinese culture is deeply imbedded in traditional festivals. Just like Christmas and Thanksgiving in the West, the Moon Festival is one of the most important traditional events for the Chinese.

The Moon Festival is full of legendary stories. Legend says that Chang Er flew to the moon, where she has lived ever since. You might see her dancing on the moon during the Moon Festival. The Moon Festival is also an occasion for family reunions. When the full moon rises, families get together to watch the full moon, eat moon cakes, and sing moon poems. With the full moon, the legend, the family and the poems, you can't help thinking that this is really a perfect world. That is why the Chinese are so fond of the Moon Festival.

So tonight we joined FCC Tampa Bay (Families with Children from China) to celebrate the Moon Festival in Al Lopez park. We met up with our new friend Kelly, who has a log-in-date (LID) the week before us and she is also with our adoption agency, CCAI.

The little girls were adorable and they had activities to participate in such as making Chinese Lanterns. When the sun went down there was a "parade of lanterns". We did not get to stay for this part, but we heard it was pretty cool. They were selling T Shirts and lot of great children's storybooks.

FCC provided the food and drinks, and each family brought a side dish. The food was really great, and yes, Drew even had a moonpie! Everybody was so nice and we actually knew several couples and their daughters from our monthly luncheons. It was so awesome to experience our first Chinese festival, and of course seeing all the girls was the highlight! We look forward to experiencing these moments with our own daughter some day...

LID 9/11/2006

We are so thrilled I am beyond words...It is so amazing that this day is finally here. This is the biggest milestone in this whole process and I really feel it will be easier from here on out. Of course as long as my obsessions don't take over again, we should be just fine.

Yesterday we received our special news that officially ends our "paperchasing debut" to the adoption world. China has accepted us as potential parents and that is just what we needed to hear.

To have 9-11-06 as our log-in date, it can finally put a teeny weeny smile in our hearts that we will remember this date for 1 thing other than the tragic sadness and loss that we will continually grieve for each year.

Thank you for all your support and love on this journey to our daughter!!

Still no word...

This past week has been rather uneventful other than checking my email at least twice an hour every afternoon when I get home from school. We are still waiting on the last and most important piece of this adventure to feel secure that we are officially "waiting" for our daughter. I find my behavior quite obsessive at this point, but I am comforted by fellow Yahoo Group members that I am not the only one.
A bunch of people in my Aug/Sept. CCAI group received their LID's last week (Log In Date). Congratulations to everyone!
Hopefully this will be the week!