LOA? and a broken camera

So living in the world of Chinese adoption you come to learn a set of acronyms.  They include things like LID, DTC, PA, LOA, LOI, and TA.  There are a ton more and if you are on any adoption forum you will see these kind of things listed all of the time with dates indicating when each step is complete.  For as long as the China is taking I can say this; it is orderly.  The Chinese know what they want and when they want it.  They have specific letters and formats for each event.  They have clear and  mostly easy to understand procedures.  Honestly it was one of the reasons that we choose the program it was predictable and stable.  It still is; it is just very very very very slow.  So it has been a hard adjustment to a new, unpredictable, program.

There are no LID's or DTC's or PA's or anything specific like that in Burundi.  In the Burundi program there are not time lines and the nice comfortable consistencies, that I so love about the Chinese program.  Eventually I am sure that will happen but not for us and it is beyond frustrating.  I have high hopes for the program but it will not help us, we will not know what the next step is or when it might be coming.

So with all that said I think we have what I would call an LOA (letter of approval)? Maybe?  Our agency has an official letter that says we are approved to adopt BB and it is from the person that has the authority to issue such a letter.  It is a good thing and a step in a really positive direction.  I'm not sure how excited I am, I am sure it is something you should get excited about but how many more months is it going to be before the next step.  I have been here before getting excited about the next step only to be stuck in limbo for the next 6 months.  So I am being reserved about my enthusiasm in order to protect my heart just a little bit.  I guess in a a few weeks we will know whether or not we should have been excited.

Now on to a bit of depressing news, our camera is broken, boo hoo cry cry.  We love L.O.V.E our camera and take a ton of pictures.  Jim accidentally dropped it when it was on and the lens cover was damaged.  Jim thinks that it is just the cover but of course it is one of those automatic cover things and the camera will not work with out it.  He talked to Cannon and they said that it would cost us $90 to send it in to them, the cover is $13.  So we are going to order the cover and try to fix it, if it still does not work we are only out $13.
I really hope we do not need a new camera because that really goes against the no spending money rule.  However, we can not go camera-less to Africa.

It is kinda funny we bought the camera in August 2007 to take to China with us.  That is when we thought we would be traveling in about 18 months from LID, who knew.  Since that time we have taken too many pictures to count.  I really love that camera, sure hope it can be repaired for $13.

So I leave you with the last picture the camera took :0( Jim's cold, bare feet in the snow, I love it.  Get well soon my precious camera.