Xing and our travel itinerary arrive today!

First thing this morning I was greeted at the front door by our neighbors, the Ludwigs, and this adorable panda bear who we have named Xing (part of Grace's Chinese name which means "star".....it's pronounced like "Shing")! Thank you girls for such an endearing gift...he will be able to cuddle Grace in his big arms!

The other exciting thing that we received today was our in-China itinerary! We now know which hotels we will be staying in: Holiday Inn - Beijing, Sheraton - Xian, and The White Swan -Guangzhou. Sounds comforting! We found out we will actually be travelling to these 3 cities with 3 other families, although right now we don't know where our travel companions are from or any other details about them. Together we form Group #1614. We will be in Beijing from the 12th - 15th and then fly to Xian where we will receive Grace that afternoon at the Civil Affairs Office! (one day earlier than we first expected!) We will be in Xian for 5 nights and then on the 20th, fly to Guangzhou. This is the city where Grace will have a visa physical and some immunizations. We will also have our U.S. Consulate appointment there on the 24th. We will get Grace's U.S. visa on the 26th and then leave China on the 27th. All that time in-between will be for additional appointments, waiting, touring, shopping, and hopefully - sleeping!

Before we go there is a boatload of paperwork we have to assemble, last minute stuff to buy that somehow escaped my endless list-making, suitcases to pack (and probably un-pack and re-pack a few times)! So.....I doubt that I will post again until we arrive in China. I intend to post an entry with a couple of pictures every day or so ....so if that doesn't happen, then it was due to technical, physical or emotional difficulties!!!

Thank you all so much for the support, love and prayers that you have given us throughout this long process. We ask you to please keep those prayers coming! We will continue to share the trip details and our thoughts with you as we start the final leg of our "journey for Grace"!!

Her very own room!

Well, after 3 months we finally finished creating Grace's room! I can never finish a project without letting it "marinate" for months.... and I guess this was no exception. Many thanks to my neighbor Nancy for the beautiful carved oak head and footboard that is now Grace's bed! Rachel was the driving force getting the decorating completed this week...bringing boxes of books, movies and stuffed animals up from the basement. As she unpacked them there were lots of "Oh...I remember this!" exclamations as she found the perfect spot in Grace's room for all of it. The stuffed animals enjoyed some sunshine and fresh air out on our deck for 3 days as they needed some serious "airing out" after hanging out in the basement for years!

The "pis de resistance" was the string of colored butterfly lights that we tacked up around the window - a little magic....and a great nightlight! Here's some pics of Grace's little corner of our home!

Fed Ex Delivery Yesterday - Tickets to China!!

The itinerary for our trip is starting to take shape! Last week we received the agency email telling us that we have to be in Beijing on Thursday, August 12. We called one of the travel agents that our agency recommended and....let the planning begin!

Our flights are going to be LONG so right now we're trying to accumulate electronics, books, homework (ugh!)) and games to help pass the time! We leave O'Hare at 7am on Wed. 8/11, layover in Newark, NJ for a couple of hours, and then fly over the Atlantic and Europe to land in Beijing by 2pm on Thursday, 8/12. We will stay in Beijing for 3 days, seeing the sites.... and trying to get used to the 13 hour time difference! We will fly to Xian, the capital city of the province where Grace lives, in the afternoon on Sunday, August 15. On Monday, August 16 we will experience the "Gotcha Day" and finally be given our new little girl! We don't know exactly how long we will be staying in Xian..... but once we get Grace on Monday....she'll be with our family from then on! At some point we will fly to Guangzhou, in southern China, to spend a few days and meet with the U.S. Consulate to finalize the adoption.

Our flight home will take us over the Pacific and east to Chicago. So in the end....we'll have flown all the way around the world on this trip! Our itinerary departure and arrival times sound crazy....we leave Guangzhou on Saturday, August 27 at 9pm and arrive in Los Angeles at 7pm...... the same day! We are going to experience going backwards in time! Talk about messing me up!! I anticipate that no matter what time we think it is..... we'll be grateful to stretch, put our feet on the ground, and consume some airport food during our 4 hour layover in LA. We'll leave LA at 11pm and finally arrive in Chicago at 5am on Sat. August, 28. No Grace, we're not home yet..... just a 3 hour drive to Galena left. So if all things go as planned....we should be home by around 9am....just in time for bed (it will feel like 10pm to us!) I'll be posting more details as I get them..... so stay tuned!

China approves us for travel!

