Just Waiting for TA.....

Well, all paperwork is approved and waiting for the CCAA to send us Travel Approval. In the meantime, we are trying to be as organized and efficient as possible regarding readying ourselves for the trip... (is there anyone out there who knows me that is chuckling to themselves about now...). Seriously, Hal is planning a "dry run" for packing suitcases in the very near future and I'm just trying to make sure everyone has pants that fit and clean underwear.

Aside from trip preparations, Jonathan was "Special Kid" in his Kindergarten class last week. I don't think I will ever stop marveling at how special he really is... On Friday when we (his family) all came to his classroom, his teacher asked him several questions in front of the class. When she asked him, "Why are you special?", he sat there for a few seconds, then said: "Because I have my Daddy", pointing to Hal. Needless to say, Hal & I were both fighting back a tear! As everyone who meets him can attest, he is one big, happy blessing.... who am I, that God has given me the blessing of being his mother?

We have LOA!

For those of you who are familiar with foreign adoptions, you know generally what this means; for the others, you may have no idea what LOA is... even though we've done this once before, I keep having to explain (to myself and my family) what all these terms mean. It is confusing, but, basically, the LOA (letter of acceptance) is a letter from the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) asking us if we do, indeed, understand FuBei's medical issues and that we are still willing to adopt her. Soooo, we will sign that tomorrow when it arrives via FedEx from our agency, then send it, along with another form (DS-230 or something) back to the agency. Also, I can now fill out my I-800 form for the National Benefits Center (Immigration office devoted to this kind of stuff...) to approve. They then send the approval to me and I send it to agency, who sends it to American Consulate in China, where they approve it and wire it to CCAA in Beijing, who THEN issue us travel approval (known as TA in adoption lingo). From there, our agency makes an appointment with the American Consulate, around which we will make our travel plan. My fingers hurt just typing it all, and I barely understand it, but all that to say, the paperwork should take about 1 month, when we should have our TA... then it is usually about 2 weeks until travel. Confused? Translation: we should travel AROUND 6 weeks from now, give or take any delays, distractions, blah, blah, blah, etc., etc. YIPPEE!

Hallie Ann Bei Everett

After much deliberation and thought, we have given our baby her new name!  Also, we got two new pictures of her, thanks to Ann, of Red Thread China. (Not sure about the usefulness of that first shot... but we'll take what we can get!)  She is sending Hallie Ann a "lovie" and a soft photo book with some pictures of herself and of us.  Hopefully she can become a little bit familiar with our faces before we arrive.  We are waiting on LOA now (letter of acceptance).  From there, it will probably be about 6 weeks or so until we travel (my guess-- could be longer, we'll see).

A New Adventure

The Lord has blessed us beyond measure with a referral:  Wu FuBei was born on January 11, 2008, in Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province, China.  She has a repaired cleft lip and a cleft palate, and she is beautiful and perfect.  Our agency says they expect we will travel in Oct/Nov.  We will see-- I'm thinking November, if nothing slows down!