Travel Approval

At last! Travel approval is here. We have tentative travel dates to be in China January 22. - Feb 5 These are unconfirmed dates so we can't order tickets or do anything until we get official dates. -but we are praying these dates will be approved otherwise we have to wait until after Chinese New Year. I have added a link to track us on our journey...see the map in the right bar. this should offer real time positioning of exactly where we are as we pack, travel, and wander about China. Hold on Baby....here we come....

Dongguan Social Welfare Institute. Lisi is waiting for us here.

I feel like Michelle is 14 months pregnant....agggh!

We have busied ourselves with making cookies, pulling teeth, and various other activities while we wait to travel. Thanks to all for your thoughts, prayers, and encouragement along the way. We had been so focused on getting Lisi home before the end of the year, now we are in a near panic to beat Chinese New Year. If we don't, we can't bring her home until the end of February. We have been surprised not to receive our T.A. (travel approval) the last 2 weeks. Now we are focused on the next couple of days. Holt says they are expecting some T.A.'s to come early this week AND ours should be among them, AND we still have a chance to travel before C.N.Y. It's going to be a crazy few weeks for us. I get to have a root canal Wednesday that I've been putting off (I have Dentadrillaphobia). Then we leave for Idaho the following Wednesday to go have our belated Christmas with my family. It will be so nice to see everyone and we are all looking forward to it. Then we hope to come home for a SHORT time, then hop on a plane to China. We have done some planing and pre packing type stuff. We are ready, bring it on!

How much longer?

Where are we in the process? Well it's a long one. A process filled with the bureaucratic red tape of two governments and many agencies. Ok, Ok, I'll get on with it. We are waiting for "TA". You see everything is broken down into these convenient abbreviated nuggets. "TA" is travel authorization. We have been matched with our little Lisi. We have sent "LOI" (letter of intent) this was logged in in China on 7/10. We received "LOA" (Letter of Acceptance) on 10/1, because apparently a letter of intent is not enough. The "LOA" was then signed and returned to China with some hard earned and high priced immigration documents (sent 10/23). Now, as I said we are WAITING for "TA". This could come nearly anytime (but will probably be a few weeks yet) and when it does we need to buy tickets...and I mean now, to go get our girl.

So this is a VERY abbreviated run down of our adoption process. I've left out lots of details (Many, MANY documents -signed, stamped, lost, found, approved, faxed, FedExed, folded, printed, copied, revised, re-stamped, re-lost....O.K. I could go on until I use up the remainder of the internet (it's gotta run out sometime, right?), but I will stop. I've left out dollar signs as well because I still get a little nauseated when I think about it. Is it worth it? I dare you to look at her picture and not immediately fall in love.

Lisi, we love you and are doing everything we can to get you home as soon as possible

Welcome to our blog.

Today is Wednesday, November 11. It is a little before 9 am here in Oregon and nearly 1 am in Guangzhou, Where I hope Lisi is getting a good nights sleep and dreaming of Brothers, Sister, Mom, Dad, Grandfolk, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Friends, Dogs, Horses, etc....Shortly after being matched with Lisi we were allowed to send a small photo album to her. We hope it has arrived safely and that she is able to look and become familiar with the faces (some beautiful, some scary) in it.