Celebrating our Referral

Sorry, the photos were taken on my iPhone* so they aren't the best.

Matt was supposed to work late on Friday so we didn't expect him home for dinner. Of course, when we received "the call", he shared the good news with his co-workers and shot out the door.

Chloe had Chinese* school on Friday afternoon so I took her to art and dance. The school is an ad hoc school run by parents with children adopted from China and the NYC Chinese Cultural Center. I told Chloe she could share our good news with everyone at school. After class was over I went into the room with the other mothers and asked Chloe if she wanted to share her big news.

She started jumping up and down and yelled out with much excitement, "Barak Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize"!

WHAT?!

"No, that's the President's big news--what's your big news?" I asked.

"Oh, we got our referral for my brother in Eth-ee-pee-o-ha," she said non-chalantly, upset no one else shared her joy on the President's prize. I don't think its sunk in yet with her.

To celebrate our referral we went to eat Ethiopian food at Lalibela* Restaurant in S. Orange*, NJ. This was our first time having Ethiopian food and our waiter, Austin, was very helpful. The table of four adults next to us was so impressed that Chloe tried and ate the Ethiopian food---that's our girl.

We spent the rest of the weekend sharing the good news with friends, staring at the one photo we have of Oliver and kicking the house projects into high gear.

We will speak further with our agency this week or next and find out what's the next step in bringing home Oliver.