Lauren&Chuck

Sounds great-- we can't wait to meet you (hopefully) at the September orientation. Thanks for your post on my question about the profile as well.

Just wondering-- has anyone done their profile solely using the computer, and not using all of the scrapbooking stuff? I'm REALLY awful at anything craft-y, but one of my best childhood friends is a graphic artist, and she offered to help us put our profile together using some super-duper computer program. I've already written some of the text for the pages and sent her some pictures (we have to take more, but my husband absolutely HATES taking pictures). Any thoughts? Thanks!

Heidi- The World Cup was awesome. We've been watching it from the beginning (and we were very happy that the U.S. at least tied Italy, or we wouldn't have been able to show our faces to our Italian neighbors and friends). We watched the semi-finals and finals in the "piazza" (town square) of the town we live in. They set up huge TV screens, and everyone (from 2 week old babies to 95 year old grandpas) watched the game in the square. When Italy won after 2 OTs and one round of penalty kicks, everyone went nuts. This adorable little Italian girl who spoke maybe 10 words of English (mostly "one, two, three" and "hello") dragged me out to dance to the band and watch the fireworks-- that were being lit right there in the square!! It was quite an experience. I head back to DC somewhat often for work (I own a consulting firm, and a couple of our big clients are in DC) so I'll be back in August for a few days... then we'll be back again for the September orientation.

Hi all- We're new to the forum, though I've been lurking for a few months as we finalized our decision about adoption. We've now officially been accepted (I talked to Angela last night). We're heading to the September orientation, and we can't wait! Quick history of us-- first, I'm excited to see all of the Michigan folks on the forum, since I'm originally from Michigan and went to U of M (go blue!). My husband and I met in DC, and moved over to Italy 2.5 years ago for his job (he works for the US Navy). We've done the infertility thing for about as long as we've been overseas, but I think we always knew that we'd end up adopting. We went to a military adoption conference in Germany last year, and met Angela there. We fell in love with Abrazo as soon as we talked to Angela, and have never considered going with any other agency. Having the knowledge that we could turn to Abrazo at any point and stop the infertility craziness was really helpful as we went through the treatment options. (Our attempts at even basic infertility treatments in Italy-- out in town, not at the base hospital-- were absoluely comical, straight out of a Seinfeld episode... so we stopped pretty soon after we started). Looking forward to getting to know all of you, and to meet those of you who will be at the September orientation. Lauren (and Chuck)