Dreams Unfolding...Again

Chongqing "Big Sister"

2010-03-22T16:10:00.000-04:00

Confirmed

2010-03-16T14:38:00.001-04:00

It was confirmed today that our silly guy has severe/profound sensorineural hearing loss in both ears. This is not a surprise to us and we are actually very relieved. We know now that without a shadow of a doubt that he will be accepted to our State School for the Deaf! :) He had to have an 80dB hearing loss in at least one ear and he exceeded that. He will not dorm at the school but will be transported by our local school district everyday. We are only 20 minutes from the school which makes things very convenient.

For seven year he has had NO language other than gestures. He will finally have a language to learn and will understand! He is ready and willing to learn. We will learn right along side him but something tells me he is going to fly past us in no time.

Thank you Lord for our sweet, sweet son!

Please continue to follow our family blog as we are now finish blogging here. :) Thanks for following our journey to China!

All About Evan

2010-03-15T11:03:00.000-04:00

Things here have been going very well. Evan has adjusted better than we could have ever asked for. The Lord has blessed us with one special little boy from China! He has welcomed us into his life with smiles on his face.

Evan loves to make silly faces. You may have nocticed in some of our pictures he crosses his eyes. He loves to do this when we take his pictures and will sometimes stick his tongue out to the side of his mouth. He cracks up if you do it back to him. You might notice that Evans little lips automatically turn down so if he is the least bit upset it is sometimes hard to tell. When he does not want to do something he does this little full body dance/fit. He has silent tears which makes even harder to tell when he is upset. He has only cried a handful of times.

We have no bathroom problems. Well we have to tell him to go at times but other than that no problems. He did spit a couple of times but when he saw that we disapproved of that he has since stopped. He was a bit rough physically the first week with us but he is MUCH better now. He is learning to chew his food with his mouth closed. The only thing we really have had to get on him about is blaming others.

In the above picture I have an antenna of a remote control car stuck in my hair and he is blaming Taylor for it. As you can see by the look on Taylor's face she is shocked that he is blaming her. Bob just happened to snap this picture as it all unfolded.

I may have mentioned this before but he does not feel the need to eat everything on his plate. If he does not like the food he will tell us. He does try all new foods though. He is not a picky eater. This past week we did bring him to Chinese twice though. He was in heaven! After we were all done and I was putting my jacket on he wrapped his arms around my waste and gave me a big hug. I think he liked his lunch.

I will post about his hearing test on both sites tomorrow but after that we will posting over on our family blog. Thanks for following along! :)

Life At Home

2010-03-12T16:36:00.003-05:00

First let us apologize for not posting sooner since we have been home. As those who have traveled know it is an adjustment to make once you return. We are finally catching up with our sleep and getting back into our normal routine. It has been a bit easier this time as we don't have to get up with a crying baby in the middle of the night.

First let's go back to our time in Hong Kong right before we came home. I wish I could say that the area was as gorgeous as we expected it to be but we got in around 8:30PM and our flight was for 11AM the next morning. We did not get to see much at all. We had hoped to take a taxi and explore a little the night before but we were so tired we just stayed in the hotel and ate some snacks at the hotel restaurant. We knew that Hong Kong had a different currency conversion rate but were unsure what it was. We were surprised to find out afterwards that our burgers and drinks ended up costing $145 USD. Our flight was very bumpy for the first 7 hours or so and then very smooth the next 8 hours. Sitting on the plane before it took off we had a big child behind us who had a lap pass that keep putting their foot over our seats and hitting us in the head. We thought for sure this was going to be an even longer flight than we had hoped for but it did get better. We literally had to sprint in Chicago and have a lot of things happen just right in order to catch our connecting flight but we made it just in time to board the plane. We joked that we doubted those working at the airport were going to sprint to make sure our luggage also made the flight so it was not a huge surprise when they turned off the luggage belt when we got home and our luggage was not there. It did arrive the next morning with no problems.

Our fist week home has been totally awesome and a huge answer to prayer. Evan seems happy to be apart of our family and the kids just love him to pieces. He had his first Dr. visit with our family doctor and everything looks really good. He weighs 60lbs and is 48in tall. He is wearing size 7 pants and 6/7 shirts.

We showed the video of the tick that Evan seems to have when he is resting to the doctor and he did not seem overly concerned about since he seems to be doing so well with everything else. We will ask the cleft team about it as well just to see if they have anything additional to say but we don’t foresee this as being anything we need to worry about at this time. Evan’s appt with the hearing doctor is next week. We do believe that he has some hearing in his left ear but doubt he has any in the right.

We've been busy filling out paperwork for two different schools (local school and the deaf school), doctors, post adoption stuff, soccer and Half the Sky. Oh, we've not blogged so you wouldn't know that we signed Evan up to play soccer! I've actually signed up to be assistance coach! LOL That should be interesting. You didn't think I'd just leave him there though did you!?!?

There are a couple more post that I want to make here but I am going to start blogging on our main blog as well.

We're Home

2010-03-06T06:52:00.000-05:00

We are home, we're alive, and we are waiting for our luggage lost somewhere between here and Chicago! I'll post a few more times here, then head over to our main blog. :)

Botanical Garden and Packing

2010-03-03T09:14:00.003-05:00

Today we went to a beautiful botanical garden. I wish I could tell you the name of it but I was not paying attention. I will try to find out though. We have some beautiful pictures but the sun decided to come. Usually that is good but there was not much shade for taking pictures of people.

Our consulate appointment went well and we are official done with all of our paperwork. Evan will become a US citizen the moment he hits US soil. For him that will be in Chicago, just like it was for Lia. There were quite a few families at the consulate but not nearly as many as there was in 2007.

We are 90% packed and will finish tomorrow morning after breakfast. We don't leave Guangzhou until about 3:30 pm. We will take a bus over to Hong Kong and spend the night. Our flight leaves at 11:30 am on Friday and we will be flying for a long time! Our flight arrives in the states at 4:45pm. We are looking forward to seeing everyone especially our children. Can't wait to wrap our arms around them and just give them a ton of love. I'm not sure if we'll blog again before we arrive home or not but we wanted to thank you all again for leaving comments and for emailing us! I can't wait to go home and go back and read over everything again. Enjoy the pictures!

Cheri~

Chen Family Museum and Dinner Cruise

2010-03-02T09:36:00.002-05:00

Today we went to the Chen Family Museum other wise known as the Guongdong Folk Art Museum. We went there back in 2007 with Lia. It is a nice place and we spent about an hour there. While we were there our paperwork was being reviewed by the US Consulate for Evan's Visa. All must have went well because we heard nothing. :)

We took a cab back to the island to pick up few items that we needed. We went into a place called Judy's and I can tell you it must have been the Lord who lead us in there. I will tell you more of this story once home. My feelings are still raw but I can tell you this is a beautiful woman! Please be sure to visit her shop when you visit the island.

The dinner cruise was awesome and I highly recommend it! It was warm but there was a cool breeze. We were glad we brought sweatshirts with us on the boat. Some of the items on the buffet was iffy but some was really good. The views were beautiful! Although we did see a dead cat (we think) in the water which grossed the young girls in our travel group out.

I could go into tons of details but everyone is in bed and I am falling asleep as I type. Enjoy the pictures as I'm sure we will not have much to blog about in the next couple of days. Tomorrow we are going to a botanical garden for our group picture and then to our Consulate Appointment. We'll be home before we know it! :)

Cheri~

Full Days

2010-03-01T09:26:00.002-05:00

Our day started with another adventure. We tried to go to an antique shop but ended up going to a antique museum. Seems no one really knew what we were trying to get across, well maybe a tad. They did get the antique part. We decided we would just head back to the hotel. Taylor ended up going shopping with another family and she hit the jackpot!