We've been waiting for weeks now for our Travel Approval from China and it finally arrived on Monday! Our "orders" are to be in Beijing on August 12! We will spend a few days there getting used to the time change and doing a little site-seeing before we fly to Xian on Sunday 8/15. The day we've been waiting for will finally arrive on Monday, 8/16 when we will finally meet Grace and welcome her into our family! The adoption world calls this Gotcha Day....how appropriate!!
Right now we are busy filling out Visa applications, getting the next series of inocculations, and trying to line up a decent flight itinerary (I have 2 different agencies working on this for us). All of a sudden, I'm wondering if I will get everything done within the next 4 weeks. I still have to finish painting Grace's room and get it in order! Here I've had 4 years to get ready for this .... and I'm still going to scramble at the finish line....typical me! I should be able to post our exact travel itinerary by the end of the week....stay tuned!

A New Picture!

Wow, we are really getting close now! We got an email from the travel department saying they are expecting our travel orders very soon. We are shooting for departure on August 10 but that is not set in stone by any means! They also sent us a new picture of Grace taken at the end of May...and the first thing we noticed is that she has hair and not a shaved head!! She's gained a few pounds and grown a bit since we last received info. She is now 28 lbs. and 37"....still a little peanut!!

Gift Giving..... the Chinese Way!

One of the things we will need to be prepared to do while in China is hand a gift to every Chinese government person we meet with along the way! That means.... the orphanage caregiver that brings Grace to us, the Registration officials, the Notary Officials, and the Passport Officials. Our agency gives us a list of items that we should purchase (not to be deviated from!) and the total number of gifts we will need to have (we will need 9). They also tell us not to worry about the gender of the person who will receive the gift.....if we give a man perfume.... he'll be just as happy because he can take it home to his wife. If we give a woman a compact tool set....she'll get points with the husband when she gets home from work! The other items on the list are American made candy or chocolate, a nice pen, quality stationary, cosmetics, official sports caps and T-shirts, and scarves! The next rule is - all items must be given in a red gift bag! I've bought all the red gift bags in Wallmart to date and am waiting for the next shipment! I've been accumulating a few gifts - a scarf, a bottle of perfume, and a couple of Chicago Cub hats (again, from Wallmart....their variety of sports stuff is OK - I checked with the agency to see how "official" - "official" meant!) I am being especially careful to buy things that are not made in China (or to remove the tell-tale tag....like on the hats!) as I think this would defeat the purpose of presenting a special "American" gift! Just as I'd never show up at your house for dinner without a bottle of wine....I guess every culture truly has their gift giving mores!

Another step!!

Many of you have asked me if we've heard any more from China....and do we know yet when we are going???? Here's the latest.....

Believe it or not, after 4 years of waiting, we've actually been holding up the process a bit at this point! Once you get the child "referral" (all the info about YOUR child), and all the zillions of pieces of paper are signed, notorized, and sent to the agency.....the agency issues a Lettter of Intent (to adopt). When this letter is documented in China, the Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) in Beijing sends a Letter of Acceptance to our agency in Colorado. The agency sends this all important letter on to us . We sign this LOA, as it is called by the ever present assortment of acronyms.... send it back to our agency..... and they send it back to China. I actually explained those steps in an earlier blog entry, but this is a refresher course in case you weren't paying attention!! (Don't worry, there's no quiz at the end!)

Once that LOA arrives in China, the CCAA will send your travel orders within 2-4 weeks. Once you have those travel orders....things really start happening fast! The travel department at our agency contacts the U.S. Consulate's office in Guangzhou (a city in southern China) to make an appointment for us. At this appointment we present the child and make it "official" that we are going to take her out of China with us as our daughter! Once that Consulate appointment is scheduled...arrangments such as flights and hotels are made at lightning speed and we will be on our way to China within weeks!

So....now that I've taken a short story and made it a long one.......our family could not travel until August, so we asked the agency to hold onto the LOA. We didn't want it returned to China right away because we needed to slow down the process by about a month. (Rachel is in a play at UWP that ends Aug. 8th so our target date to travel is any day after that!)

Our agency emailed me yesterday with the news that we are going ahead with the next step! They feel it's time to return our LOA to China..... so their staff in Beijing will be delivering our LOA to the CCAA office this week! That means that between 2 and 4 weeks from now - we will know when our travel date is !! Then I can officially kick it into high gear and attempt to finish all the projects on my "List of things to do before we go to China"! We can then start the count-down to the exact date when we will hold our new little daughter for the first time.....the end result we've all been waiting for!!!