5 more days until travel!

Are you ready for a busy toddler to rock your life daddy?

Yes! This guy has been ready to be a dad for many many years now & there is no doubt in my mind he will be a great one! 

He did however cause us all a little health scare a few weeks ago, but all seems to be well again thank God! He's got one last check up on Monday and hopefully we'll be all set to go by Thanksgiving night. 

Speaking of Thanksgiving....we had an early Thanksgiving dinner at my in-laws since they will be heading up to northern California while we're up in China. It was nice and tranquil, lots of comforting and delicious food, and some good laughs. 

Since we'll be leaving on a night flight, my side of the family will be cooking a Thanksgiving dinner earlier during the day & hopefully we'll be able to make some turkey sandwiches to take on our flight since we're not sure about the food they'll serve. As far as we know the airline provides one meal & we're thinking we can buy another one if we get hungry (which will be most likely since it's a 15.5 hr. flight).  BTW.....I will post our itinerary as a top button on this blog. 

Can't believe we only have 5 more days left until we travel! Still seems unreal.

All of a sudden I'm starting to feel like we've got so much to do, like clean out cupboards and cabinets, shop for last minute travel stuff, re-arrange furniture....but I'm sure this is mostly nervous energy. Once I calm myself down I remind myself that we'll be as ready as we'll ever be. Nothing is as important as going on this trip to pick up our daughter. 

Lot's of stuff going through my mind about her right now. We have yet to receive any developmental update on her since her referral ( which was 6 months ago ) and the few photos & measurements we got in September. I did get to speak to our Agency's Chinese facilitator yesterday & I urged him to please confirm that our daughter has been told about us and has at least seen our photos. I also asked for an updated status on just about anything....it still breaks my heart that we know very little about her and we can only hope to ease her transition as best as we can. 

-Which reminds me....I still have to make a new photo album for her with photos of her new surroundings including pics of our extended family pics that she can start to see while we're in China. 

Travel Dates!

On Monday we received our TA ( travel approval ) & the following morning we received confirmation of our Consulate Appointment scheduled for Monday Dec. 3, 2012 at 8:30 am in Guangzhou, China, which means our Travel Dates will be from November 22nd to December 4, 2012! 

So while everyone's having a late night snack from their Thanksgiving dinner, we'll be boarding a plane. 

It doesn't seem soon enough, and I'm personally still pretty angry that our daughter has had to wait at the orphanage almost 6 months after we received her referral because of additional bureaucracy ( but I will save that for a future post ) so today we can celebrate this milestone in our journey. 

Today, we are happy that we finally, FINALLY have our travel dates and we can officially count down the days on our calendar until we can meet her & hold her. 

To all our fellow prayer warriors: please pray that her care takers are preparing her as much as they can, even if that just means showing her our photos and referring to us as "Mama" and "Baba". She is turning 1 year and a half today, and most likely she understands language and may be able to speak a few words....in Chinese, oh goodness!  

We know just a few words like: 

"Wo ai ni"( "I love you )

 " Nie le ma?" ( you hungry? )

 "Ni yao wan ma?" ( you want to play?)

 "Ni shi piaoliang" ( you are beautiful )

....and just for a bonus, we are also going to practice asking if she wants candy ( Tangguo ma? )

Yes, we know it might be considered bribery from your point of view, but from ours we are thinking this might come in handy ;)

& here is "Baba" booking our tickets. We'll be flying China Southern from LAX directly to Guangzhou, China ( 15.5 hrs ), then to Nangchang, Jiangxi ( 1.5 hrs ), back to Guangzhou, then direct to LAX. So, since there are direct flights out of Guangzhou now, we won't need to take a train or private van to Hong Kong, saving us some time & money. 

Also, since we were able to get such a great price on tickets ( $912 each ), we ended up purchasing 3 round trip seats, the extra one there will give us the extra room so that a stranger doesn't have to be squeezed in with us & on the way back the seat will be for Madeline so she doesn't have to sit on our lap the entire trip. Not that we wouldn't love holding her, but she might not be digging us all that much still and she might want her own space to kick up her little feet or what not. 

We'll be happy to share the rest of our in country itinerary as soon as it develops during the week. But so far, and most importantly, it looks like we will be meeting our daughter on Sunday November 25, 2012, which is famously known as Gotcha Day!