At 2:30 we headed to the island to have all the TB tests read for all the kids who had to have the test. PTL Evan did not need to have an x-ray! Thank you for your prayers. Two little boys from one family did need to have chest x-rays but they came back normal. So all is well with all of the children in our group.

We ended up staying on the island longer so we could relax, shop and eat. We headed to Jordon's but had such a hard time finding him due to all the construction. The whole island is under construction and is a mess. Let me tell you though, what is finished is beautiful! It should all be finished in October. We did not see all of the little statues that they had here two ago. There are a few.

We finished up our night with dinner at Lucy's. We ate outside on the patio and just relaxed. It was so nice to just sit and enjoy the weather. If your coming in the spring or summer I'd bring some bug spray. We received a couple of mosquito bites. We head to grab a taxi when I realized we did not have a photo of Evan on the red couch. I snapped a couple and hope Carla can do some magic. ;)

Tomorrow our paperwork will be review by the consulate and we will visit a museum. Later in the evening we will be doing a dinner cruise which we are really looking forward to. Hopefully I'll have some nice pictures to share. Hope all is well with all of you!

Bob, Cheri and Lia

*couldn't really do anything to the red couch photo from the jpg, I'm going to wait and see if Cheri has the raw format of it. It's not bad at all IMO, but when I talk with her I will know what she wants done.*

Shopping with Ann

2010-02-28T07:38:00.002-05:00

Today we heading to Shamian Island to do some shopping. We had made plans with Ann from Red Threads to take us shopping so met up with her. She took us off the island to some street shops and hit some bargains! Boy does she know where to go and really looks over your purchases to make sure they are perfect. If your coming to China I would highly recommend using her. Do not buy your items in Beijing as tempting as it is she can really help you make some great deals on some nice items. Also make a list ahead of time, it helps save time.

When we were on the island we head some beautiful music and before I could think of the song Ann told us it was coming from the church. It was a hymn that we sign in church. Sure enough there was a beautiful church just ahead of us signing in Chinese and in English. It was simple beautiful! I was a bit confused as to why Chinese people could enter at will in this church and could not at the one in Beijing. Ann had no answer for me and seemed very surprised when I told her we had to show our passports to get in.

On our way back to the hotel she was able to get us a van to bring us back. All the kids piled in the very back and the adults in the front. Seemed very strange to pile our kids in the back of a van with no seats or seat belts. They thought it was the best thing though. We can now say we've taken the subway, the local bus, the taxi and plane in China. I think that covers all the public transportation in China except the train! LOL Our guide said we were the first group ever to use the public bus and that scares her.

Tomorrow we go back to the island to have Evan's TB test read. We are thinking he will need a chest x-ray along with two other children in our group. Please keep these children in your prayers. Thanks for your emails and comments. It is so nice to hear from everyone back home.

Cheri~

Medical Exam

2010-02-27T09:27:00.002-05:00

Today was Evan's medial exam appointment. All the children had to have their Visa pictures taken before the medical portion. This went pretty fast. We then moved over to the medical center and waited for the vaccinations. Evan received four shots today and a TB skin test. We were able to explain to him that he would be receiving shots. When we entered the room he let us know he didn't want them. He was very brave and did not cry. He did make faces and some noise but no tears.

We moved through the next stations rather quickly. We decided to kick out the ENT station first. This exam is kind of a joke. Most who have adopted understand what we are talking about. Those of you who don't let me tell you what we mean. To test the hearing they have an electric piano on one side of the child and a squeaky toy on the other side. If they look in the direction of either than they can hear! Evan did not but we did not expect him to. If he had I probably would have laughed to myself.

The second station was the main medical doctor. He was a very nice man and pleased with how well Evan was doing. He asked if we felt Evan was on track developmentally. Of course we said yes! Sometimes China will not only make the diagnosis of Deaf but they will also say dumb as well. Our child is far from being dumb!! He is actually pretty darn smart if I so day so.

The last station was height, weight and eye test. We didn't even bother checking to see his height and weight. He has an appointment less than a week after returning home. The eye test was interesting but he was able to do it. :)

Praise God for our sweet little guy. He is amazing and we can not wait to get home to meet the kids in person. We are missing them something firce. Tomorrow will be a day of shopping. We are looking forward to that very much. So until tomorrow.......

Bob, Cheri, and Taylor

Heading to Guangzhou!

2010-02-25T22:02:00.003-05:00

We are all packed and ready to go. Our flight does not leave until 4 or 4:30 pm but we will check out and head to the airport at 2 pm. This will be Evan's first ride on an airplane. Please keep us in your prayers. He seems to understand that we are all going somewhere together.

We are leaving you with some more photos of the city.

Here you can see the cities skyscrapers. They are everywhere and they are huge.

Here in the center of the square is the Clock Tower. It chimes on the hour up until 11 pm at night. It is really tall and very beautiful.

This is very neat. This is the year of the tiger and in this picture someone made a tiger out of used Coke cans!

This is only a block away from the the above pictures. They are tearing down these buildings to update this part of the city. It is amazing to see the start difference only blocks away from each other.

This woman was working on the same street as the above picture. There were little markets up and down this street.

So if you don't see the pictures just give Carla some time, she'll have them up soon.

Bob, Cheri and Taylor

Day On The Town

2010-02-25T09:25:00.002-05:00

Today was a fascinating day of touring Chongqing. There are 39 million people in Chongqing. It is the largest city in all of China as well as the most industrial. Imagine what the skies here look like. We were told Chongqing is the size of Austria. There are no bikes in this province due to the mountains. There are MANY cars, motorcycles, and stick boys. There are a 1,000 cars added to the streets of Chongqing a day! We have seen quite a few accidents here.

We were able to go to the Three Gorges Museum. We saw a wall mural that showed how many people and towns were affected by the dam. To actually see it the way we did really put it into perspective. Some towns/cities are completely under water. The reasons the dam was built is for flood protection, increase power by 50%, and reduce polution due to burning coal. Burning coal is the number one reason why the city always appears to be be hazy.

We drove to Chongqing Eling Park. On the drive we saw caves within the mountain side that were built back during WWII. Some of them have little shops, many are locked. The park was beautiful. There were items from WWII there as well as a pagoda. On a clear day we could have seen the Yangtze river and Chongqing city sky line. The People's Great Hall is the landmark of Chongqing. The whole building has an elegant design and the colors of the building is spectacular. Especially the dome above the front gate, a typical architectural creation in Chinese sociaty.

We head out to Guangzhou tomorrow afternoon. We are looking forward to meeting back up with our group and their new children.

We have noticed Evan doing a full body "twitch" when he is completely relaxed. Please pray that this is nothing more than a twitch. Tomorrow's post may just be photo's. :)

Cheri~

http://lovinglia.blogspot.com/

Orphanage Visit

2010-02-24T08:40:00.002-05:00

Evan and Taylor - Heading to the orphanage.

Today was very interesting and a day we will never forget. We headed to the orphanage around 10am and it took about 45-55 minutes to arrive there. The scenerary along the way was interesting. We went from one extreme to the other extreme. I love to drive the country side and view the daily life of people.

Evan was fine in the car for awhile and then became very quite. It was pretty clear he knew where we were going. When we arrived he was afraid. Bob, Michael and I got out at the front gate and took some pictures. We explained to him to stay in the car with Taylor. After I got out and turned to explain to him to stay with Tay he waved good-bye to me. :( I shook my head no and tired my very best to let him know that we would be leaving with him.

Front of the Orphanage. Houses the babies and toddlers.

We all drove up to the orphanage and walked around the grounds. Michael asked Evan if he wanted to go inside. He nodded yes. He asked if we wanted to, of course we jumped at the offer. The building is separated by the childrens ages. We went into the school aged section. This consisted of the children 7-18 years of age. We reached the doors of the building and a man came out and started talking to Evan. He had my hand and Taylors, I can tell you his grip became a bit tighter. I don't need to speak Chinese to know the man asked or told Evan he was coming back. Evan started shaking his head no. This man grabbed his arm teasing him and Evan had the look of fear on his face. He just started pulling away, he was not going back.

