We are having a lovely summer. The weather is great and we are holding weekends away to a minumum. Since we had an “empty” day yesterday, we took a ride out west to Virgina wine country. We spent a weekend out there this winter and loved it…
The weather was faboulous… the wines only get mixed reviews. First, the good wineries. Veramar offers lovely grounds and nice wines. The services was fantasic. I could spend an entire afternoon sitting on thier patio. The wines were tasty and reasonably priced. We also really enjoyed Lost Creek. Again, great service and a nice atmosphere. They offer a covered picnic pavolion where several ladies were enjoying wine and a bridal shower (as we walked past the bride opened a nightie, my busband instisted on averting his eyes –they were having a great time). It was very well maintained property.
The owners of Lost Creeks’ son runs a neighboring winery – Hidden Brook. Hidden Brook had none of the same atmosphere. It felt rushed and they were so rushed that they forgot to tell us what we were drinking. The wines lacked any depth and everything ended up tasting the same. We also stopped by Tarara, the grande dame of VA wineries. We have been there several years ago and were disappointed this time. The deck is great – free live music and they encourage picnicing (which we did). They sampled ten (!) wines. They all tasted either “thin” or sweet to me. Such a disappointment. However, the location is great. It is worth a visit just to look around.
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This weekend we saw “Jesus Christ Superstar” at Wolftrap and “Oceans 13″. Neither were very good.
“Jesus Christ Superstar” is a favorite of my husband. I didn’t really know much about it… Do you think I am going to burn in hell for thinking that, as Jesus was on the cross, I was hopeing that he would just die faster? Sacrilege, I know. My defense – I really didn’t like the show. It was straight out of the 70’s and as far as I could tell, not the good part of the 70’s. (Were there good parts?) The music was tired, the set was boring and the costumes were unimaginative.
“Oceans 13″ had superstar power with George Clooney, Angelina’s Jolie’s husband and all… but, the story was tired. It seemed to a slightly tweaked version of Oceans 11. It should have been fun, instead it was boring and uninspired.
I had a tough week. My work computer crashed, I lost my palm pilot (which is my life in a housed in a few square inches), I had my first proposal due (ah? $250M with 5 awards, kinda a big deal) and I was helping faciliate contract recompete sessions from 4-8pm three days in a row. Plus… the china adoption referral news was not postive (as noted in a previos post).
I feel like there are gremlins following me (have you seen that commercail for Emerald nuts with Robert Goulet? That is my life! Someone is messing with my stuff…)
The good news? I found my Palm Pilot! It had hidden itself in the LINING of my work bag in a hole barely big enough to fit it. So, I bought a new bag… here is to a better week! Cheers everyone!
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We re-did our “adoption forecast” today. Best guess for our referrnal is Feb 2009!
While this forecast only uses historical data, I think it is telling. Over the past two months, China has only referred 7 days with of LIDs – they are through Nov 7, 2006. That means there are still 10 months worth a LIDs in front of us… this could take a really long time. Let’s hope things speed up.
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Our prediction for LID 2006-08-03
Our best guess – a weighted average of recent CCAA velocities, guessing that CCAA will perform about as well in the future as they are performing now, but might return to previous trends: 2009-02-11
That’s our best guess for when you might receive your referral. Just at a guess, we can suppose that the CCAA either speeds up or slows down significantly, and show you those dates. If they speed up: 2008-08-27. And if they slow down: 2012-05-03.
Since China generally sends out referrals in a batch about once per month, your referral date could easily vary +/- one month depending on whether you just get included or just get missed in a particular batch.
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Well, there is an interesting trend in Chinese adoption… more and more boys! This month several boys were referred. Maybe the times are changing in China? I don’t have any really numbers to share, but it seems more boys are being made available for adoption.
