Sunday, September 30, 2007

Travel Plans

We are working on getting our tickets and plans together for travel this week. We plan to leave Thrusday morning, arriving in Hong Kong on Friday afternoon. On Sunday afternoon we will take the train up to Guangzhou, about 1 1/2 hours north, where we will check into the Victory Hotel, the same place we stayed on our first two trips. We should meet Janelle on Monday sometime. Things will probably be up in the air until we actually get there, because the whole first week of October is a holiday for them, so nothing else can be planned until they get back to work. We'll just be flexible and go with the flow.

Have some last minute shopping to do, a few things to get for Janelle yet, and then want to make it all fit in two suitcases. We are hoping to pack pretty lightly so that we don't have to deal with a lot of luggage.

Stayed tuned for more......

International Visitors

It's fun to see the visitors to this sight from other countries. I see today that we are up to 29 countries. I would love for you to leave a comment and tell me who you are. I see someone from Panama--we lived there for 6 years. Also from Bolivia--we lived there for 3 years. I know that the main "visitor" from Argentina is my daughter Lancy, who lives there, and I am the main one from Mexico. My son and daughter-in-law visited her folks in the Philippines, so that was them.

Now, I would love to know who the rest of you are........

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

TRAVEL APPROVAL!!!!!

I had about given up hope for the day. It was 12:30 in Delaware, and I knew that DHL packages almost always arrived before noon. We hadn't heard anything. I was fixing lunch, resigning myself to waiting another week or two to travel because of the holiday in China. Walked by my computer, and reached down and hit gmail again, to confirm to myself we would have to wait.

An "It's Here" title greeted me from the agency. They had received our TA! A quick phone call confirmed to them that we want to try for an October 8th Gotcha Day, and an email was sent off to the US Consulate in Guangzhou to ask for our consulate date.

That should take another 24 to 36 hours to get a confirmation back. Meanwhile, we are busy finishing up packing here, planning to leave Friday morning, or as soon as we get confirmation. It is a 26 hour drive to Missouri, so we should be there Saturday night. Taylor and LiAnne are very excited about staying with Grandpa and Grandma, and going to McDonald's!

We are hoping to fly out on Thursday morning, October 4th, arriving Friday afternoon, the 6th. We then would like to spend a couple of days in Hong Kong exploring, and enjoying being together without any kids. It will probably be awhile until we can do that again.

We'll update again once we have more info.....

God's timing is perfect, as I said before. If our TA had arrived tomorrow the chances of confirming our consulate appointment would have been slim, and then are closed for three days next week for the holiday. I have been reading through Proverbs each month this year, and last night was Proverbs 25. The 25th verse says, "Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land." Good verse for the day.

Monday, September 24, 2007

LiAnne's Birthday


On Thursday, September 20th, LiAnne celebrated her 4th birthday.

Now her only question is, "When are we going to grandpa and grandma's house so you can go to China and bring home Jiang MinMin?"
How do you tell a 4 year old about the wait......and that the CCAA does things in their time?

Please be praying that both Taylor and LiAnne will actually be happy to have MinMin home. Sometimes reality isn't the same as the anticipation. Pray that they will make the adjustments necessary in sharing her with mom and dad. And please pray that they will enjoy their visit with grandpa and grandma, Uncle Kendall and Aunt Mel, Matt and Crystal and Amanda. They are looking forward to seeing all of them again.

Friday, September 21, 2007

A Glimmer of Hope

One agency finally got 4 TA's (travel approval) today. That gives us a glimmer of hope for Monday, as usually many TA's are sent out to various agencies about the same time. We are still planning to leave Mexico on Friday morning, heading up to Missouri, where the kids will stay with my folks. We will continue to plan on that unless we don't hear anything by Thursday.

Monday, September 17, 2007

And still waiting......

.......with nothing new to report.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Still waiting for TA

Someone asked me why I haven't posted anything new here for awhile---it's because there hasn't been anything new to post! We are still waiting for our travel approval. It has been 21 days since LOA, so it should be here any day. In the meantime, we just wait, wait, wait, wait......