Children's Hospital on the grounds of Orphanage

We went upstairs to where the childrens bedrooms are and that is where Evan froze. He did not want to move. There was no way to explain we just wanted him to show us his old room. In fact he was backing up like he was afraid we were bringing him to the room and going to leave. That is when Michael received a phone call from the assistant director telling him to finish up quickly and get out of the building. The CCAA is still retricting visitors due to the fear of H1N1. I quickly went and took a picture of what I thought was Evans bedrrom but later found out from him that it was the next room over. I would have loved to look in the room a bit more but a group of older children had heard Evan was there and was now surronding him. They all seemed nice except for one. She seemed to be tounting him or telling him something me. I saw the head teacher get upset with her and tell her to stop. I believe she was telling him we were going to cut his tongue out. I can't be certain but if you were to see the motion I think you would come to the same conclusion.

Houses school aged and children up to 18 yr. old.

Evan was able to see his head teacher and big sister. He didn't want anything to do with his big sister. I'm pretty sure it hurt her feeling. She looks pretty sad to say the least. He would barely look at her. The head teacher gave us another picture of Evan and three other sweet children swimming. As we were leaving the building they we looking out one of the building windows and waving. It was truely sad. He was happy to wave good-bye to everyone and his feet barely hit the steps as we went down. He seems so much more relaxed and is very happy. We have yet to see him cry. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

Dining Room

Bedroom - sleeps eight children.

3 Towers

Evan is starting to test his boundries a bit more. We were in a store today and he was touching everything. I kept signing no. He was not listening. He kept letting go of my hand as well and that we will not stand for right now. He was not happy. I thought he was going to hit the floor and start to melt down. I help escort him out of the store before that happened. He loves to hang out with Taylor. The two of them together is so cute. When they get off the elevator they race down the hall to our room. I thought for sure he was going to end up sleeping in her bed but he is in ours.

He is picking up so many signs it is amazing. He has about 15 signs that he has learned and then a few that he uses from the orphanage that we understand. He compunnicates his needs very well. I don't think we will have a problem doing his hearing test in a couple of weeks. Oh did I tell you how clean and organized he like his things? He goes around the room making sure everything is picked up and put a way properly.

Tomorrow we are going sightseeing around Chongqing. We really have not seen much of the city except for walking around the streets outside our hotel. Thank you all for your prayers. If you have wondered why I have not sent messages to the other children at home that is because we talk to them once or twice a day via Skype. They know we love and miss them. They are doing really well and have a great friend taking care of them. We leave Chongqing on Friday! Wecan hardly believe it.

If you've read this far thanks, if not I don't blame you! LOL I'm off to bed. Everyone else is sleeping already as usual.

Bob, Cheri and Taylor

He's Ours!

2010-02-23T09:15:00.002-05:00

It is official, Evan is our son. We finished up all of the Chinese adoption paperwork today. We had to go back to the civil affairs building and to the police station to finish it all but it is finished. Chongqing does a special ceremony when everything is all done and they hand you your child's "red book". It really was very special and I'm glad we had an option to buy pictures from them. They had someone taking pictures while the ceremony was taking place. We did have to go to the police station and wait for about an hour so they could issue Evans Chinese passport at the end of the week. Seemed like forever.

Evan became pretty quite when we all loaded the car for the civil affairs office. Then it became apparent he was nervous. He had a hold of Taylor's hand and was not letting go for anything. The assistant director came into the room and approached Evan. He let go of Taylor's hand and waved to her. He thought he was going back. He looked so sad. We did our ceremony, paperwork and left to go to dinner. When we all went back to the car you could see him relax again.

We took him to McDonald's for dinner. He loved it except I'm thinking he is going to only like ketchup only on his burgers. I wasn't about to try and explain that one. ;) You should have seen him open up while we were there. It was amazing. It was like he could relax. He was giggling and pointing things out. Was a bit too shy to go play on the playground even though he really wanted to.

When we returned to the hotel both he and Taylor had to go to the bathroom. I told Taylor to run to the room and go. My thinking was by the time we arrived at the room she would be done and Evan could go. Well Evan and Taylor raced towards our room with one boy giggling all the way. It was way too sweet for words. So now the both race to see who is going to make it there first. Last time Evan was hiding around the corner in front of our door and tried to pop out and scare Bob. I'm telling you this boy is sweet! He loves Taylor and I truly believe it is because of the young lady that helped him in his class.

Evan watch a bit of Signing Time DVD today and picked up the signs fast! Awhile later he was watching a cartoon and there was an airplane in it and he started signing plane to Bob. He is learning really fast.

Leslie, the toy he is playing with in yesterdays pictures is a little flashlight that casts a picture on the wall or a seat. He loves that toy. Mickey Mouse is a big hit with him. The measurements the orphanage sent is dead on. The clothes we brought fit him great.

We're off to bed. I hope we can all sleep past 4am. Evan was up at 5am and I think it was because of us. Tomorrow will be another day where Evan may be a bit unsure. We will tour the outside grounds of his orphanage with the possibility of the inside. Please keep us in your prayers. Thank you for all who have been emailing and leaving comments! They mean the world to us.

Meeting Evan!

2010-02-22T07:34:00.002-05:00

Today we met our second son and it was one of the most amazing days ever. Our flight ended up an hour late due to a passenger being removed from the plane by security. Luckily we were not meeting Evan until 2pm. Our guide Michele is great so far. He told us a ton of information about Chongqing. He dropped us off at the hotel so we could drop off our luggage and get our items ready to head over to the Civil Affairs Building.

At 1:30pm we headed to the Civil Affairs Building and entered right at 2pm. As we walked in the door there was our sweet boy. You could see he knew who we were and that he was excited. He came to me, grabbed my hand and did not let go. What an answer to prayer. The orphanage staff really prepared him well for our arrival. Thank you Lord.

Evan was able to say Mama and Baba with verbal cues. He either has some hearing and or really great lip reading. We were able to meet a young lady that acts as a big sister to him. You will see her with him in a couple of the pictures. They seemed really close. We learned that she was teaching him a bit of sign language. Please pray that we will be granted access to the orphanage on Wednesday. This will be iffy and we pray that it can be made possible.

He is a sweet, sweet boy! We can not wait to see his full personality come to life in the next few days. There have been no tears as of tonight but we will see what tomorrow brings. Thank you all for your prayers. They have worked. Please do not stop now.

Carla: I tried to fix some of the shadows on the photos rather quickly. Anyone meeting your child here, know it has some "wonderful" lighting conditions in the afternoon with backlighting going on. Fill flash or "spot metering" mode might be better. I know these are a tad too red, going to work on it now. :)

More Beijing Sight Seeing

2010-02-21T07:12:00.002-05:00

Today was yet again another day of busy sight seeing. We started our day at the Beijing International Christian Fellowship Church. The message was awesome and so fitting. It spoke about fear and anxitey. What adoptive parent does not have either of these the day before you meet your child? After church everyone commented on how they were in awe of the timing of the message.

When church was over we headed to the Olympic Park. This was under construction when we came at the end of 2007. It was great to see it up close and see its beauty. Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City was very busy. It is a huge area and I think it took us three hours to cover both places. The air quality was amazing today. You could see for quite a ways in to the distance. It was also warmer than the other two days.

The pearl factory was very nice. Taylor loved it. She used some of her spending money to buy some items. She probably could have used all of it there but we needed to remind her that she still has two weeks to go. I feel like all we do right now is eat. We eat as a group as it is included in our tour package for Beijing. We have like pretty much everything so far. Wonder what our province will be like. We will find out tomorrow!

