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!!