Happy Halloween!

Today marks the last day in October and tomorrow it will be November. (DAH, right?) This is a milestone for us as this is finally the month we head to China!

29 days until we leave the country
32 days until we meet our daughter
55 days until Bella's first Christmas

No other updates on the process front. Our agency emailed us to say that travel approvals were mailed yesterday. Once they receive those, they will request the consulate appointment (CA). Once we get the CA then we can book our intl flight. Of course, flight tickets are going up each week, so we are hoping this happens soon.

Process update

This week we sent our passports and visa applications to a courier to take to the Chinese Embassy. We should have those back by the end of the coming week. At that point, we will be able to legally enter the country over the next 90 days.

We are still waiting for a travel approval and consulate appointment. Our agency feels they should be coming any day now. Once we get those, we can finalize our international flights. We have started looking at those and so we are ready to go as soon as we get the green light. Other than packing, we are pretty much set as far as our must do to do list is concerned. There is a 50/50 chance that we will get updated measurements before we leave. A few people that have adopted from our orphanage have also received an updated picture before we left. To think these things could just show up at any moment is amazing to us.

Last weekend, we took a safety and infant/child CPR class. We think we are officially as ready as we can be to be parents. I guess its like driving, you can only read so much and take so many classes. Until you actually drive the car, you don't really know what you are doing.

A teacher's assistant at Tom's school made Bella a beautiful quilt and another gave us some books and is working on throwing us a shower. My office is also putting together a brunch shower in a couple of weeks. The love and support we feel every day is so wonderful. We are so lucky to have such wonderful friends and family.

25 days until I'm on "maternity" leave
32 days until we leave the country
35 days until we hold our daughter

This amazing journey: priceless

One suitcase down...one to go

How can a little girl who is probably less than 20lbs and all of 2 feet tall fill an entire suitcase? I guess she gets it from her Mommy who is sacrificing her normal 6 pairs of shoes per trip for 2 pairs (gulp). Daddy offered to wear 8 shirts on the flight and to tuck underwear in his pockets to sacrifice room for his girls! He's learning fast!

Comment section

We have not decided if we are going to take a laptop with us or not. If we don't, we will be limited to the hotel business center for posting pictures and updates from China. We will be able to read our blog and see any comments that you leave.

It will be great to hear from our friends and family while so far from home, so please feel free to send your support. We promise to deliver nothing but the highest level of cuteness our baby girl can offer by way of pictures!

Tentative schedule

We are keeping busy making copies of paperwork and making list after list to make sure we don't forget anything.

I had lunch with my friend, Nancy, today who adopted from China in 2006. She was full of great tips and was able to answer a lot of our trivial questions. She also brought a gift for Bella - a ladybug book, pjs and a little puppy rattle. SUPER CUTE - thanks, Nancy!

The Pattersons also sent an adorable ladybug travel pillow for our flight home. Daddy tried it on to see if he could use it. Sorry, Daddy, it's for girls only! Thanks, Auntie Jill, Uncle Josh and Mr. C.

Now to the tentative schedule....our agency is predicting us to leave on the 29th and return the 13th or 14th. We spend 2 nights in Beijing and we are looking forward to seeing the Great Wall. We then fly to capital of Bella's province. We get her on the 3rd and she will be with us from that point on. We spend a few days in her province and then travel to Guangzhou to finalize the adoption.

We are taking an infant CPR course tomorrow and then off to get a couple more passport pictures. Time is flying.

Translated information

Today we received an email from our agency with the translated information from China on our baby girl. She is a happy and healthy baby and seems to be on a normal schedule for a baby at the time of the report.

We also received our travel paperwork in the mail. We are suppose to use 11/29 on our visa application as our earliest entry date into China. That being said, we will probably not be traveling until the last week of November. We are predicted to return mid-December. It dawned on us tonight that we will have to wait to get a Christmas tree this year until we get back. We will have a busy week before Nana comes for her visit over Christmas.

The next steps...

We accepted our referral last week and overnighted our paperwork to our agency. They have collected our travel groups acceptance forms and will mail them to China on Friday. We then wait for travel approval.

This week or early next week, we will receive Bella's translated orphanage schedule.

We also have an infant CPR course coming up and we are busy getting everything together for our trip.

We can't believe it has been a full week since we saw our baby's face. Five to seven weeks and counting...

More pictures and information

At 10am this morning we heard the loud rumble of the UPS truck pull up in front of our house. Tom quickly ran out to meet the delivery man and brought in more pictures and some information on our baby girl.

The information is not translated, but some of the check box options were in both Chinese and English. The information seems to be from 5/20/07, or at approximately 3.5 months old. They stated that she was a deep sleeper and could locate the direction of sounds and voices. She is tracking visually and turns when you say her name. She is noted as an active baby. There are a few comments about activities and toys that she likes, but they are in Chinese only. We would be surprised to hear that her interests include sky diving and golf at such a young age, but you never know. Our agency is busy translating her daily schedule and some of the other items on the report. They hope to have it completed in the next two weeks.

We spent the day filling out acceptance forms and other information for our agency. We went to Target and filled our cart with toys, baby food, sippie cups and a couple new outfits. We also made copies of her pictures so that we can stare at her both at work and at home.

We cannot get over how absolutely perfect she is and we look forward to holding her and kissing her sweet cheeks.

We do not know when we will travel, but our agency is guessing it could be around Thanksgiving. That being said, we have about 7 weeks to get everything together for the greatest experience of ours lives. We are truly honored to be given such an amazing and wonderful gift.

Referral Day

Tom and I are honored to introduce our daughter, Guo Yan Chun. Yan Chun means bright and colorful spring. We were so touched by that description that we decided to add it to the American name we had chosen. She currently lives in the Guixi Welfare Institute in the Jiangxi province. She was born February 6, 2007. At her physical in mid-May, she was 12lbs and almost 23" long. She is healthy and we are expected to receive an updated physical report in the weeks to come. We hope to travel around Thanksgiving. We are proud to share with you - Bella Rita Yan.