Surprise update

I was caught completely off guard, today (ok, it’s past midnight, so I guess that would be yesterday), when we received a sponsorship update on Kai!  It has some of the same information we’ve already seen and another set of measurements.  When I opened the pictures, I caught my breath!

Does his sleeper look familiar to anyone??

Perhaps if we scroll back to November...

Yes, that sleeper definitely looks familiar!  My plan worked!!  I sent sleepers in 2 sizes (in 2 different care packages) with the hope that we would somehow receive a picture of him wearing one of them, which would give us a clue as to his clothing size.  Now to remember which sleeper was which size... I’m pretty sure that was the 18 month size.  I may have to rethink some of my packing!

This was surely a gift from God.  I have been so busy buying plane and train tickets, making a hotel reservation in Hong Kong, and looking over lists... It definitely brought a smile to my face!

We’re going to China!!!!!

Things have happened so quickly that I haven’t had time to update our blog to let you know!  Our biggest surprise was receiving “soft” TA just 3 days after our Article 5 pick up!  Soft TA means that our agency was able to see our status in the CCCWA’s computer system and see that we had been issued Travel Approval.  It was “soft” because they didn’t have the TA in their hands.

Three days after that, our agency had our Travel Approval in their hands and the real whirlwind began!  Lots of decisions to make and a little bit more waiting to be had.  As much as we wanted to finalize all plans, we had to wait on our hands while our adoption agency requested an appointment for us at the US Consulate in China.  This is what the whole trip hinges on!  Luckily, we only had to wait 1 more day to receive confirmation of our appointment.

I spent most of yesterday emailing back and forth with our travel agent about airline tickets.  We are responsible for purchasing our tickets to get us to and from China.  Our adoption agency takes care of the rest.  By the end of the day, we had tickets to and from China, nabbing the LAST 3 seats together on the plane from Hong Kong to Chicago.  Yes, we made it by the skin of our teeth!

Today, I have been working on some train tickets.  We have decided we would like to veer just a bit from the group and take the bullet train from Beijing to Zhengzhou, instead of flying.  Train tickets are also getting hard to come by as we near Chinese New Year.  I am nervously awaiting a confirmation on the tickets!

The big date of departure is January 28- one week from today!!  We will be leaving the kids at home in the capable hands of their grandparents.  We are SO grateful for their willingness to do this for us and our children!!  They may never be the same after this experience....haha.

I will post more travel details when I have them.  We have a phone conference with our adoption agency, tomorrow.  We have already hooked up with several of the families who will be traveling with us.

In the meantime, I have set up a private Fa*ebook group.  I don’t think I can keep up with the blog while we’re traveling, but we want people to be able to follow along.  Fb is easy to update.  I plan to catch up the blog after we’re home.  No promises how soon, though!!

Today was a big day

Not only did we get our Article 5, but we also received these!

Our travel visas!  We need these to enter China.  Our courier was able to get us each a 10-year, multi-entry visa, so we can return to China in the future. :)  Glad to have our passports back in hand!

Article 5 pick up

We received an email from the US Consulate in China at 1:28am, today, letting us know they had issued our Article 5!  Not that I was up that late...  It did make it nearly impossible for me to get anything done, this morning, however.  What with refreshing my email every 5 minutes to check for an email from our agency...  I only had to wait until 9:13am to receive this lovely email!  Yes, our Article 5 was picked up from the Consulate in Guangzhou and express mailed to the CCCWA in Beijing!  Do you know what this means??!

We are officially waiting for Travel Approval, people!!!

I can’t believe we are finally at this point!  EEK!  I have so much to do!  There is still a chance we will get to travel before Chinese New Year!  It will be tight!  I need to have us ready to go at the drop of a hat (well, not quite that fast)!

Must get out my list and continue working my way through it!!