From D.C. to Beijing

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Leaving in less than 48 hours!

I cannot believe we leave in less than 48 hours!
Our airport plans have also fallen through so we will be driving to the airport and parking the car for 2 weeks! Yikes I hope we will not have to dig it out when we get back!

I have no idea why town car services do not have a way to use or keep a car seat. I would imagine they could generate more business if they would! We certainly wanted to use them but we will need a car seat for the pumpkin to ride back in and I am not taking a car seat to China.

So since I am supposed to be writing a paper for class before I leave I think we all need to see who is causing all of this trouble!(J/K...mostly)

Sunday, January 28, 2007

We salute the carry on only adoption trippers

Well we tried and tried to get everything in the carry on only bags. We were so so close. If the gifts we bought were smaller we would have made it. But it is not to be! We had to run out and get a larger suit case.

Wow we leave on Thursday!! Where did all of the time go?

Please keep N, T and E in your prayers that we will be safe and that none of us will get sick. Please pray that E will be able to know that we love her and she will have a good transition to N and I.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

We leave on Thursday



We leave on Thursday and the house looks like a tornado hit it!!!

We put the crib together. After much worry and thought( and pestering mom and P all day) we have decided to put her crib in the den area. We think this will work out best. But now that the crib is put together I am sure we will need to move it.

We also put the high chair together.

Did I mention the house looks like a train wreck! We are going to baby proof the rest of the house tomorrow.

We need all the help(prayers) we can get.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Travel plans or How to spend all of your savings in an afternoon

Most of the travel planning is almost done!! Wow who knew it was this much work lol. We will be leaving here on Feb 1. and will land in Beijing Feb 2 at 3pm. Sat Feb 3 we will be touring the great wall. Sunday Feb 4 we will tour the Forbidden City and later that evening we will leave for Hohhot. We should receive Eva on Monday Feb 5. We leave Hohhot on Sat Feb 10. We head home on Thursday Feb 15 and land in DC at 10:45pm.

The flight from Newark to Beijing is direct and is 13h 45min. Pray for N as he has to put up with me for that long!!!

Monday, January 22, 2007

CA !!

We got the email this morning that our CA date is Wens February 14th. so we will receive Evie on Monday February 5th.

I am making travel plans now and will post more when I am finished!!

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Car seat and high chair!

Yesterday N and I finally found a car seat that not only fits in the Echo but leaves enough room for one of us to sit with her! We had to go all the way to a babies r us to find someone with car seats in stock that were less than the $260 models.

We found a high chair also and hopefully she will eat in it.

We are hoping that we will know on Monday what our CA(consulate date) is so we can make all of our travel arrangements. We think we may go 2 days earlier to visit Beijing. I want to see the great wall and the forbidden palace. It will also give us a chance to get used to the time change before we get Eva. We are going to wait and see what the dates are first because N barely has enough time off as it is.

As for the dentist I need to see......take 2 on Monday!

Thursday, January 18, 2007

When does the shock go away!

N and I are still in shock! We have so much to do but are paralyzed by fear! Luckily we (T) has been putting together our packing list. I have most of it done but now I have to figure out how to get everything into our suitcases with out going over the weight limit!!! The whole carry on only idea is just about abandoned!

We have to pack for a MN winter and a FL winter for 3 people for 2 weeks!!!! My head is going to pop off. And to top of the stress level I start school on Monday! But I would not trade this stress for all of the money in the world because we are going to bring our baby home!!!

We have a few items left to get mainly because I did not want to buy them before we had TA:
High Chair(I have convinced myself that she will use it)
Stroller
Car Seat( big pain)

The car seat is a huge pain in the rear end. We have such a small car that it is hard to find a car seat that will fit. And I seem to have an inability to measure the seat so I have to take N with me. We are going to go Saturday morning and find a car seat! We have a mission and we will not fail. And it will be cute and girly so everyone will know my little baldy is a GIRL!

LUCKY DAY 97!!! We have TA

Today we got our TA!!!! N and I are still in shock that this is going to happen!!!

We are hoping to leave very early Feb but we have to wait until early next week to see which consulate date we will get!!!!!

Friday, January 12, 2007

Letter is on the way to Beijing!

Our letter was mailed to Beijing today. they should receive it on Monday Jan 15!!

We should have our visas back the week of the 20th.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Day 89 and Big (not good ) surprise

Today is day 89 and we got a surprise call from our agency. We now have to send in a new letter that says YES!!!!! we do want our little Eva. After we get this form back we should receive Ta anywhere from 3-8 weeks lol. It makes me so upset I am numb. We had expected to get Ta in the next 2-3 weeks. This will almost for sure put us traveling in march after new year.

The 1 silver lining is that we KNOW we are getting TA soon. We do not have to worry about the new regulations or that our file is lost. They have I believe given us final approval to adopt her!

We(meaning T) has already started putting the packing list together. We are going to make a serious attempt at going carry on only. I had a good reason for doing this but now I am not sure what it is lol. The hardest part is the stupid TSA(bad bad) rules on liquids. We have so many meds we are taking for Eva that I have no idea how we are going to pack anything for N and I.


So this whole thing is hard to explain so if you want more detail please give us a call and we will attempt to explain it.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

OH MY

Please go read this and send letters to CNN. The panel was the most moronic and racist language I have EVER read on adoption.

CLICK HERE

GO NOW!!! What are you waiting for!!

Thursday, January 04, 2007

So close.................

Yesterday our agency received TA's and our should have come. Someone who waited a little less got theirs. To say we are devastated is an understatement. Chances are that when we get TA we will not be able to get there and back before Chinese New Year and so it looks like we will not travel before March. So N most likely will not be able to take classes.

We are very worried that they have applied the new rules to our dossier and if this is true we may not even get Evie now. I am going to call the agency but they already sent an standard email stating that " we are within the normal time frame for TA". This is true but when our LOI went out in May waits were about 60 days and today we are on day 84. And there have been people who's LOI was turned down under the new rules.

Monday, January 01, 2007

20 Months old Today!

Well its 2007 and Evie is 20 months old. I cannot believe how much of her childhood we are missing.