"Congratulations! I have confirmed that you have a US consulate appointment scheduled for Tuesday, 11.06.2012 at the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China.
This means you need to be in your provincial city (the capital city of your child’s province) no later than Saturday, 10.27.2012. Your “Gotcha Day” will most likely be Sunday, 10.28.2012. You may depart from Guangzhou anytime after 7:00 pm on Wednesday, 11.07.2012."
Woo-Hoo!!!! SO exciting to get this fabulous news! We had been checking our email fairly obsessively for the previous week and a half just waiting for this news!!!! Usually after you get your travel approval, you get your consulate appointment (which means you can schedule travel) 2 days later. But with the national holiday going on in China, we ended up waiting a bit longer ... but now we're rolling!!!! Fabulous!!!!
We (James and I) leave October 25!!! We'll return home November 8. The girls are staying home with a variety of fabulous baby-sitters, friends, and family. When we get home, my mom will come and help. We feel so loved! The girls will be in great hands. Here's the basic run-down:
October 25 - we leave super early, fly to Dallas, then fly to Vancouver (where we'll get to see my sister, who will come up from Seattle! Yipee!) Spend the night in Vancouver
Oct 26 - fly from Vancouver to Beijing, Beijing to Nanchang...
Oct 27 - for some reason we don't arrive in Nanchang till 10 pm this day (they are 12 hours ahead over there...)
Oct 28 - we will get KATE!!! Her orphanage is 4 hours away so they will bring her to nanchang
Oct 29 - James' bday ; )
Oct 30 - We sign papers to adopt Kate!
Oct 31 - Nov 2 - Just more time in Nanchang. We will be waiting for her passport, which will be done Nov 2, Lord willing. We'll have an option to visit the orphanage and we're still praying about whether or not to do that.
Nov 2 - travel to Guanghzou
Nov 3- medical appointment for Kate
Nov 6 - consulate appointment
Nov 7 - we pick up her visa and head out of town!!!!
Nov 8 - HOME!!!
That's the schedule! The agency has guides with us so there are sight-seeing missions scattered throughout to keep us busy! There are a few other Lifeline (our agency) families traveling with us - one family will be in Nanchang with us and the others will be in their child's provinces - then we all meet up for the second week in Guanghzou. Since this is where the US Consulate is, it's where all families adopting spend their second week.
We are so excited!!! Just to catch up on what we've been up to, it's been a really busy (but fun) few weeks. The four of us traveled to Lexington, Virginia to Washington and Lee University for my 10 year college reunion. It was so much fun! Here are some pictures...
We went to the football game and the girls and I watched the cheerleaders (this is what I do at football games ; ) I cheered for a lot of years and was blessed to get to help found W&L's squad all those years ago... so it was awesome to see them still up and running! They were doing awesome!!!! I was so proud ; ) Then there's a pic in front of the "colonnade" at W&L of Anne with the 2 daughters of one of my best friends from college, Elizabeth. And Molly in front of the sorority houses... and our shadows by Lee Chapel (we like taking pics of our shadow ; )
Below we have a family picture, then a picture of my girls and Elizabeth's girls all in bed watching TV (we got adjoining rooms! it was fabulous! James stayed and baby-sat all the girls Saturday night while Elizabeth and I went out on the town! He did GREAT! Taking a 2 and 4 year old to a college reunion is pretty crazy - James was FABULOUS to watch them while I socialized! Sweet James!!!) And then the bottom picture is of me, Elizabeth, Bess, and Kate - we lived together sophomore year and are all great friends ; ) So sweet to see these girls and so many others!!!! Super fun weekend.
And the reason we took the girls to the reunion was because it was going to be fasted to have them with us so we could maximize our time on our next vacation - THE BEACH!!!! We flew straight from Virginia to the beach in Florida ; ) The rest of James' family was down there (and brought our minivan for us! thank you!!!). It was such a fun trip! Pics below:
Anne on the porch, the girls playing on the beach, who doesn't wear goggles to breakfast??? and the girls walking... so sweet. James took most of the pics on this blog entry on his iPhone. I mean WOW! We're really thinking of not taking a "real" camera to China... the iPhone does GREAT. I mean, that girls walking pic with the sun behind them - that is with an iPhone!!!