We have to wake up at 3:30 to start our day. We need to be in the lobby to go to the airport at 5:30 am. We will meet Evan tomorrow afternoon, we are not sure of the time. So we are of to pack and try to sleep. Please keep all of us in your prayers.

Noah, Kera and Lia, we love and miss you very much. Tomorrow you will meet your new brother! :) Be good for Michele!

Bob, Cheri and Taylor

Summer Palace & Great Wall

2010-02-20T08:55:00.002-05:00

I'm falling asleep waiting for pictures to upload so I can send them on to Carla. It was a very busy day with a ton of walking. We went to the Summer Palace first and it was as beautiful as the first time we were there. We would have so loved to have seen it at different time of the year but it seems that just was not meant to be. All the same it was beautiful. The first time we stopped and posed for a picture we were swarmed with by a couple of young women who wanted to have their pictures taken with us. This happened a couple of times but a ton for the younger girls in our group. Taylor and Katie were stopped a ton. Not so much by adults but by girls their age. It was rather cute as they were shy at first and some were afraid to ask for a picture with the two girls. The little five year old that is in our group wanted nothing to do with any of it. Who can blame her?!?!

We headed to the jade factory after the Summer Palace. Last time we were here we bought a jade bangle from them and it broke after a certain little girl dropped it on our tile floor. We did not buy another. They have however added on to the building making it look much more fancy. From there we went to lunch, it was very tasty. We were able to see how they made Colonaise items. There was a huge shopping area attached to the restaurant for one to spend more money.

Straight from lunch we went to the Great Wall. It's always a beautiful sight as your driving up the mountain side. We were able to see some of the wall that has deteriorated. We decided to climb the harder side this time as well so Taylor could get a sense of how step and uneven the steps really are. Not to mention there are far more vendors on the easy side. We have some beautiful picture of some of the families within our group on The Wall. We had the famous duck dinner tonight. The last time we were here we did not like it. This time though it was rather delicious. I'm glad we gave it a try again.

Our guides have been great. Maggie sang The Star Spangle Banner in Chinese to us and it was beautiful. She has such a lovely voice. Rosa remembers us from when we traveled two years ago as well as our travel mates! :) We feel so blessed to have them as our guides again.

Tomorrow is another busy day. We will go Church, Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City. We are tired but so excited to be here. Only one more day! Thanks for following along and praying for us. Please keep them coming as we are so close to meeting Evan.

Bob, Cheri & Taylor

Crazy Day of Adventure

2010-02-19T09:32:00.002-05:00

First if you do not see any pictures check back they will be added later.

We decided today after breakfast that we would all go to the silk market. Mode of transportation was up in the air. Some wanted to take cabs, some walk, and some take the bus. The bus won out so off we went. It started out fairly easy. We were able to find the bus stop and bus with no problems. You boarded the bus from the back and we soon learned from watching everyone that there was one way off - the front. We along with one other family was near the front exit while the rest of our group was in the back. The group in the back had the directions so we were watching them to know when to get off. At one point we were told one more exit and that is when it got interesting. We moved to the exit and Taylor was the first out the door, suddenly before anyone else could exit, the bus doors closed. Our 14 yr old. daughter turned around on some street in Beijing to see us on a bus with the doors closed! It was at that point I started to panic. I let out a scream and the word that came out of my mouth was "WAIT"!!!!!!! I think I was banging on the doors as well, it is all a blur. All I know is the bus doors opened and Bob and I were able to get off as well as one other family.

We proceeded to walk with a map that our hotel had given us but we ended up making a wrong turn at some point. Our family along with one of the other families children made it to the silk market via a cab. The rest of the other family was going to catch a cab but they ended up walking the rest of the way as they had five other family members and the cab only holds four. It was maybe 15 minutes later when they arrived. We did not see our other travel mates anywhere at the silk market. It was rather crazy in the market. Everyone wanted you to buy something from them. If you paused or looked at something they were all over you. Needless to say we did not buy anything. Oh and we did take a quick and cheap cab ride back to the hotel just in case any of you are wondering. ;)

We ventured out on foot tonight for dinner with our friends we spent the day with. They are great. Todd and Kim brought their four kids with them and their children are adorable. We walked to a local restaurant and ordered some interesting food. All tasted very good but some was very spicy even though they said they would only make it a little spicy. We ordered beef and peppers thinking it would be green bell peppers but it was green chili peppers. Very spicy but good. We fed nine of us for $35 US dollars and had a ton of food. Very friendly service as well.

Tomorrow we will be with our guides so we will have a busy schedule. We see the Summer Palace, Jade Factory and Great Wall. It will be a fun day of our favorite places! Off to bed but only 3 more days until we meet Evan! Hopefully we can sleep. There seems to be a party next door and they are very loud singing songs etc.

Bob, Cheri & Taylor

Carla adding here: This LINK is to another family who recently traveled over Chinese New Year and took a video of the fireworks. This is the kind of fireworks they are hearing all night long! I can imagine how it is with the kind of debris shown here in the photo above.

We Made It!

2010-02-18T06:20:00.001-05:00

The flights went smooth and we have made it to China safe and sound! Four other families arrived a day early so we already have quite the crowd. More will arrive tomorrow with the rest arriving on Sunday.

China is still celebrating Chinese New Year and we are witnessing that. We have heard fireworks from the moment we stepped foot off of our bus. Not just little ones the really big ones!!! We arrived at the hotel at 4pm and it is now 7pm and they are going strong. Our guide tells us they will probably go most of the night.

Tomorrow is a free day and we are not sure what we will do. I'm sure we will come up with something good though. Please keep praying, only 4 more days until we meet Evan!

Oh for those of you getting ready to travel I wanted to let you know you could read other blogs in Google reader as long as you don't open up to Blogger. :) I won't be able to respond but when I have some down time I'll be checking on all of you!

Bob, Cheri & Taylor

Noah, Kera and Lia I sure hope your behaving for Michele. We love and miss you very much!

Itinerary

2010-02-12T19:17:00.001-05:00

Adoption Itinerary
February 18th – March 5th

Thursday, Feb. 18th Arrive in Beijing
Friday, Feb. 19th Free day in Beijing
Saturday, Feb. 20th Beijing Sight-Seeing: Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace
Sunday, Feb. 21st Beijing Sightseeing: Church Service, Great Wall
Metcha Day!
Monday, Feb. 22nd Morning-flight to Chongqing
Afternoon-Meet Evan LuBo
Tuesday, Feb. 23rd Civil Affairs Appointment
Feb. 24th – Feb. 25th Sightseeing & Shopping
Friday, Feb. 26th Flight to Guangzhou
Saturday, Feb. 27th Medical Exam
Sunday, Feb. 28th Free day in Guangzhou
Monday, March 1st Consulate Paperwork
Tuesday, March 2nd Consulate Appointment at 9:00 am
Wednesday, March 3rd Consulate Oath Taking Ceremony
Thursday, March 4th Pick-up Child’s Visa
Depart from Guangzhou
Friday, March 5th Depart from Hong Kong

Our guides will be Maggie and Rosa in Beijing and Guangzhou and Michael in Chongqing. Ginny, I'm wondering if this is the same guide you had while in province. We should receive our travel items tomorrow via FedEx. :)

Testing

2010-02-11T11:32:00.004-05:00

I almost forgot to try and do a test post and see if I would be able to blog while in China. See Blogger is banned and one must email their posts to their blog or have a great friend like Carla to update your blog for you.

The picture is a map of China and you'll see a red dot where Chongqing is. That is Evan's province. Most know where Beijing is in the north and Guangzhou is in the Guangdong Province in the south. So this gives you a bit of an idea of where we will be going.

To compare where we went on our last trip, Lia is from the Yunnan Province.

