Concrete Travel Dates

We have definite travel dates. We will be leaving February 17th and returning home March 5th. Our Metcha Day will be February 22nd and we can not wait to meet Evan! Our CA appointment will be March 2nd and that should be the rest of our appointments. We have our airline tickets purchased already, it's just a matter of waiting a few weeks to board the plane to leave. As of right now we have 7 other families traveling with us and have the potential of 12 all together.


We leave three weeks from tomorrow! :)

Long Road

We are waiting to hear back from our travel coordinator about our CA but we are planning on leaving February 18th and returning March 5th! It feels great to have definite dates and know that we will be leaving in less than a month to meet our son. Tomorrow we will be a busy day making phone calls to various doctors and schools for him. Holy Cow I can't believe it!

Gearing Up

It's amazing what a date does for ones mind. Just knowing that we will leave (95% sure) on February 18th to meet Evan feels great! I remember telling other adoptive friends last year when we started this process that we would not travel until February or March. As time went by and things were looking up I thought we could go in January. It would have been possible if there was no paperwork mix ups but that was not meant to be. I also remember stating (way,way back) very clearly that I did not want to go to China again in the dead of winter! Nor did I want to come home to long, cold, dark days where we would be stuck in the house all day.

If my calculations are right we will leave Feb. 18th and return March 4th or 5th. The weather in China should be warmer than the record breaking freezing temps they are experiencing now not to mention Daylight Savings Time starts the following week! :D Winter will be almost over! OK we will have another 4-5 weeks when we return but that's not bad!

The pain management center that I go to was able to get me in at the end of the month for a nerve block in my neck. I'm praying that helps relieve some of the pain that I've been having. I'll also get to see my neurosurgeon the next day for follow up. I'll be glad to have those two appointments out of the way. Then today Lia's developmental doctor called and said they had a cancellation next week and wanted to know if we could do her Botox injections! Oh yes please!

There are just a handful of items needed from our packing list. I'm glad to have started early. I found a nice winter coat for Evan that was clearanced dirt cheap. The only thing we need now is our TA!

Stilll Waiting

Traveling After CNY

Our agency received TA's today but ours was not one of them. :( It looks as though we will be traveling after the Chinese New Year. We needed to have our TA by this Wednesday in order to be in next weeks group. Very unlikely our agency will receive another batch of TA's this week.

I was told they have a group leaving 2/18. The next hurdle might be getting a consulate appointment. I know I'll be glad when we are home and settled in with our boy!

Simply Beautiful!

I long for the day when we can sign as well as the people above!

Party Pictures!

We received a email from Ann at Red Thread with pictures from Evans party. It looks as though he has lost some baby teeth and it looks as though he has freckles. We can not wait to go get our boy!

Article 5!!

We received our Article 5! It was sent to the CCAA on December 29th so we have one week down on our estimated 2-4 week wait! I can't believe it took that long but I'm just glad I know we have it! Our agency has a group leaving the 14th and possible the 21st. It will depend on if TA's come in before then or not. If not then we are probably looking at traveling after CNY which is 2/14.

Thank You!!

I just wanted to thank all of you for all of your encouragement the past couple of days! I'm in a much better place and really feel missing Evan's birthday was the icing on the cake so to speak. It won't be much longer and we will see his sweet face.

I received a couple of very sweet emails and was unable to respond. Somehow they ended up getting deleted from my inbox. If you emailed me please send me a little note again. I promise I'll send one back.

Happy 7th Birthday Evan!!

Here is the birthday package we sent our guy minus the cake. The books are in both Chinese and English. More than anything we though he might like looking at the pictures. I'll be anxious to develop the camera and see the cake. I don't think we will wait to develop the cameras, we will do them in China. Had we done Lia's in China it would have revealed so much and made our trip much easier.

This is the last year without our boy for all holidays! :)