Much to be Thankful for...

Well here we are getting ready for not only our trip but a modest Thanksgiving Dinner. I was going to forgo Thanksgiving Dinner this year but my son, the ever present Alex, has his heart set on a turkey dinner with stuffing and the works. I am not sure that he will even eat the meal but he is so cute about it. He has made a paper Thanksgiving turkey, coloring it very festively, for the table and everything. The kids Uncle Bill (our friend Bill Tosch) is making it in for Thanksgiving, which is in plenty of time for China, thanks to our wonderful friend Mickey. We could not be more appreciative of her help with such short notice to fly Bill in!

The more we thought about this da, which is fast approaching, the more we thought that this is truly a day that we should be celebrating. We have so much to be thankful for. We are thankful for all the friends and family that have been supporting us and for those friends who have not commented on how ditzy I have been lately (and you know who you are!). We are also thankful for being in a position to make this trip such a wonderful and enjoyable event. We lastly are so very thankful for being able to get Jordan soon and have him home before Christmas and the end of the year. We are so fortunate to be able to arrive home at a time when both David and Alex are off so that we can figure out what are family is going to be like without the distractions of jumping into our everyday routine.

We want to wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving full of good blessings and lots of laughter. December 2nd here we come!

Travel Notice

Our Travel Notice has been officially issued and has been faxed to the US Consulate so that we can get appointments for Jordan's visa the last week we are in China... but yes, we are still waiting to hear from the Consulate to verify that we can get appointments the week of December 13th. What a process. At least we have our travel notice. We are almost there! Hopefully we will be able to finalize our travel on Monday (9 days before we leave!) YIKES! We are hanging on top our hats right now finalizing all of our preparations. What a wonderful Christmas this will be!!! Thanks to everyone for hanging in there with us on this wild roller coaster ride :)

Jordan Today

What a big day! We just got an email from our contact in Yuoyang. Jordan received our album and package today. We got some new pictures and a video. We wanted to share it with you. The good news is though that he has informally met us now! Wow what a big day. It is hard to think that in 3 weeks we will be meeting him and taking him home.

Wow.... the time is FINALLY here

Well... we got the call from CCAI today!!  They are expecting our travel notices to be issued and should have them in hand Friday or Monday!  They are working on us to leave December 2nd and coming home December 19th.  Yes, Alex will be missing the entire month of December from school as we will be arriving home the first weekend of Winter Break... but holy moly we are leaving for China to get our son!

As you can imagine, now once again we are in crunch time to get our flights arranged, Alex's school homework coordinated and our bags packed.  And we are also working on getting Bill out here too for the trip.  We are crossing our fingers that all of our paperwork runs smoothly and this is not a false alarm but it feels like the real deal.  This time next month we will be a family of 5 in Colorado getting to know each other and enjoying the company of our new family member.  It is exciting, scary and absolutely amazing all at the same time.  We are in the home stretch and ready (or getting ready) for the challenges that are ahead of us in the next short month!  Yes, there is a lot to be thankful for indeed!  If we do not get a chance to talk to you all I hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Enjoy your family time :)

One More Week Down

One more week down.  We are still waiting to get some information on his reaction to our Family Album.  It was mentioned that we might get a video too so we are anxiously awaiting that.  We did get a new update and picture of Jordan!  Here is his latest picture.  He looks happy as usual.  The time seems to be going by so fast and so slow all at the same time.  We have been trying to get the house better organized and ready for his homecoming.  It is strange to think that we are usually well into Holiday planning by now and this year it is hard to figure out what it is going to look like.  It has been a bit difficult to get into the spirit, though we are still very Thankful in so many ways.  Everything will fall into place.  Just looking at that sweet face, it helps!

2nd Acceptance Letter Approved!!! FINALLY

We just got word this morning that our 2nd Acceptance letter was finally processed, after 5 weeks of waiting, and our information has been sent to Beijing to be walked to CCAA to receive our Travel Notice. This process can take 2 - 4 weeks... yes possibly another month.  We will then have 10 - 14 days notice to travel, so we will not be leaving for China for another 4 - 6 weeks.  So it is now looking like we will be leaving as early as Nov. 25th (the day before Thanksgiving) to as late as December 16th.  If we leave on December 16th we will unfortunately be gone for Christmas.  The only positive to that date is that Alex will only miss 3 days of school since we will be traveling during Winter Recess.  It would be great if we did leave earlier though because then we could have Winter Recess to hang out and get to know our new family member without having Alex in school all day :)  But what will be will be and we will make due.

So the other good news that we have received is that our Contact in Yuoyang did receive Jordan's family album and he should be getting that any day.  Our Contact, Mike, mentioned that he will take pictures and a short video of him when he gets it.  I have been anxiously watching for this in my email since Thursday!  So much waiting.  We are moving forward though now... At least we are moving forward!