[mommieof2cuties]

I am in Tampa and after thanksgiving could come meet you to do a playdate Bush Gardens is fun, the zoo, Apollo beach has a free manatee viewing center, gardens and nature walks, and about two miles away from that is a great playground. I am out of the area for Turkey day or believe me I would invite you all over

YEAH on the new baby! Sorry things are taking so long!

Two great malls in town are the international mall, and westshore mall, play area by jc pennys. Also Tampa has some great consignment shops if your into that with play areas

Summer

[Linny]

How wonderful to have a new baby for Thanksgiving!!!!! Lovely photos too. Congratulations to all of you!!!!! Many blessings for a wonderful day--even though the weather is coolish. (It was that way too when we picked up our baby years ago! LOL)

Sincerely,

Linny

[leenie71]

No advice on Tampa, but wanted to say congrats!!! What a beautiful family!!

[AdoptInMe]

Thanks for all the nice thoughts everyone. Yeah, we're trying to make the most of being here. I guess we just thought this one would be much quicker. Last time, we were here 10 days before our dd was born, so we had to kill time beforehand. But we flew home a week after she was born. This time, I think the holiday is just interfering a bit. Oh well. We went to a nice Thanksgiving buffet, and we've spent a lot of time at the beach. The weather has been nice. But I think it's supposed to get yucky. Today should be nice, though.

We will take our dd to the zoo. But I think we'll save Busch Gardens, even though I would love to go now. We do have to come back here to finalize (it's included in our agency fee). And our ds will be a bit older then.

mommieof2cuties, I would love to do a playdate. We are probably going to be leaving on Tuesday or Wednesday. If you happen to have some time before then, please pm me .

[AdoptInMe]

Grrr, I am so angry! We have been waiting for ICPC clearance, hoping we would get it the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. That did not happen, because our agency was missing documents and it got delayed. So, we came to terms with being stuck here through Thanksgiving. Fine. BUT we expected that we would get clearance today, no reason why we couldn't, right? So, I called our agency here to see if FL cleared us, and they did, sent it to ME last Wednesday. I then called our agency in Maine, who called the ICPC office there, and he said that he got the document from FL just this afternoon, but it was missing any kind of tpr or signing document from birthparents. So, we would have been cleared to go today, but somebody screwed up, AGAIN. The price of our flight goes up over $100 per ticket if we fly on Wednesday, and we are just completely at the end of the rope emotionally. We are tired of waiting on edge for permission to go home. We've been here for 16 days, and we just want to go home .

Okay, if I look at this objectively, we have our baby boy in our arms, we should be happy, and don't get me wrong, we are so happy. But I just want to go home . Oh, did I already say that? Sorry, I just had to vent.

[4everwaiting]

Sorry its taking so long to get ICPC clearance!!! Wish there were something to could say to make it better!

Vent away, if I were in your shoes I'd probably vent too...

Sandra