Same Week next Day

Today's title is for all of my dyslexic friends. It is hard to believe but we leave for China in less than 1 week now. This time next week we will be in San Francisco with our new friends, Jay, Kim, Campbell, Jason and Anna. We depart from SFO direct to Beijing (PEK) at 12:15 PM PST on next Wednesday. We have been busy buying gifts, buying supplies from the various lists of items to take and packing those suitcases. There is so much to think about and remember. My buddy Chuck would be proud of me, I have "Specific Checklists" for everything.

Joy is also busy getting ready for a big Easter Tea Party that she is throwing for Olivia's class. She has games, costumes, baskets and decorations for the entire class. She is famous for her parties and now everyone at the school wants to come. The Huge Easter basket that she made as a fundraiser did great. She sold raffle tickets for 3 weeks and then it was auctioned off at last weeks auction. She made over $200 bucks clear. We have also had several friends and family contribute to our travel expenses this last week. In addition to our Chip In total we have received almost $1,000 towards our trip. One friend donated the hotel stay in San Francisco. Joy is thankful since it is quite the upgrade from the cheap room that I probably would have booked.

We have 1 more dose of the Typhoid meds to take and all of our Travel Vaccinations will be complete. We have made arrangements for Doctor's Appointments for Rachel as soon as we return and we have everything ready in the girl's room for the new sister's.

This is going to be a busy few days. The Easter party is Friday plus the boy's have a soccer tournament with at least 2 games both Friday and Saturday. Sunday is Easter and Monday is the last ditch pack and grab before we leave. Somewhere in here I have to stop by my Dad's and hook the travel trailer back up for the boy's. Since he lives just down the road they will stay at his place while we are gone and stop by each morning and evening to check on and care for the dogs.

I went out and bought a web cam for the home computer and installed it this week. We have been testing it out while I have been on the road. We are using the free service through Sykpe and it has been great to be able to see the family each night while I have been away. It will really come in handy when we are in China to be able to see the guys back home.

Well I am off to try and get some sleep. We are somewhere between Excited and Freaking Out right now so I am not getting much sleep. I don't sleep a lot anyway but lately I find myself sleeping about 1 to 2 hours at a time and waking up to think about something I forgot to do or check. Continue to pray for us all and for smooth travel and transition for Rachel. Have a Blessed Day! Coy

Olivia's Corner - A Little Bird told Me!

A little bird told me that it is only 11 more days to blast off!

This has been a great week! We are on Spring Break and Dad took a few day's off. Today we went to the Zoo and had a blast. My favorites were the bird cage, tigers, lions and the primate house. I rode on a camel and we all rode the train. After the zoo, we went out to the airport and Dad showed us where we will be dropped off to leave for China. I saw a really big airplane take off. It was COOL!!!! I can't wait to get on the airplane and eat and watch movies.

Talk more later, we have packing to do. Love, Olivia

JUMPING FOR JOY!

Get it? Jumping for Joy, mom's name is Joy! Okay the joke is not as funny as dad said. As you can see we were jumping on the trampoline after he came home from work today. We are getting everything ready to go. Dad booked the flights yesterday through Delight Travel. We are going out 2 days early. We will spend 1 day in San Francisco before the long flight over and then 1 extra day in Beijing. We are meeting up with the Ferlands at our connection in Denver and we are on the same planes over and back from China together. Anna and her husband Jason are from Austin and they are also traveling on the same plane to Beijing a day early, so at least 3 families will be together.

We will be gone for a total of 17 days and fly back non-stop to Chicago on the 23rd. We can't wait to get our new sister and daughter on April 12th.

We leave in 17 more days!

TA IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our TA is here and we have our Travel Dates!!!!!!!!!!! Thank You God!!! Almost 3 years in the process and we will hold our baby girl in just 3 weeks. Here are our Dates!

Fly to Beijing: April 8

Fly to Nanjing: April 11

Gotcha Day: April 12

Fly to Guangzhou: April 16

Consulate Appointment: April 20

Coming Home: April 22

Thanks to all those that have been so faithful in praying for our family. Please continue to pray for our safe travel and for a smooth transition for our newest daughter!

Olivia's Corner - Shout out to Brothers!

This weekend was Great. CJ and Josh found out Thursday that a race was being held in town. They have not trained for track since the last race in December but have been playing soccer so they decided to go. Almost 400 runners showed up on a wet day to run in a 5K (3.1 Mile) race with a 1 Mile fun run after that. CJ came in a close 2nd and Josh was 3rd only a minute behind him. They did great on a wet course that was very hilly. 2nd and 3rd overall out of 400 runners!

Josh ran a great time and was happy with his race. CJ was aggravated because he ran almost 2 minutes slower than his personal best so he turned around and ran the 1 mile race 30 minutes later. He WON and ran a 4:52 mile. As you can see in the picture, he sprinted past the lead gator and no one else was in the picture at the finish.

As for me, I got to play lots of free games and even got a hug from Smokey Bear. PS: The ice cream was good too.

Love, Olivia

New Care Package

So, we thought that we would be in China by now. Regrettably, due to the new NVC letter requirements, we lost a month. Since we are now hoping that we can travel in April, we decided to send a new care package to our precious Rachel Lian. This package was put together by Ann at Red Thread and should be delivered this week. It includes pajamas, a Hello Kitty doll, camera, sweets, pictures of us and a letter explaining that we will be there very soon to get her.


Dear Rachel,

We love you very much and are so sad that we are not already there. We can't wait until we can hold you in our arms and tell you how much we love you in person.


Until then, Dad and Mom

A5 Update

We got a call this morning from our agency. They have confirmed that the A5 was delivered to the CCAA on Monday. The only thing left is for them to issue the Travel Approval (TA). It takes about 2 weeks and then we will have our travel dates confirmed. We are hoping for the first week or two of April to beat the GZ trade fairs.

We also sent another care package to Rachel Lian today. It included a letter from us thanking her for sending us the beautiful new pics and letting her know we will soon be there. We also sent her a blanket, some candies, PJ's and a doll. Our new theme song is "Hold on, I'm Coming".

Here are a few more of the new pics. Thanks to Adele for sticking at it until she got them. Enjoy...

NEW PICS-UPDATED MEASUREMENTS

Adele, at Blessed Kids, has been working for a month to get us some updated measurements and pictures. We were greeted this morning with 8 new pics she sent us overnight! I didn't think she could get more beautiful, but each time she does! We couldn't believe how much her hair has grown. In the last pictures from the summer, it was short. She did receive our package and we will be sending more. We love her more each day. Olivia took the pictures to her school and shared them with her class.

On the Articel 5 front, we confirmed that our agency rep picked it up from the GZ office last Thursday and sent it to the Beijing Office to be hand delivered to the CCAA. Come on TA, we gotta go! I'll be down at the airport waiting if anyone needs me.