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Agency Closed.....Again

2010-02-10T09:56:00.001-05:00

Our agency is really getting hit hard by this storm. It is expected to end tonight but I really do not expect anyone to be in the office tomorrow. Actually I'd be surprised if they went in at all this week. Which means we would get all of our travel items (passport, visas, and plane tickets) the day before we leave! *faint* Did I mention I'm feeling a bit stressed?!?! I'm trying to trust in the Lord but feeling a bit overwhelmed right now.

On a positive note we were able to fix our problems with Skype! I fix the problem on our main PC and a wonderful friend fixed it for us on the laptop! It was very easy but I had no clue what I was doing. LOL It will be great to be able to talk with our children when we are gone.

Please keep praying for us and our travel group.

2 Weeks

2010-02-08T13:04:00.000-05:00

Can you believe it! In two weeks we will meet our Evan! Time is going by so fast and before we know it we will be on the plane flying to China. We are busy doing last minute preparations.

We will not receive our itinerary today as the agency was hit by that massive snow storm over the weekend and is closed for the day. We are praying we will receive it tomorrow. We know that at least two other families are arriving early as well as us.

We are having problems with Skype. :( I hope to have that fixed before we leave otherwise I'll be one sad momma! If anyone has any ideas or has BTDT let me know what worked for you. We leave in 9 days!

So Excited!

2010-02-05T10:14:00.001-05:00

It's official, we have Rosa and Maggie for our guides! That made our day yesterday. We had both of them on our first trip to China as guides when we went in 2007 to adopt Lia and we'll have them again this time. We had our travel meeting yesterday. There were some problems with the phone lines so we have no idea if we have anyone going to province with us or not. We do know that there are older children being adopted but I'm not sure of the ages. We have a whooping 12 families in our group with the potential of one or two more families joining.

We are traveling during the most expensive time of the year. The bigger the group the better it will be for hotel discounts though. We should have our itinerary early next week. Wondering who our guide in province will be. It still seems unreal to me but I am excited and nervous all at once.

We are less than two weeks from leaving for China!

Travel Meeting

2010-02-01T08:35:00.000-05:00

Can you believe we have our travel meeting Thursday! We are so excited! Time is just flying by so fast. We can't wait to find out if there is anyone else going to province with us and how many people are in our travel group. What we really want to know is who our guides will be. We're praying it will be Maggie and Rosa. If not then we will meet up with Rosa while we are in Beijing. :)

Next week we should receive our itinerary!

Concrete Travel Dates

2010-01-26T10:44:00.002-05:00

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

2010-01-20T16:56:00.000-05:00

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

2010-01-13T18:08:00.000-05:00

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

2010-01-12T05:46:00.001-05:00

Traveling After CNY

2010-01-11T14:33:00.002-05:00

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!

2010-01-08T10:53:00.000-05:00

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

Party Pictures!

2010-01-05T23:33:00.000-05:00

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!!

2010-01-04T14:37:00.000-05:00

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!!

2010-01-04T09:28:00.000-05:00

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.

2010-01-01T09:30:00.001-05:00

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! :)

Mixed Emotions

2009-12-31T09:23:00.000-05:00

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit"

Psalm 34:18

I'm sure from the verse you can tell I'm feeling pretty down. We had a great Christmas and I only broke down once as thoughts of Evan came to my mind. Today though is much different. I think it's been building. In exactly three hours, in China it will be Evans birthday. We are not with him. We do not know when we will be with him. He knows we are coming but does not know when. I'm sure he is wondering what is taking so long.

At some point in the night while we are sleeping our guy will be celebrating his birthday with all of his friends. This year he will have a cake and presents to open. He has a family that misses him so much and would do anything to jump on a plane to bring him home today if they could.

I feel like our agency has let us down. They have poo pooed my questions stating they would get back to me asap. That was well over three weeks ago. We have paid them enough money to answer our questions in a timely manor and with honesty. They have cost us numerous delays in this adoption process.

Now I do believe everything happens for a reason and God is in control. What I do not believe in is incompetence! When the same problems and errors continue to occur with more than one family, then there is a problem that needs addressing. Right now I am angry and sad!

Awesome Friends!

2009-12-29T08:05:00.000-05:00

We have been totally stressed about who we were going to have watch the children while we were in China. The Lord showed up in a BIG way last night and it brought me to tears. It was looking like we would have to split the children up and they would have to miss two weeks of school.

Our friends from church came over for dinner last night and she offered to "move her family in" and stay for the two weeks we were gone. Her two children are home schooled so she can school them while our children are at school! Lia will miss no therapies and be with her siblings!

Best thing, we will have peace of mind that our children are receiving awesome care while we are gone! What a relief. Thank you Lord.

2009-12-23T07:27:00.002-05:00

Seems we are still waiting on our Article 5. We can not proceed to our TA until our Article 5 is issued. Please pray that we will receive this soon!

Just Have To....

2009-12-22T14:33:00.000-05:00

Birthday Care Package

2009-12-21T21:53:00.000-05:00

We ordered Evan's birthday care package tonight. His birthday is fast approaching and we did not want to miss out on ordering it with all of the holiday festivities. On January 1st Evan will turn 7 years old. It will be his last birthday without his family! :)

Waiting

2009-12-13T07:08:00.000-05:00

How Many Days?

2009-12-11T05:21:00.005-05:00

I've broken down our wait from the time our agency accept our application.

Approved by agency - 2/21/09 = 302 Days
Referral accepted - 3/09/09 = 277 Days or 9 months, 2 days
Sent LOI - 5/29/09 = 196 Days or 6 months, 12 Days
Received LID - 9/1/09 = 101 Days or 3 months, 10 Days
Received LOA- 11/3/09 = 38 Day or 1 month, 8 Days

Wondering how much longer!

So Tired

2009-12-09T22:27:00.003-05:00

I am just so tired of all the delays! Apparently our agency has not sent our paperwork to the Consulate yet. It's been two weeks since our file was cabled. Approval is usually given between 6-14 days after the cable is sent. So we could be looking at another 2 weeks before our Article 5 is issued.

Feeling a bit weary in this process.

**Update -Our information was originally submitted a few weeks ago but our in-country staff was then informed that the DS 230 was missing information as they had updated the forms. They have provided this information to our in-country staff and they are working with the consulate to have it processed as quickly as possible. They will follow up again today and let us know what they hear.**

Gearing Up

2009-12-09T11:17:00.000-05:00

Not sure when we will travel, I've started gathering items for our trip. Evans clothes are washed and I'm trying to decide what to bring. I think we will start packing his items. His little backpack is full and ready for him to go through. We have enjoyed shopping for items he will need. I think the item we bought that made it real for me was his little toothbrush!

Nothing new to report on our wait for TA. We will be sending him a birthday cake at the end of the month as his birthday is Jan. 1st. Hopefully we will receive pictures. :)

It's Been Awhile

2009-12-04T09:03:00.000-05:00

I can't believe how long it's been since I've blogged over here. Bob and I had our midterm in our Monday night sign language class. We both missed two questions out of 30. We are still going to our Thursday night class which is good because it actually keeps us going. We start our Monday night class back up the begining of January.

We are still waiting on our TA. For those of you not familiar with the adoption lingo none of this will mean anything to you but for those of you who are this is where we stand. We received our I800 approval on 11/20 and then the NVC cabled our petition to Guangzhou on 11/27. We are offically awaiting for our article 5 to be sent and then our TA should be sent!

We have started washing Evans clothes and buying some needed supplies for our trip. I can hardly believe that it is almost time to travel. Please pray that we can travel before Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is 2/14 this year.

We are inching closer ever day!

Nerves

2009-11-13T12:26:00.000-05:00

It seems as though my nerves are getting the best of me these days. Maybe because the time for travel is actually getting closer. There is still so much to do. We've waited for what seems like forever to bring Evan home and now it's right around the corner.

