Introducing.....GRACIE

Isn't she a cutie:)

We had just decided to wait until Spring, when we learned that the Humane Society had puppies. Dan and I visited with the pups. There were 6 in her litter. Gracie is by far the smallest and most submissive. I was able to watch the puppies eat, play,and then sleep. Gracie was the one who got stepped on, knocked over, and gave up her toys without much of a fight. They had given all the puppies G names. She was Grace, but we prefer Gracie. Her mother is a black lab, and her father is a rotti/mastiff mix. She isn't nearly as big as Sadie was,but check out those paws!

Thanks, everyone for your opinions. It was fun reading your responses. The only thing we HAD decided on was the puppy part. We rescued Kody as an adult, and he came with lots of issues. We are trying to implement some "Dog Whisperer" techniques, and have already seen some positive changes.

Looking for Opinions

We are thinking about adding a puppy to our family next spring or summer. We will probably go with a rescue puppy which will most likely be a mixed breed. If not, we will go with a lab or a golden. So,here is where I would like your opinion. Rescue or pure-bred and why? Lab or Golden retriever and why? What color lab? I've heard black are the smartest, then yellow, then chocolate. We kind of like chocolate. If it is a mixed breed, it will be a lab or golden mix. Is there a certain mix you would not recommend? Thanks. I can't wait to hear some responses.:)

Petition Sent

Yesterday morning, Meredith and I headed out with the adoption petition. First, we stopped at Dan's office where one of his co-workers notarized our signatures. Then, we girls set off for Augusta for an apostille. It always kills me to pay $10 plus the 1 hr. drive, for such an ordinary looking sticker. Someone should fancy it up a bit.:) A stop at Kinkos for copies was followed by a trip to the post office, and...the petition is on its way to South Carolina where it will be forwarded to Estonia.Hurray! One more step is completed.

The form itself was very simple and straight-forward. The problem was, that we had to put Little Man's official new name on it. We have spent hours talking about his name, and what we might call him. His name looks easy, but in Estonian, it is completely different from the way we would pronounce it here. Just becoming American will change his name. So, if we are going to change his name anyway, shouldn't we pick something we both like? Should we just Americanize Andres and make it Andrew? We might have done that, but he cannot yet make an "r" sound. He may never be able to say Crawford clearly. We want him to have a name he can say! So we started trying out names. Nothing seems to fit except...

Andres- they say AHN-drehs, almost sounds like UN dress with a rolled "r"
Americans say Ahn-drace
Andreas-they say AHN-dray-us the dray-us is very quick, almost dray-ss
Americans say Ahn-DRAY-us


So, if we went with Andres, it would much closer to the name he knows as his. But....his given name is Andreas.It is written on all of his clothing and labels in his orphanage. He most likely recognizes it as his name. So, we finally decided to keep it. It just doesn't seem right to us to change the name of a 10-yr.-old boy. Please do not get me wrong. I have NO PROBLEM with other people changing the name of their adopted child.

As far as we know, he doesn't have a middle name. I am still hopeful that it will show up on another document if he was given one. His last name is another tricky one with different possibilities. The Estonian pronunciation is very like a common first name, so we are using it as his middle name. So, all that work for nothing.:) The only change we made was to add Crawford on the end.

The plan is to call him AHN-dray-s, and spell it Andreas until we come up with a good nickname. Oh, yeah, I call him Little Man because the name comes from the Greek, andros which means man. I'm such a Geek about languages. If I ever get rich, I'll be off to Europe to study.

Good News

We just received our petition to adopt form!!!!!! We were told the other documents have been completed and are being translated. We should have them soon,and then we can file our I-800. I'm feeling sort of stunned, but in a good way.:)Wow, I'm so excited!