And here we are right after finding out we were going to get Kate! James wrote "we love you, kate" in the sand and we got our picture with it (sorry for the swimsuit shot, I try to avoid those, but that's how we looked! ; ) We came back 24 hours later to that part of the beach and the writing in the sand was still there! Which is really miraculous. So we took a shadow pic ; )
And a couple days before, on October 8, we got another super fun email! We got this update on Kate:
"72cm, 8.8kg, 47cm head, 48cm chest, 12cm foot, 8 teeth."
Which I think means she is fairly average for a 15 month old... which is great!!! And we got new pictures!!!! They won't "diptic" (make collages) for some odd reason, so here they are FULL size! Which is more fun anyway for new pictures of our Kate!!!
The lady with her is the same lady in her previous pictures - so she must have a key role in Kate's life! We hope to meet her. James is scheming ways to bring her home as our nanny, but I'm not sure if that will pan out ; ) It was such a treat to get these pictures!!!
We have 3 friends in China now who are in / were just in Nanchang - Nina from Birmingham picking up Grace - she comes home today. And my other friends Shannon and Michelle (I may have used code names for them in previous posts to protect identity, but I think we're safe now!) who are adopting from Kate's same orphanage, just got their little ones last Sunday! Michelle went to the orphanage a few hours ago so I'm anxious to see what it was like and if she got any pictures of Kate! Everyone says to bring a lot of food to Nanchang ; ) Their emails all start with "we are really hungry over here" ... I think the food is pretty authentic! It's a "small" China town (5 million) so it isn't westernized. I have enough food ready to pack for that whole week!!! I'm not a happy hungry person so we're gonna be ready! Guanghzou (15 million) should be fine food-wise! Isn't that crazy that cities of this size exist and we haven't heard of them? There are many many more cities of these sizes over there. Bigger than NYC and we haven't even heard of them! Crazy ; )
So that's the news! We've been packing ...
The clothes packing is taking me SO LONG b/c I love playing with all her little pink clothes! James has offered to just pack her clothes in hopes of saving me hours of time... but I love it!!! I mean, what is cuter than baby clothes??? Babies I guess! hehe ; ) But I've had a good time! And here's the costume I got her after Halloween last year on sale (our friend baby Mary wore one like it and it was the cutest thing so I copied!). My older girls are set to be cowgirls and Kate a cow - is that even legal? Can you adopt a child and then dress her like a cow? Or will they take her back? I mean, it is a CUTE cow!!! You can't see the tights but they are great. I'm thinking about whether to take this and trick or treat at the hotel with the other American families... we'll see. And meds - we have a lot of meds. We are gonna be ready!!!
Despite all this craziness, we have totally had God's peace. Which is just astounding! I feel so much less anxious than I did before we knew when we were traveling. I feel like God keeps telling me that I am just resting safely in the shadow of His wings. Yesterday without looking for these verses, they all just popped out to me:
"rest in the shadow of the Almighty... cover you with His feathers" -psalm 91
"because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings" -psalm 63:7
"hide me in the shadow of your wings" - psalm 17:8
So sweet. God loves us so much and cares about these little details in our lives. He speaks right to us and just what we need. Thank you, Lord, for being our peace!!! Some sweet friends came over (Will and Katie - who also happen to be the parents of baby Mary - who dressed up like the cow for Halloween 2011 and was SO CUTE) right when we got back from the beach and prayed over us too - so their prayers are playing out for sure - we have really felt like we're in the "calm" - which is such a gift.
And SO MANY of you have reached out and offered to help, watch kids, make meals, deliver meals, etc, etc. Thank you! What an amazing community we have. Can't wait to bring Kate back to this special community. She will be so loved. Much loved little girl!!!!
Take care and hopefully we'll be able to update the blog during our travels!!! Woo-hoo!!!!!
Love the cow costume. My Oldest had a costume very similar, but it was 90 degrees that Halloween and so she just wore the top (sleeveless) and not the tights and undershirt. But she was cute as a button anyway!
ReplyDeleteSo excited for you. Praying for safe travel and easy adjustment to Chinese food.
It's all so fabulous!! Do you still need any meals? I would love to bring one. Either while you're gone or when you get back! Just email me!
ReplyDeleteEverything in this post is so exciting (W&L 10 years!) but the most exciting thing is that you're headed to meet Kate. She has grown so much. Keeping you in prayer!
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