We've finally moved!! It is so nice to no longer be in an apartment. I was thinking about how far we have come since we moved to Maryland. We took a step backwards to come here and now it is paying off. We are now in the position to be able to adopt and bring home Ava. Brian has been doing a lot of overtime and now my hours are picking up again. We would love to be able to pay for her adoption without taking any loans so it will be easier to adopt #2 someday. For the last seven years we have been buying things for our baby. We have just stored everything in boxes and put it all away. When we moved into the townhouse we decided to take it all out and put it in her room. Her things are so nice for us to see...It keeps reminding us why we are working so hard. My friend Michelle gave us a bunch of baby girl clothes. They are all hanging in her closet on little pink hangers. Our little Ava also now has her own portable DVD player courtesy of her Daddy. Brian got a free DVD player, since he already has one he decided to put the new one away for Ava. Knowing Brian our 2 year old will be in the backseat of the car watching a DVD, listening to her IPOD, talking on her cell phone while using her PDA!! My friend Angel has also bought her clothes and a picture frame. We recently bought books, a Big bird in China DVD and a stuffed bunny for Easter. Something tells me Miss Ava is going to be one spoiled little baby girl!

Now that we are moved and settled we can start working on her adoption. On Thursday we are going to apply for our passports. We will need copies of them for our homestudy so we want to make sure we have them for the summer. We also have to decide which agency we will use for our homestudy. We are considering World Child Adoptions and Creative Adoptions. I've talked to people who have used both and so far it seems that Creative adoptions moves a bit slower. We just cant wait to begin.

A new opportunity has also come up for us. Now that Brian has 3 years at his job we are now eligible to take temporary duty assignments. We are now considering taking a position in Toronto, Canada (don't freak out Angel) for 2-4 years. We would do this after we bring Ava home. This would allow me to be a stay at home mom because our living expenses would be covered by Brian's job. They will cover up to $3600 a month for a mortgage and utilities. They will also pay for us to move there and if I decided at some point to work they would pay for Ava's daycare. We would also only pay federal income taxes... we would not have to pay state taxes. Brian looked into flights and found that there are direct flight's to and from Rhode Island and Orlando. It is also only about a 9 hour ride to R.I. After our 2-4 years are up we will give a wish list of where we would like to be transferred. Our list would be:

Orlando, FL
Jacksonville, FL
Savannah, GA
Boston, MA
Baltimore, MD

It is a great opportunity for us so we are really considering it. It would allow us to make great money, while I stay home with Ava. It's kinda hard to pass up!!