LID 6.2.06

We will miss him!

The clouds parted and the sun came out for a brief period of time for all of us to say goodbye to our Chief.
Yesterday our Fire Chief retired after 32 years with the department. How do you say goodbye to the Best Chief EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He will be greatly missed by all of us here on SCFD & in Sarasota County.

On his last day as chief of the Sarasota County Fire Department, Brian Gorski gets a hug from Battalion Chief Matthew Flynn, during a surprise official send-off Tuesday afternoon. More than 100 local fire personnel, along with Gorski's family and the Sarasota County Fire Department Honor Guard, were on hand for the ceremony. Gorski's fire career began in Sarasota as a volunteer firefighter in 1976.

Babies! referrals up to 3/20/2006

Babies, sorry all I am a few days late on this post!!!!

The following blogs have pictures!

The Red Thread Journey

Alliegrace

Side of Fries

Our Journey to Hailey

Mommy Moon

Father Mother Sister Brother

The following blogs have their referral but no pictures yet:

At Last

Helenm

ma petite beauté bridée de Chine

The following families are expecting their referral in this batch:

Little Sister Williams

The following families in other programs would like to share their news with us:

Our New Family Recipe

Be Home

Tell Her This

The Johnson Family

Lizards and Ladybugs

Carseat Tourist

Sugar and Spice

Always In My Heart

Dragons and Elephants

The following blogs have music and are not work safe:

Grossesse made in China

The above information is from Rumour Queen.

Link clean up

Have gone thru my links today and did a quickie update.....if I deleted you or moved you into the wrong area please just drop me a line and I will fix ya. I am not too good with blogger's new layout, the widgets and I do not play well together soooooooooooo there are probably some mistakes.
Those that are returning today and tomorrow from China I have already moved you to the "home" category :) woooooooohooooooooo!
Man those links are getting small, soon we will be on the top! I hear rumours that they are placing up til the 21st of March-7 days would be good but at that rate it will be another 6-12 months for June. Keep your fingers crossed it will speed up. You can check out the rumors here if you dare.
Congratulations to those up to 3/21/06 !

Pug Mama is in China!!

After all the waiting they have finally made it to China and are now holding their prescious baby girl in their arms. Make sure you go over to Pug Mama's site to check out their journey.

If you live in ....

Southwest Florida.....................(*Please click on picture for larger view)

Referrals ! Up to 3/14/06

The following blogs have pictures!
Je t’aime
Jon and Karen Go To China
Linda & David
The Shelton Family
kimmieeleven
quail32

The following have their referrals but no pictures yet:
Bringing Home Emily

The following families are expecting a referral in this batch:
Spitting Wooden Nickels
Hotmama
meilismom
ILMChuck
waiting-for-ava
Mary
kellyrn5

More vacation fun!

We're home!

What a vacation. We have just returned from a 16 day trans-atlantic cruise to Europe and just today I am back to "normal" from the 14 hour return flight from Spain. I just can't imagine what the flight from China will feel like. I have uploaded a few pictures for all to see. Our itinerary was as follows:
6.5 days at sea from Ft. Lauderdale to Maderia, Portugal (day7)

then a sea day(day 8)
(day 9)Cadiz
(daY 10) Gibralter
(day 11) at sea
(day 12)Cagliary, Italy
(day 13)Civitavecchia (Rome)
(day 14)Livorno (Florence)
(day 15)Monte Carlo (which we were not able to dock at this port) so it was on to (day 16)Barcelona, Spain

Was lots of fun, don't know if I would cruise across the ocean again but would definately go back to Rome when we have more time to visit the area.

I will try and add these pictures again, there seems to be problems with photobucket

Our 1st day in Port

Port of Funchal, Maderia Protugal
Finally a day off the ship!!! Today was our first day in Port and what a beautiful place it was. We have uploaded a few pics and will share more when we return home. Yes, we are wearing jackets…it was 60 degrees F and got up to about 68.
Madeira is 35 miles in length and 14 miles wide with an elevation on 6,106 feet. Portuguese is the language but most everyone spoke English that we ran into. Funchal is the capital of Maderia. We used the Euro for the very first time J it takes $1.42 in US dollars to equal 1.00 Euro so we are not making out on the deal very well. Fortunately (unfortunately) today was a holiday and most of the shops were closed so we didn’t have to spend much while shopping. Got a few postcards but the post office was closed too.
Hope all is well !
Next port is Cadiz, Spain on Monday…..bye until then.

**Krista, I got your e-mail but Facebook is soooooo slow out here in the ocean...will drop you a line as soon as I get better internet.

On the high sea

Hello from somewhere between the United States and Europe. Today is our 2nd day at sea and it is much smoother sailing today, yesterday was rolling, rolling, rolling seas. I will try and post a few pics just top see how the internet speed is at sea.

Vacation time!!!

Bye for a few weeks....Gordon and I are leaving for a 16 day cruise Saturday am bright and early. We will be visiting Portugal, Spain and Italy (My favorite of course) My in-laws will be moving into our house to take care of Jasmin& Moose, there is no way our dogs will be boarded. Hopefully I won't gain the usual cruise 10 lbs (which I still haven't lost the 20 from our last 2 cruises) What the hell....it's not like I get to travel and enjoy a few weeks alone with my husband very often. Not too thrilled about the flight back from Spain but I guess it will be a mini trial run for whenever we go to China. Wow, after reading that it does sound like I am on speed...............ok so I am excited. Lots to still do and pack!!!!! How the hell are you supposed to pack for 3 formal nights, 3 countries and 16 days all with only 1 carry on and 1 checked bag each? I am NOT leaving my super cool black heels at home no matter what either.

