6 months

Well, it's been 6 months now. Half a year. Half-way through the wait??? I would like to think so, but probably not!



Referrals are here for the month. Looks like they went from July 13-July 22. Gosh. It took them a whole month to match 9 days worth of dossiers. That makes me sick. So now we are another month behind which makes it a 14 month wait now. I really hope they speed up soon. I keep saying that...like a broken record. It is getting really difficult to stay optimistic about this. I just keep going one day at at time. That is all we can do. Please keep us (and all the other waiting families) in your thoughts as we struggle through this long wait for Mia.




Anyway, on the 6-month anniversary of our LID, I have decided to give you some fun facts about China:

• China, the fourth largest country in the world, is big enough to have several time zones, but only has one.
• The Chinese year is based on the cycles of the moon. This is called a lunar schedule. The Chinese new year is different every year, but is usually comes between the end of January and the middle of February. A complete cycle of the Chinese calendar takes 60 years, or 5 sets of 12. The Chinese calendar dates back to 2600 B.C. It is the oldest known calendar.
• China is a vast nation. It has everything from tropical to subarctic conditions. Beijing is the capitol. The Chang Jiang river is the fourth longest river in the world. Mt. Everest, the highest mountain at 8,848m, is shared with Nepal.
• China is the world’s largest consumer of Coca-Cola.
• Ice cream was invented in China when a milk-and-rice mixture was combined with packed snow.
• China has more English-speaking people than England.
• China has the most televisions of any country in the world.
• China’s native animals include pandas, tigers, dolphins, monkeys, alligators, reindeer, yaks and snow leopards.
• Colors have symbolic meanings in China. Red and gold are seen as “lucky” and are used in weddings, celebrations and on New Year’s Day. White and black are mourning colors, used in funerals and sad occasions. Because of this, wedding dresses are traditionally red. The color blue symbolizes heaven and the sky.
• There are several thousand characters that make up the Chinese language. English only has 26.
• Fourth graders are expected to know 2,000 of the over 40,000 written Chinese characters. By the time they leave college, they will know 4,000 or 5,000 characters. Each character is learned by looking at it and memorizing it. Unlike the 26 letters of our alphabet, words cannot be sounded out letter by letter.
• It is considered good luck for the gate to a house to face south.
• The Great Wall of China is so large that astronauts have seen it from the moon!
• China has the largest population of any country in the world.