"When the [bear] bites - with his teeth, dear!"

These pictures crack me up. RKZ sent them with the subject line "violent bear attack - be warned!" So you're warned too.

I hope that all of the Americans had a great Thanksgiving. RKZ stayed home the Friday after and we were able to finish up our paperwork to begin the adoption process. It was funny to go into an RCMP (Mountie) office and have the older police gentlemen gushing over our plans. They were very curious and excited as to what gender and type of baby we would get. One of the men asked Buck if he was "ready to be an older brother." It was very cute and highlighted the reality of the situation - we are actively beginning to adopt a baby!

Of course, the last papers for us to gather were birth and marriage certificates. My birth cert is a phantom. We can't find it. Thank goodness that we're adopting in the 21st Century as I was able to go to the Nevada Records website and literally order 3 copies of my birth cert in about 2 minutes. There were very interesting 'personal' questions I had to answer in order to prove my identity and these actually freaked me out the most as they seemed to have every address and roommate I'd ever had in their info banks!! I answered a series of "pick the one that does not apply to you" multiple choice questions and they had all of my correct information dating back to high school!! One of the questions listed my college po box -- a bit unnerving, to say the least. I don't actually need a microchip imbedded in my skin, it seems that anyone who wanted to could find out everything about me in moments if they needed too!

My birth cert should arrive in 3 days, which will put us just under my personal deadline of handing in all of the adoption paperwork by the end of November. Then, we will begin the homestudy process, which should take a couple of months with the Christmas holidays looming. We are not on the adoption list yet!! (just for the sake of clarity). But my hope is that we will be on the waiting list by the end of January or early Feb.

I'll keep everyone posted with my posts (totally cheesy, I know).

Watch out for those bears! (especially the ones from Chicago as we found out last night. Poor Broncos...)