One of our biggest fears is that our time in China will be much like it was with Lia. Lia's fear, saddness, and anger was so overwhelming at times it hurt. There was only one other child in our group who reacted as Lia did. All the other children were happy go lucky. I can still hear Lia's deep cries and feel her in my arms as she tries to push herself away from me. Evan is bigger and even stronger than Lia. Will he react as she did or will he be excited?

All we can do is prepare for the worst and pray for the best! We don't expect Evan to come running to us nor did we with Lia. We know this is a life changing event that comes with many emotions for our children. We do pray that Evan's adjustment is a bit easier than Lia's was.

Drop Intercepted!

2009-11-05T21:39:00.005-05:00

For those who have adopted before you know how fast that FedEx guy is. I was bound and determined I was going to catch him today. I swear they drop that package off and run for their life! Well, I caught him. Actually as soon as I saw him hit the end of my driveway I flew downstairs and flung open my door. Needless to say I startled him. Imagine a crazy excited woman with a camera running towards you.

Today has been a crazy day filled with preparing FedEx packages, photocopying papers, faxing the agency and lack of sleep. I am so glad 90% of our paperwork was filled out before hand or I would have been more overwhelmed than I was. Come to find out Evan's Chinese name is actually translated to Lv Bo BUT can be translated to Lu Bo as well. As for our offical documents we will use Lv so there are no delays but for our spelling we will use Lu. I have double checked to make sure this is appropriate and I have been assured by two people that it is.

It feels good to know that all of this paperwork is done and out of our hands. Now to sit back and wait yet some more. We are being advised that our TA could take anywhere from 9-11 weeks and that is if things stay at the rate the are going now.

Right now I'd just like to see my fellow agency friends receive their TA's as they have been waiting for a long time. So if you are reading could you say a prayer for them please?

*Edited to say the packages arrived safely to their destinations! PHEW!!!

LOA!!!

2009-11-03T13:29:00.002-05:00

WooHoo, 63 days after CCAA logged us into their system they have officially approved us to be the parents of Lu Bo!! I can hardly believe it! Praise God for only He could have given us a quick LOA. It looks as though we may travel at the end of January if all goes well. :) Only time will tell.

Unexpected Blessings

2009-10-23T13:50:00.003-04:00

As of today we've have been waiting 53 days for our LOA. I am hopeful we will see it at the end of next month but earlier would be better! :) This part of the wait has actually gone rather quickly. I'm sure as the numbers creep up it will get harder.

We struggled with the home study process and delays. I know it has added to our wait. I can honestly say that while I am sad that Evan is spending more time in an orphanage without his forever family I thank Jesus for unexpected blessings.

We have found a wonderful church after many months (year and a half) of looking. While doing this I have made some new friends. One (Michelle) is a sign language interpiter and an adoptive mom to one from China and a bio son. She hopes to adopt a deaf child from China in the future. Through her I have met Bev and Marcia who are both deaf and active in the deaf community. They have invited us to a sign language class that the church holds while the kids attend AWANA. So we are taking two classes and learning a ton.

Next month I will attend my first Deaf Women's Luncheon. My friends will be there with me but I must say I am nervous. Most of the women who were at last months luncheon know all about our family and they are excited to meet me at the next lunch. I was surprised to learn that they prayed for us. Oh, I should not have been because this is Christian Deaf Woman's Luncheon. How cool is that.

Had we been DTC sooner we would not have this opportunity to reach out to the deaf community. I am thankful we have this time to learn more and meet wonderful people! Thank you Jesus!

New Pictures!

2009-10-10T21:18:00.004-04:00

So we went a head and sent Evan a care package through Ann at Red Thread China. We were going to wait a few more weeks but I was starting to get a bit antsy. We really just want Evan to be fully prepared for our arrival. Hopefully he will understand that we are his family. Please pray that his nanny will be able to communicate that to him.

When we received his first update from the agency I thought he looked a bit different from his referral pictures. His eyes just didn't look as round and his face was fuller. Now we receive pictures that match the referral pictures but not the first set of updated pictures. I'm not sure if it was just because he was going through a chunkier stage or what. What do you all think?

Here are his new measurements -
10/10/2009

height : 118cm - 46.5in

weight : 22kg - 48.4 lbs

head : 51cm - 20.1in

chest : 55.5cm - 21.9in

feet : 18.5cm - 7.3in

teeth : 22

4/16/2009
Updated Measurements:
Height 115.5cm - 44.5in
Weight 20.5kg - 45.1lbs
Head 52.5cm - 20.7in
Chest 54.5cm - 21.5in
Feet 18cm - 7.1in
Teeth 20

2/3/2008
Height 103.5cm - 40.7in
Weight 18.5kg - 40.7lbs
Head 51.1cm - 20.1in
Feet?
Teeth 20
Chest 52.5 cm - 20.7

I'm loving his hair longer. I think he looks much thinner in these pictures. Oh and twice now I've seen his Chinese name translated different. Hopefully we can get that cleared up as we plan on using it as his middle name.

Is he not just sweet!

Small Update

2009-09-28T12:52:00.002-04:00

Not much going on other than doing our sign language class. Tonight will be our third week of our class. I can tell you that it is overwhelming at times but fun. We are learning quite a bit. Wednesday will mark 30 days of waiting for our LOA. I can hardly believe it has been that long already. Time is sure going by rather fast. Praying it continues.

Get This

2009-09-14T10:30:00.002-04:00

First of all Bob, Taylor, Noah and I start our sign language classes tonight. We are so excited to finally have some formal training. I do believe we know quite a bit thanks to Signing Times but there comes a time when you need to put all the signs together.

In talking to Noah about school he was telling us his teacher was showing him some signs for different things in class. This has never happened before. Also when the children enter kindergarten the learn to sign the alphabet and colors. I totally forgot about that. So when I read that Kera was learning the signs for the colors I think I about bust into tears. Only the Lord would bring a teacher to my son who does signs and a kindergarten class teach it as their curriculum. Thank you Jesus!

Guess What!

2009-09-04T15:37:00.000-04:00

We received an email that informed us that we have an LID of 9/1/09!!!! That's right people, China logged us in the day after they received our dossier! I was not expecting to hear anything for another two weeks. Thank you Jesus for answered prayers. Praying for a speedy time line the rest of the wait.

DTC, Baby!

2009-08-29T12:04:00.001-04:00

I'm typing this as we head back from vacation so please forgive me for any errors.

We received word that we are offically DTC as of 8/28. We were told that our LID could take 6-8 weeks. We are praying that it does not take that long. I think the average is 2-4 weeks. Praise God that things are finally in China's hands.

At the Agency!

2009-08-19T22:14:00.002-04:00

Our dossier is at our agency except for our I797C (which will arrive tomorrow before 10:30!) and the last page of our HS. The agency is taking care of the HS so I am not sure when that will arrive there but it looks like we will definitely be DTC next Friday! :) I pray that the next half of this wait is much smoother.

High Frustration Levels!!

2009-08-13T10:02:00.004-04:00

Really how much more! We received a call from the courier service about our home study document we sent them. The guy on the other line told me that his office was going to be close the rest of this week and would re-open next Wednesday. He also informed us that the notary stamp that our SW had done would not pass through the Chinese Consulate.

Now we are playing email and phone tag with anyone and everyone to try and have this taken care of before we leave for vacation. It does not give us much time. We may not be DTC until September after all BUT we are not giving up hope until we actually know more details. To say this has left a sour taste in our mouth is an understatement.

USCIS Approval

2009-08-12T12:53:00.000-04:00

We received word today that our case worker at USCIS has approved our I800A for Evan. She pulled our prints off today and told me that we should receive our notice in the mail in the next 2-3 days. Praying we receive the notice by Monday because then I can drive to the capitol yet again and have the state notary done. I'll drop it in the FedEx box to the Consulate and from there it will go to our agency. The question is, will be DTC next Friday or the following Friday?!?!

