Welcome Home!

I know of a couple families who have very recently returned home with their children.

Becky and Naing brought home Haven and Alec within the last few days.

Eric and Debra should be home now with their son Joseph or at least should be home very soon.

Referrals seem to be non-existent at the moment. I hope this is just the calm before the referral storm. If anyone has any referral news to share, please speak up.

We're still working on finding a hotel in the Portland area. The hotel information will be posted just as soon as we've found somewhere that will give us a good rate on the rooms.

Anything Exciting?

I realize that the blog isn't very active at the moment. That will change in the future as we continue to make plans.

Until we have more TAFRU news to post, I'm asking everyone to share any news they might have. You can either leave a comment here or go to the Toukoul Adoptive Families Facebook page and post your news.

I know a couple of our Toukoul families have court dates coming up soon, some families recently passed court and now have their Embassy dates, but I haven't heard any referral news lately.

Has anyone gotten a referral over the last couple of weeks?

For those waiting on a referral, how long have you been waiting now?

Are you waiting for an infant, older child, sibling group, boy or girl?

For those who recently traveled, do you have suggestions for those of us who will be one day travel on our pick up trips?

If you haven't introduced yourself, please do so.

Do you have a blog that you would like us to include on the side bar?

Let's have some fun and get to know each other via cyber space until the day we can meet in person. After all, we are all part of the ever growing Toukoul family :-)

More Input Requested

Hi TAFRU families!!!

As the planning committee discusses different ideas for the reunion, we realize that there will be costs involved. This weekend we've been discussing whether it makes more sense to make the reunion an all-inclusive type of weekend or a pay-as-you-go type of weekend. When we refer to all-inclusive we are referring to the costs involved for food and activities at those times the 'entire' group is together during the weekend. We would collect the money ahead of time and then take care of paying the food and activity bills for the entire group. Anyone needing accommodations will be paying for those separately.

If you are planning on attending TAFRU or even if you're just considering attending TAFRU at this point, we are asking you to participate in the poll on the right hand side of the blog page. Knowing what the majority of the group would like really does help us with our plans.

Our goal is to make the weekend as low-budget as possible while making sure it is fun, entertaining, and family oriented.

If anyone has any questions or ideas, please leave a comment for the planning committee.

Thanks.

May Be Kind of Slow

Because plans for TAFRU are going to take some time, there isn't going to be a lot of news posted on the blog. Right now we're checking out Portland area hotels for accommodations and hope to have something in place in September so travelers can start making their reservations. In the meantime, I don't want the blog to become a ghost town, so I thought it would be fun to share some Toukoul family news along the way.

I don't believe anything is posted on their blog yet, but Becky & Naing received some good news today, so watch their blog for details. Unless of course Becky would like to share something here :-)

The Peebles survived the news that the MOWA would be closed during their court date and were given the good news recently that their case will be heard on July 30th. Yeah!!!

Matt & Emily are now in ET picking up their precious baby girl.

The DeZutti's are also in ET picking up their handsome little guy.

I'm sure both these families will be blogging about their ET adventures and sharing lots of pictures when they return.

Mike & Laura returned home with adorable little Emme and Mona recently returned home with her cutie patootie Janissa.

If anyone else has news they would like to share, please post a comment here. Good news is always welcome!

There is still plenty of room to add blog links to this blog, so if you have a blog that you would like to share with us, please leave a comment with the information and we'll get it added.

If you didn't get an invite or see the information here, we now have a Toukoul Adoptive Families Facebook page. The link is on the right hand side of the blog page and so far 60 people have joined the FB page. We hope others will join and I want to encourage everyone to participate on FB. It's a great way for us to get to know each other and I know there are some who joined in hopes of getting information from those who have gone before, so please check out the discussion groups and share information about yourself on the wall.

21 Families

We have 26 families that participated in our recent attendance poll. Of those families 21 are making plans to attend TAFRU next summer. If you did not participate in the poll, but would like to attend TAFRU, please leave a comment and let us know. My hope is that over the next several months even more families will express their interest in attending.

In the meantime, we will begin looking at accommodations and activities during the reunion. If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment and let us know.

A couple of weeks ago I created a Facebook page and have added that link to the blog page. We will continue to use the blog as a way of communicating information about TAFRU and Facebook will be used primarily as a way for us to get to know each other. Please click on the link and join us on Facebook.

In the meantime, continue to spread the word and check in from time to time for more information.

Announcements

I don't know how many of you read through the blogs that are listed on the right hand side of the blog page, but please take a moment to check out the blogs for Becky & Naing and Eric & Debra. They have some exciting announcements posted!!!!!!!!

More Votes Requested *Update*

We have 57 readers and 25 have provided us information on their plans for TAFRU next year. I know that it's almost impossible to predict what your plans might be a year from now and we are not asking for any commitment at all. We just need to know if there is any possibility that your family may be attending TAFRU next year and if you'll need accommodations while in Portland. If you know that the chances are slim to none that you'll be able to attend, then vote that way. If you think there is a slight chance that you'll be in attendance, please let us know. The last thing we want to do is start making plans for 20 families and then find out later that we're going to have 50 families attending and not be able to accommodate everyone. It really would be much easier to make arrangements for more and then cut back those numbers if we have to.

So, if you haven't cast your vote, please do so today. Voting ends tomorrow.

Thanks everyone!!!!

*Update*

Because this information is so important in planning TAFRU, I've extended the poll until Friday afternoon. If you haven't participated in the poll, please do so. It will only take a couple seconds. Thanks.