Hi! We're the Marfias
- Jim, Barb & Christy
(reading from right to left)!
My interests are chess, music and computers; 
(by the way, if YOU want to
learn to play chess -
- Jim, Barb & Christy
(reading from right to left)!
My interests are chess, music and computers;
(by the way, if YOU want to
learn to play chess -
Barb likes to read (when she's not working), and go places with her hubby, when our cats don't demand her attention
Our daughter likes to sing, play piano or computer, and watch Gilbert & Sullivan on home video.
When we started this, we were about halfway into the process of adopting a seventh family member - a little Chinese girl. (We've also got two older daughters and a son - they're grown & gone.) She arrived, finally, in August 1998, and we want to tell you about it!
I think it's time for an update, don't you?
We now have a rough travel date. Our papers went to China last September (1997), which we are told means we should expect a referral (picture plus medical history of our proposed daughter) about thirteen months from that. But NOW we're being told that the China Adoption Bureau (or whatever it's called) has added some thirty staff persons to sort the applications; and now that those extra thirty pairs of hands are trained, the processing is going MUCH faster. So much faster, in fact, that we're now told it could be as little as TEN months before we find out what Rebecca Jade looks like! Or how old she is, or where we'll be adopting her from... Stuff like that.
I can't praise our adoption groups too highly - it's WONDERFUL being able to talk to other people who have "been there, done that", and who are not at all shy about helping you us out with advice and even the loan of various bits of "necessary equipment". Thank you all - your reward must surely be great in Heaven! And it's nice just to go down once a month and see all those bright, bustling little girls - who could NOT want to adopt, after a night like that!?
Barb's parents were up (from Florida) last weekend. I think we've finally succeeded in explaining to them that, Yes, this is REALLY what we want to do with our "middle-age years"; and YES, we REALLY want to adopt from China, not anyplace else. Now, if I could just convince MY family...
As close as we're getting to The Day, it's become time to make some changes to The Residence. We have a bedroom, Christy has a bedroom - but that's all the upstairs space there is! Where does Jade sleep? It won't be in the basement - and it costs WAY too much to add on, considering what it'll cost just to go get her.
So the Plan is to move us (Becky's Mom & Dad) downstairs, next to Dad's office, into a bedroom newly formed out of the half of the rec room we never use anyway; then Christy will move into her parents' bedroom, and Jade gets Christy's old room. See how simple?
- Except that it takes painting, and moving furniture up, and moving furniture down, and cleaning the carpets, and furnishing Jade's bedroom - well, it's a good thing we're starting now, or I don't know how we'd get done by - what is it now, August!!?
Tell you what - I think I'll redesign this page, and turn this back half into a monthly journal. And someday, I swear, I'm gonna get the hang of embedding pictures. Wouldn't want to adopt the little darlin, and then not post her beautiful face for the world to admire now, would we!?
Today we got our referral - we will go to Jiangxi Province, probably by the first of August, and pick up an adorable 21-month-old, GUO HONG JUAN. We're so excited, we can hardly breathe, let alone work!
If you want to see what a referral picture like that turns into...
To follow the story of how we came to adopt, Go to Getting Started
For those of you who just want to cut to the chase... - Go to Going To China - Part I!
Today we returned from our Long March - the trip for Becky Jade. She's home with us now, thriving, and doing fine, charming everyone who meets her. We'll start a new web page for her - Barb's Page, where you can see her grow and sweeten!
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