We see the light!!

Sign Language Class

2009-08-11T10:10:00.002-04:00

PTL we have found a class! I called a church in the next city over that has a large deaf ministry program and we will be starting sign language classes September 14th!! It works out so well, the price, the time and the day. The only problem we have is we will need to find a sitter for Kera and Lia. I have no doubt that we will find one. Praying for the right one.

Fingerprints Done!

2009-08-07T10:40:00.001-04:00

We were fingerprinted first thing this morning! :) Thank you Lord that is done. We are praying we receive our I797C approval EARLY next week so we can send it off to the currier. After that we can send it on to our agency and we will be able to type that we are DTC.

Unfortunately we do have to send our home study on to the currier before our I797C. As I was doing the county and state authentications we noticed that our SW only gave us two months to have our home study go through all of the authentications before the notary stamp expired! That means we have to pay for the currier fee twice in less than two weeks. Unless we want to wait weeks and I can tell you right now that is not going to happen! ;)

One step closer!

New Family Coordinator

2009-07-31T16:02:00.000-04:00

As of today we have a new family coordinator (FC). Lauren is moving out of our agencies area and we will miss her dearly. She has been so much help to us this past year. I had hoped we would get through this adoption with one FC. We had four with Lia's adoption. We now have a "new" FC. Melissa has been with AWA for quite sometime. I have spoken with her in the past and she seems very nice.

Can you believe it, we get fingerprinted a week from today!! :) Oh so close!

No Luck

2009-07-14T11:43:00.002-04:00

We tried, oh how we tried. We have our original fingerprint date 8/7. We are praying that we receive our approval before we leave for vacation as we will have a small window. Only time will tell.

Fingerprint Appointment

2009-07-13T22:03:00.000-04:00

We have our fingerprint appointment for August 7th!! Bob and I will be taking our notices tomorrow to our local USCIS office and see if we can possibly get an earlier appointment. We leave less than two weeks after our original appointment for vacation and will not be able to be DTC until September. I think we have until September 10th before we have to ask for an extension from China. Believe it or not that will place us at the 6 month mark and to be honest we've been at this since Feb. Feeling a bit frustrated but we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel! :)

Please pray that we will receive earlier appointment times.

Off to USICS

2009-06-25T13:51:00.002-04:00

We were finally able to send our I-800A application (USCIS Pre-Approval to Bring Orphan into US) off today! They should receive it tomorrow. Our next step is waiting for them to issue us dates for our finger prints. We will then a wait one more piece of paper that will be placed with the rest of our documents. As soon as we receive this last approval I will have to drive to our state capital to have two documents authenticated and from there ship them to a currier in NYC for the last authentication. Once that is done we can ship all original documents and one set of our copies to our agency. They will then review and send them on to CHINA! :) We are getting closer.

We Got It!

2009-06-14T22:02:00.000-04:00

I e-mailed our SW tonight asking if she would check on our clearance that we are still waiting on and she responded back. She received them on Friday and didn't bother to let us know until I emailed her! Can you believe it?!?!

At any rate, we have them and thank the Lord there were no other issues. Now praying the home study and our fingerprints clear USCIS.

Hey Leslie, just maybe we WILL be traveling together. Only time will tell.

PA!!

2009-06-11T11:40:00.002-04:00

I can hardly believe it! We received our PA for Evan today. It sure would be nice to top this week off with news that our final clearance is back. Maybe I can have our SW call and see how things are going! LOL Praying for more good news!

Only One Left!

2009-06-08T20:37:00.002-04:00

That is all we have. Our home state child abuse clearances finally came back after 9 1/2 wks! Now we wait for state #3 which should have been back by now had the paperwork been submitted on day one instead of days AFTER our home study was completed. Who's keeping track though. ;)

We should have all of our documents back from the consulate by the end of the week. We sent them off to stop all the dates from expiring as we did not want to take the chance of having to re-do any paperwork. The only thing we will have to send in will be our home study and I800.

We are getting closer! Oh and did you notice that Evan is no longer listed on the WC list!?!? He was removed sometime on Friday. :)

WooHoo

2009-05-29T23:58:00.000-04:00

Our EA was actually sent today instead of Monday! :)

Abbrivation Meanings

2009-05-29T14:38:00.001-04:00

For those of you who do not know what the abbrivations stand for here is the run down.

AWA - America World Adoption (Our agency)
HS - Home Study
SW - Social Worker
DTC - Dossier To China (Our home study and all our paper work goes to China)
EA/LOI - Electronic Acceptance/Letter of Intent (Initial Contact letting China know your intent to adopt a certain child)
PA - Pre-approval (China knows your intent and has given you pre-approval for your child!)RA/LOA - Referral Acceptance/Letter of Acceptance (China sends written approval and you send back your acceptance.
TA - Travel Approval (Permission to travel to China)
CA - Consulate Appointment (Needed for childs Visa to become a US citizen)

Tenative EA Date!

2009-05-28T16:44:00.001-04:00

Our FC was out of the office most of this week. She returned today and called to let us know that if all went well she expected us to be able to send our EA on Monday! How exciting!!

Blog Redesigned

2009-05-27T22:14:00.002-04:00

As you can see we had the blog redesigned. Jenny at Pink Armchair Designs did it for us and worked her tail off! LOL As you can see there is a grab button on our side bar, please do not grab it yet. We are gearing up for our fundraiser soon and will use it for that. We will let you know when the kick off is.

Received One More

2009-05-26T22:18:00.003-04:00

We received state #2 clearances today! How is that for super fast! Less than a week with a holiday thrown in the mix. If only state #3 comes that fast! Did I tell you that only half of our home states clearances are back? So frustrating.

Our home study rough draft is with our FC at AW. I had hoped we'd hear some thing today but we did not. Praying we are able to send our LOI/RA by the end of the week. We are getting ready to send the rest of our documents off to the Chinese Consulate to finish the notarization process.

These are the steps we have left before our paper work can be shipped to China.

-State #1 Child Abuse Clearance (we have criminal clearance back)
-State #3 Clearance
-Immigration Finger Printing
-Receive I-800
-Notarize I-800 and Homestudy
-Send documents to Agency
-Agency sends DTC!!!

Mind you this could all still take months. Praying that it does not.

Sending LOI/EA?

2009-05-22T09:35:00.000-04:00

It appears that the rough draft of our home study has made it's way to our family coordinator yesterday. That is wonderful news because as soon as she is done reviewing and tweaking it then she will be able to send our Letter of Intent/Electronic Acceptance to China and let them know we want to adopt Evan!

Praying that next week is full of good news. :)

Evan's School

2009-05-22T08:49:00.001-04:00

On Monday we visited our State School for the Deaf. I must admit when we pulled up I had to hold back the flood gate of tears. I was overwhelmed with emotions. It finally felt real but after hearing the heartbreaking news that we were further away than we thought we were from getting Evan it was hard.

We spent two hours with the Director of Pupil Personnel Services and a half hour with the schools audiologist. They were the nicest people. Actually everyone we met at the school was super nice. We toured the whole school which is huge by the way! We saw their gym, fitness room, 3 cafeterias (small tables, medium tables and large table) OK I'll stop listing everything because I can go on and on. They do have an indoor pool that the children use as part of their PE. I love that! Did I tell you every child must take music? The music teacher also told us that 85% of the students take a musical instrument by middle school years. How awesome is that! The school also offers a birth to 3 program and then a preschool program for children.

It is a state school so they have to offer residential living. We were able to walk through the dormitories and saw were the students sleep, their kitchen and lounge area. I must say it is all very nice but I'm so glad we live very close to the school. Anyone under 34 miles will be bused to the school everyday. Over that you must stay on campus.

