It does not look promising, but then we pretty much knew that already. The latest from the rumormongers has the cutoff looking to be January 9, 2006. This is good and bad, five days were crossed off the calendar, which good, even though there was a weekend in there. The bad part is that according to the survey on the rumormonger's website, January 12 may be a pretty large day in terms of applications, which raises the possibility that it may not be included in the next batch.
If we miss the May referral batch, and wind up in June, this would likely put our travel time in the weeks leading up to the Beijing Olympics, when airfare, hotels, and everything else is expected to be costlier, and airline seats will be harder to book.
Time will reveal all, and there is also the possibility that the winter storms in China delayed the paper work on some children and that they may just now be arriving in the CCAA office on Beijing, raising the possibility that more children will be available for placement the next time around.