Herbal Tea, Xie xie, and 1-2-3

We received updated information from our agency today about little miss FangYing, known affectionately by her caretakers as YingYing. :) (That may be pronounced yung-yung, we're not sure!) She is talking, and speaks Mandarin, which is great, because we now have a hope of learning a few phrases before we go. She can say 'xie xie,' which means thank you, 'mama' which means just what you think it does, and can count to 3! We're so proud. :)

She also likes bread, and drinks formula, water, and herbal tea. Wow - we are so not tea drinkers, so I'm not sure what we'll do about that. :)She is described as outgoing and active, and is close to her caregivers. She is wary of strangers, which we would expect at age 16 months. We anticipate some unhappy times in the beginning when we meet! She also likes to sleep with a blanket and sleeps about 12 hours at night. Hopefully jetlag will not ruin that great routine!

Our countdown is on and we can't wait to meet our Yingying in 27 days!

Audrey, here we come! :)

For as excruciatingly slow as this process has been over the last 4 years, the last 24 hours have been a whirlwind! :) After receiving our TA yesterday, we expected to wait 2-3 days for our consulate appointment approval, and we would then book our tickets. Well - I arrived home from exercising this morning, and there it was in my inbox, with a note telling us to book our plane tickets!! :) I spent the next 2 hours online and on the phone with various helpful Continental Airline people, and we are all set! We are going to China!! Our dates are December 18-January1, with December 21 being the all-important day to meet our sweet Fang Ying!

T.A.!

We are a happy bunch here tonight - we received our Travel Approval from China today, so our agency is now able to request our U.S. Consulate appointment date, and when we know that, we should be able to get plane tickets. That should be by the end of this week! :) We are soooo excited to be at this stage of the process, and we think that 5 weeks from today should be the day we become a family of 5. So happy!

Audrey's Friends

I have emailed with our travelmates this week, and learned a bit about their little girls. Audrey, Lucy, and Elizabeth were born within 9 days of each other: July 3rd, 5th, and 12th. I think that will be fun to see them together for our time in China - they may be the only ones that understand each other!

Better Paperwork News

I spoke with our China Coordinator late this week, and she said that she had emailed the U.S. Consulate directly. They said that if the age of the baby we are approved for on our paperwork is within 6 months age of the baby that we are adopting, then that is acceptable. We are within that limit (barely), so we are moving ahead with all plans. Yea! :) Of course, getting our updated paperwork back from Springfield and sent to USCIS is still the goal, so maybe that will happen this week.

We are moving along with preparations - mostly Audrey's stuff. The rest of us are still wearing things we will pack, so our suitcases won't be full for awhile. Audrey's is pretty ready to go, though! :) We have sorted her things, and some will be in carry on luggage, so that if any checked luggage gets lost, we will have important things for her, like clothes, diapers, etc. The rest will get checked, with a big prayer for everything arriving in Hong Kong. If we could buy tickets today, our flight would be from O'Hare to Seattle to Tokyo to Hong Kong. That's a lot of stops for our luggage!

Hotel Requests and a Snag

Our exciting development for today was receiving our hotel request worksheet. The International Social Service (ISS) staff, who will be our guides for our entire trip, will make all of our hotel reservations in all 3 cities, after we tell them what kind of room configurations, etc., we want. We have learned about one big difference between US and Chinese hotels already: their rooms have 1 double or 2 single beds. Needless to say, we will be having two rooms the entire trip! :)

We also learned that we will be staying at the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou. This is traditionally where most U.S. adopting families stay, but our agency has sometimes been at a different location in the recent past. We were open to either option, but I am glad that I can now picture where that part of our journey will be. I have seen many, many pictures taken at this hotel, with its huge indoor waterfall and fish ponds, as well as the "Red Couch" photos that everyone takes, with their babies in traditional Chinese dress, as they wind up their trip. That's where we'll be! :)

Now, on to the panic-inducing news of the day. Our homestudy and I-171H, which are the two key pieces of our paperwork, have been approved for a child 0-12 months. Based on a new rule implemented in July of this year, we knew that if our referral was for a child older than this, it would require an update and new approval by US Citizenship and Immigration (USCIS). Our social worker did this right away the week we received our referral. Because the fine state of Illinois requires all homestudy updates to be approved by DCFS, it had to go to Sprfingfield for approval, before being sent to USCIS, which it was. As of Monday, our request was still in Springfield. Our social worker has been in touch with the woman at DCFS, and is hoping to see it tomorrow, but I am nervous. I am very nervous, because I have read on the U.S. Consulate (in China) website that adoption agencies should NOT make Consulate appointments for families if the family does not have their updated I171H in hand. We don't have that in hand, because it hasn't even been sent to USCIS to approve! Our Consulate appointment is what sets our definite travel dates in stone. Our social worker is going to check into things a little further tomorrow, ask the USCIS to rush our I171H, and we are praying for a smooth outcome. I guess the worst case scenario at this time is later travel. We would love your prayers,too, for everything to fall into place at just the right time.

Just waiting

We really don't have much going on in our process right now, except waiting for our TA. We are well versed in waiting, so that's what we're doing. I have been researching all sorts of different flight options, so that when the TA does come, I can be ready to jump on something.

We did finish getting Audrey's room all together last night - it is quite cute. The crib is up, the bedding is on, and we have large piles in her room of things that will go to China with us. May have to start filling a suitcase or two this weekend! :)

Tentative Travel Dates and Chinese Visas

The last couple of days have been a flurry of activity. We received tentative travel dates yesterday, which put us traveling over Christmas. We knew this was a possibility, and had prepped the kids for this, but that news was not met with overwhelming approval from them. We understand their wanting to have that time to hang at home over their break, but we assured them this would be a Christmas they would never forget! We also hoped we would be traveling a little earlier than this, but we are focusing on the fact that traveling without schoolwork hanging over everyone's heads will be a HUGE blessing! HUGE! I also feel good about having a time frame to work with, and having a date to plan towards. Our travel approval (TA) needs to arrive on schedule (late November) for these dates to work, so that's what we are praying for now.

Mark and I drove to Chicago today to visit the Chinese Consulate and apply for our Chinese visas. We had our applications filled out before we arrived dropped them off with our passports at the consulate office downtown about 10am, and were told to return at 2pm. We took full advantage of this time to go meet our sweet new cousin Maddie, and is she ever beautiful! Easy to forget how tiny a newborn is! :) We returned to the consulate at 2pm, picked up our passports without fanfare or issue of any sort. Very low key. I don't know what I was expecting - maybe a little more questioning, or something, but the whole process was very smooth. We are clear to travel, when the proper approval arrives. Glad to have that hurdle cleared, and Mark and I both commented that this step felt very momentous and real in our journey to meet Audrey and welcome her into our family.

16th months old

Audrey turned 16 months old today. I would love for us to head to China as soon as possible so no more of these milestones pass without us being together as a family!

Tidbits of information

I poked around a little bit today and learned this:

The population of Nanning, Guangxi, where we will be meeting Audrey, is a mere 2 million, with the total population of the surrounding area being about 6 million.
The population of Guangzhou, Guangdong, where we will end our trip, is about 12 million.

Audrey's home in XingYe is about 110 miles from Nanning. I believe she will travel by bus with her nanny, the other babies and their nannies, and some orphanage officials, to Nanning on the day we will meet.

China is all on the same time zone, and is currently 14 hours ahead of our time.

That's it for today's interesting China information. :)