It is very diverse. There are students from Burma, Thailand, Russia, Bosnia, Afghanistan and one more country that I can't think of. I just think it is awesome. We don't have that much in our public school.

I must say we are very glad we took the time to visit the school. I think Evan will really like it there.

Glimmer of Hope

2009-05-21T08:41:00.003-04:00

I receive an e-mail yesterday that state #2 received our faxed paper work from our SW. The SW called to make sure it went through OK and the lady said that she would process them by today and have them out in the mail! :) How is that for fast. We should have them by next week.

Unfortunately we have to snail mail the forms for state #3 but our SW is adding a cover letter stating that we are completely done with our home study and waiting on SC to apply for our I-800. Could they please expedite? It's worth a shot. Otherwise it could be weeks before we see those.

Keep those prayers coming as they are doing wonderful things! :) Thanks friends.

Missing Clearances

2009-05-20T08:52:00.003-04:00

I know what I write here is a lot of the same from the main blog. Just hang in here with us.

It seems our clearance requests were not sent to two of our previous states on our behalf. So now when our home study is completely finished and waiting for us to get I-800 approval we can't because we don't have out state clearances! I have no idea how much time this will add onto our time line. We are beyond frustrated. We have our whole dossier DONE except our notarized home study and the I-800. :(

There is some good news in all of this mess! As soon as Lauren receives a rough draft of our home study from our SW then we can send in our EA/LOI for Evan! Is that not the best news you've heard all week! I know that is what we are holding onto.

I do know the Lord will work this all out in his time.

Home Study Complete!!

2009-05-18T09:37:00.002-04:00

We had our final home study visit this past weekend. We actually finished on our LID anniversary for Lia. All went well and we even thought we had all of our clearances for a brief moment. We only have ONE states. For some reason we are missing two and when I asked fellow adoptive families they all received them from those states in two to three weeks. We are now on six plus weeks! :(

Our social worker is going to look into it for us today. The first clearance reports were sent to the wrong place and the gentleman took three weeks to send them to our SW. I pray that is what happened with the other two state clearance reports. I think I might do some calling myself and see what I can find out.

Tomorrow we go to the School of Deaf to meet with school officials and tour the school Evan will attend. We will actually get to sit in on a class of children his age. :) We are looking forward to that. We are still not having any luck finding a sign language class so we are just learning via DVD.

Could you all pray that we get these clearances figured out and we can wrap up this home study. Hopefully we'll have some good news soon. Could you also pray that we hear some thing back on a sign language class? We are on three or four waiting lists for a class. Thanks!

One More

2009-05-12T16:33:00.003-04:00

We have one more home visit with the social worker and we will be done. Well at least on our part. We are still waiting on our finger prints to clear but that will come. This weekend marks our 3 year LID for Lia and Sunday is our anniversary. What better weekend to finish our home study.

Please pray our finger prints will come back soon so we can proceed to the next step.

Waiting....

2009-05-01T14:07:00.002-04:00

We are still waiting for our clearance from each state that we've lived in. I've read that it took three months for some adoptive families to come back. That would mean we could still have two months to wait before we could even send in our I-800A.

Good news is we will be done with our HS on the 16th! I can hardly wait. I pray that by the time we are done with the HS our clearances will be back and we will be ready to apply for our I-800A. It won't be long after that we can shout that we will be DTC (Dossier to China)! We are looking forward to that day!

As of right now China is not restricting travel but will quarantine anyone who is thought to be sick with the flu for 7 days. I'm sure we will hear more next week. Praying this will all be over with soon.

Bear With Us

2009-04-22T14:09:00.003-04:00

This blog will be going under construction soon! ;) The link reads come home eli and that will be changing. You see that is what we were going to name another child but ended up not persuing his adoption. So we may have to re invite all of you again. I hope we don't but it is possible.

Next month will be an exciting month for us. We will finish up our home study and send in our I-800A. We have an appointment with the School for the Deaf on the 19th and we are looking forward to that. We will be able to sit in on a class that is Evan's age, go to music class and use their lending library! :) I can't wait to see the campus and learn more. May will be a busy month for us.

Updated Pictures!!

2009-04-16T16:53:00.003-04:00

We receive a surprise today in our inbox. Today we received updated info on Evan! :) As you can see he has grown up quite a bit since his last pictures. He height is 45in and weight is 45.5lbs. He is wearing a size 12 in childrens shoe and has 20 teeth! We are so ready to go and get him! Lets get this show on the road! Enjoy the pictures! :)

Pictures!

2009-04-04T22:44:00.002-04:00

We are still working on our paper work for Evan. I wanted to post his pictures for you all to see. We can not post them on our main blog until we get approval from China but because this blog is password protected we can.

This picture we were able to get from someone on his Orphanage Yahoo Group. He is on the far right in the orange sweatshirt. We have been informed by AWAA that we can request updated information, pictures and ask 3-5 questions on him as his paper work is 14 months old. We are not sure how long it will take to obtain this information or whether they will actually send it. Please pray we receive updated information.

1st Home Visit Done

2009-03-30T17:37:00.002-04:00

Our first home study visit was this past Saturday. It went very well and we really like the sw. She had given us a huge list of things that she needed from us and was surprised that we had all of them for her on the first visit. Our next visits will not be until the weekend of May 9th. Seems so far a way and I'm really bummed about it.

We are planning a fundraiser in hopes to raise enough money to bring both of our older children with us. We feel it will help Evan with his transition. Please pray for the planning of this. We also ask that you keep Evan in your prays. I have contacted our FC to see if we can get updated information as his is 14 months old. We also want to know how much signing he is receiving, what kind and will he understand what is going on when we come to China. I do know of a family that is traveling to his orphanage from our agency some time within the next several months. I pray that she can catch a glimpse of him and snap a picture for us.

Nothing much going on other than I'll be driving to our capital to get state certification in the next couple of weeks.! :)

Homestudy Scheduled

2009-03-23T13:18:00.002-04:00

We have our first home study visit this coming weekend! I will be glade to be able to give all of our paper work we have gathered this far to our SW. We have all of our dossier requirements, I just have to work on getting them state certified and then sending them off to the consulate. We are finishing our 8 hrs of Hague Training and have finished our 2 hrs of Adopting An Older Child Training.

We have received a few more pictures of Evan and are awaiting his finding ad. This will actually give us a better idea of what he looked like when he was smaller. I will then be able to look for more pictures of him.

Other than that not much more to report. Just plugging along! :O)

Preview

2009-03-13T15:00:00.005-04:00

As soon as we receive our PA from China we'll be able to show you all of the pictures we have of our little cutie. For now this is all we can show you. ;)

Good News, Bad News

2009-03-09T21:21:00.002-04:00

First let me say thank you to those who lifted our family up in prayer over the weekend. It was felt. Bob and I had a pretty serious talk about Rocky this past weekend. We both had concerns in different areas. I had concerns for Rocky's health and my husband had concerns for my health. For many weeks I felt the Lord open many doors to Rocky and the past two weeks I feel they have been closing. I wanted to ignore it at first but it was becoming very clear that he is not our son. :( It was a very difficult decision to make. We will continue to advocate for Rocky and pray that he finds his forever family!

As for the good news, we are currently reviewing a file of a 6 yr old boy who has a repaired cleft palate and is deaf. For those with our agency he is listed as Timothy. Keep praying my friends, the Lord knows who our son is. :)

Extra Prayers

2009-03-06T11:42:00.002-05:00

If all of my dear friends could say some extra pray this weekend we would really appreciate it.

New SW

2009-03-04T07:23:00.000-05:00

We finally have a SW. We have waited three weeks to receive this information. We are looking forward to meeting her. Looks like we won't actually meet her for another 3 weeks though. Seems like a long time but we will plug along. We have all but two documents for our dossier!!