Where in the world is Grace?

Grace lives in in the Children's Welfare Institute in Yulin City in the province of Shaanxi. If you look on a map, Shaanxi is squished right in the middle of China...but towards the north of the country. The province is bordered by Inner Mongolia and a desert....which blows 18 sandstorms a year into Yulin City! (I bet she'll be glad she's getting away from that!) We recently found out that we won't be going to get her at the orphanage in Yulin City. She will be brought to the capital of the province, Xian, and we will meet her for the first time there.

We received our Letter of Agreement from China this week. It's a very official looking document (looks like a diploma!) written in Chinese and translated to English. Once that document is signed and sent back to China, the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs will start to process our Travel Approval documents!

When we finally go to China we will travel to a port city (we think it will be Bejing). Then the next day we will fly to Xian to get our little girl from the nanny who brings her from the orphanage! We will stay in Xian about a week while China prepares paperwork, visa's, and a passport for Grace. During that time Grace will be with us in our hotel, getting to know her new family! All that week we will be offered tours to take to see the sites of Xian. James is especially excited to see the buried army of terra cotta soldiers! We're told the adoption agency reps in-country will keep us very busy! In researching on-line we discovered there is a HUGE beautiful shopping mall that I'm sure Rachel will want to check out!

Right now we have paperwork to fill out and get notorized, phone calls to the USCIS to make, and a little girls room to prepare! So from the world of Yulin City, China.....little Grace will make a long, long journey to middle America. From a city of 3.5 million.....to Galena, Illinois....and that's where in the world she will grow up!