See you on the flip side:)

Smoke detector installation

Today we helped with smoke dector installation for one of the local homeowner's associations in our area. This can be a very boring day going from home to home checking our smoke dectors, fire extinguishers and surge protectors unless of course you have my partner with you and one of us always has a camera. Here are a few pics from today.....

Kerri kissing the windshield of Engine 7, with long wearing lipstick....so mean :)
Who needs a ladder???

Easily distracted.........................I found a puppy

Pug's got a referral !!!!!!!!!!!!!

EXCITING...................after all this time of waiting they got her referral. Please stop over at Pug Mama's and give her the congrats she deserves. Can you believe they waitied 1,126 days for this little child??? Na Fan Fu (she is called Fan Fan)

I am so happy for them.

Waiting with a mama

I am stalking Pug's blog to see her referral. Even I am anxious for her. Come on referral!!!!!!!!!!! How much can a girl take.

Spending a full day (7 hours so far) on the computer, glad we are slow at work today.

Family

This past sunday I spent a few hours up at my dad's house with my aunt and cousin, here are a few pics. I can't believe my dad is in his 70's now, where has the time gone.

From left to right: Uncle Tom, Aunt Amy & Ernie (dad)

Chinese food in America

I saw this on a fellow adoptive bloggers site and thought it was too fun not to share. Approx 16.5 minutes to view.
OMG, I just realized it looks like she is giving the "finger" ....she isn't, just pushing up her glasses, this is still a PG rated site.

OK, Magazine is finally out

So, now that the magazine is out...here are a few photos from the shoot.

Rumors

Well, looks as if March 6th is going to be the cut off this month.................OMG! THIS SUCKS!

Something still isn't quite right with my blog.....is it the colors? Too many colors in the font?? Maybe I have been looking at it for too long. I'm sooooooooooooo bored (yawn)!

Making changes.........again

Bare with me....it's either the blog or my hair and I just had a haircut and color!!! I have to FIX something.

Paperwork

Is my referral somewhere in there????????

Change

Yes, I have changed the look again. I just wasn't happy with that black backgound on my last layout. This is header is an actual picture from China. One of my Captains and her husband (YES a female captain- GO GIRL POWER) visited China a few years ago and gave me a disc of their trip. I told her sometime last year that I wanted to make something for my webpage from her beautiful pictures and she was pleased that I wanted to use one of their pictures. So, with all of that said, I think I like this web look the best. Now if I could be snazzy like my friend Jonni I would have a few pictures going around in the header. Oh so much to learn.

Eagles concert

When was the last time you went to a concert? Me, it was sometime back in the early 80's. Last night Gordon and I went with some of our friends to Tampa to see the Eagles play, it was their "long Road out of Eden" tour. We had fun, but Tampa is NOT the place you want to be right now.......with the Superbowl up there this weekend, it's totally crazy. No pictures were allowed in side the center but I did snap a pic from where we were sitting with my cell phone just for proof.

From where we were sitting

My Honey


Tampa Embassy Suite Hilton,check out the wall.

Random Hadden shots

Since I am hardly ever featured on my own blog, thought I would put a few pics of us up for your viewing pleasure :)

Aches & Pains

Yes, even my danes get to sleep with a heating pad and electric blankets. At 8 years old, they still love to run & play but oh in the mornings it is tough for them to get out of bed. So, like any good mommy would do, we got them heating blankets :) Any yes they do like having them too.

Moose actually has the heating pad on his hips in this picture.

New Peepers

Finally I have advanced to "Progressive lenses", do you know what these are? It is a fancy name for BIFOCALS, you just don't see any lines when you look at or thru them. Oh and since my prescription is so strong these babies cost me just about $500 buckaroos. Not that I wear my glassses very often but when I take out my contacts I need something to wear so I can find my way out of a room. Yep, that blind. So here is a pic of my new glasses....don't look to close at those sunspots and wrinkles either.

Babies

The following blogs have pictures!:

Grimes Party of Five

Annabelle Arriving

The following blogs have their referral!

Waiting-for-Miss-Daisy

The following blogs are expecting a referral in this batch:

Lara at Last

The following families are adopting from other programs and would like to share their news:

Julia Makes Four

Waiting for Hope

Hoping for Hannah

The following blogs have music and are not work safe:

Journey to Lily Mei

Referrals

March 2? You are telling me that they have only made it up thru March 2nd???????????? When will it all end? We are 3 months away but at this pace it will be atleast another year :( Please let there be some good news after the Chinese New Year....Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Pictures

**Pictures have been removed until March.

Help us win!!!

Please click on the banner and help Southwest Great Dane Rescue (located in Bradenton, FL) win up to $10,000. in cold hard cash!!! It takes a lot of moola to keep these guys fit and looking fine for all to adopt and anywhere we can get money we go for it!

As you all know, I write the webpage for the SWGDR and have 2 Great Danes myself, love them! Click here to view our Danes in rescue currently.