NVC Approval!!!

We received our National Visa Center approval today. This means that in about three weeks we will receive our Travel Approval and then its off to CHINA! It is cutting it very close to the time when we wanted to travel. Therefore, we are going to plan on traveling in the next CAWLI group that leaves August 26 and returns September 11. This will give us enough time to plan international plane tickets and have some breathing room between the arrival of the Travel Approval and the actual date of travel. We would rather have more solid dates and enough to time book airline tickets than only have a few days to plan it all out. It is heartbreaking to have to wait that long, but we hope the time will go by faster now that we have target dates and such. In the late August group, the agency will also be sending a physician to go with us in the event new parents get panicky about sniffles.

Also, the weather in Hong Kong will hopefully be a little more mild in the beginning of September than in the middle of July.  Now we will have to re-think clothes in the event we need a jacket or long pants...  Back to Packing!!!

News from the CAWLI Group in China

Today we heard from one of the families who traveled to China on Thursday. One of the families traveled to Ningxia to the same orphanage where Saiya is! We sent pictures of Saiya to them with the hope that they might be able to give us some news of our daughter. Here is what they had to say:

>>>>

“I saw your girls today! They look good and seem happy. I recognized them right
away. We went to the Children's Welfare Institute to get Matteah at about
9-9:30am this morning after a trip to the bank.

I had a group photo taken with your girls today. I will send it to you later.
Our girls are all friends and are together all the time per the staff. They
appear happy and healthy. The staff truly cares for them. I was able to take
pictures outside the children's home and in the entrance with our girls and
staff. We did not tour the orphanage today and I was told I could not take
pictures/videos inside the orphanage. We feel Matteah was prepared well. She
cried about 5 minutes. The girls said good bye to her before they left to go
outside to play.

Make a list of questions to ask about each of your girls. I did and received
additional information on how she came to the orphanage. Information that was
NOT in her referral documents.”
>>>>

We are so happy that they were able to see Saiya and that she is doing well! We really can’t wait to travel to China to pick her up. Chris kept asking me if she was sad that we were not there to pick her up as well. It broke my heart. But I’m sure she is well taken care of and I’m glad that she has friends who will also be coming home to the USA. We will do our best to make sure that they can see each other once they are all home.

Hopefully, we only have about three and a half weeks before we leave for China.

3 Weeks for this… 3 Weeks for that…

So we are hoping that we get our National Visa Center approval sometime this week. If we do, it would be roughly three weeks since we submitted our paperwork to the US Consulate in China. After we receive the NVC approval, it is again, roughly three weeks before we will hear anything about our Travel Approval. After that, we were told that the local province needs about 10 days lead time in order to get all the paperwork together. So as it stands right now, we are looking at traveling about the first week of August.

There is one other Ningxia family who was supposed to travel in this week’s group, but their Travel approval did not arrive yet, so we are thinking we might end up traveling with them at the end of this month or the beginning of August. I can imagine how frustrated they must feel.



Things that help to pass the time:

Packing!! You might not think so, but “test” packing our bags so that we can weigh everything and make sure we are under 44 pounds really helps. I actually had to go out and buy a scale becuase we didn't own one.  So there was alot of "weigh me" then "weigh me + bag" in order to figure out whether we were ok weight-wise.  Saiya’s bag had to be unpacked and redistributed so that we could fit all of our clothes and still be underweight. At first try, Chris’s bag weighed about 60 pounds!! Needless to say, we had to rethink some of the things we were taking and do some creative packing.

Yard Work!! We have been slowly tearing out the palmetto palms in our back yard in order to make room for a deck. When I’m not working on the weekends, we have been cutting, trimming, and hauling those out of our yard. It really helps keep our minds off of the intense “hurry up and wait” that this process has become.

Shopping!! We have been shopping like crazy for clothes for the trip to China. I realized that it has been years since I actually went “shopping” for clothes. Yeah, I might buy one or two items here and there, but I have not been “shopping” in forever!! So we have been clothes shopping for shorts, light t-shirts, and other things to take with us to China.


That’s about it for now, we are still very excited and anxious to get going! We are ready to bring our little girl home!!

Happy Independence Day!

Today is one of the most important holidays in the United States.  The day we celebrate our Independence.  It's days like these that we really think about all the things we are going to get to introduce little Saiya to.  American Holidays are one of them!  There is so much to teach her.  Chris is very excited that we will get to teach her all about American BBQ!  Haha!  He's always thinking about food!

We are really hoping that we will be traveling to China in the next CAWLI group at the end of the month. 

Happy Independence Day!!

Looking back...

Today is July 1st.  We were supposed to be leaving one week from today to go to China.  But because we had a paperwork issue in the middle of the process, we have been pushed back to round about the end of this month.  If we had left when we were supposed to it would have been exactly one year and one day from the date of our intake interview with CAWLI.  Its amazing how much our lives have come to revolve around this little girl.  Everything we do and plan now includes plans and intentions for her.  It has been a very interesting year.  A LONG year.  I can't imagine what it would be like for those families having to wait almost four years for their children.  Chris and I talk about it alot.  I guess it makes a difference whether you are an older parent or younger one.  Our lives change rather quickly (just think about where we were four years ago).  Now I understand the age requirements for adoption and why they are so important.

Well, here's hoping that we hear about our Article 5 approval very soon (maybe today or tomorrow??).  Soon after that we should have the last piece of paperwork... the travel approval and then its off to CHINA!!

Shopping for the trip to China!!

So, we are hopeful that we will be traveling to China sometime in the next 4-5 weeks.  We have started to think about the things we want to bring with us and we have both come to the sad conclusion that we don’t have enough clothes!  So that means shopping!  We have been looking for shorts and other “cool” clothing because we know it’s going to be very hot in Hong Kong.  At the same time, we are preparing our luggage and making sure everything will fit and still be underweight.  China has a weight limit of 44 pounds for rail travel, so because we are not sure how we are going to be traveling while in China, we are trying to keep our luggage below that threshold.  We are definitely going to be doing laundry while we are over there.  We are also packing one or two “nice” outfits just in case we have meetings that require more professional/nice clothing.  Chris just rolled his eyes at me.  At least we don’t have to worry too much about shoes.

We are also experimenting with which kinds of snacks/crackers we both like.  This way we have something to munch on while we are in the air for several hours at a time.  So far, goldfish are the running winners!  It’s all I can do not to pack all my clothes now!  I know if that happens I will end up unpacking and repacking at least three or four times.  So I am holding off as best I can!

Paperwork to US Consulate in China

We received the receipt from the National Visa Center on Friday, June 11.  We thought we would be waiting about a week for the official approval letter.  The one we got was not very “official looking”.  While I was away in Las Vegas for training last week, our agency asked if we received anything from the NVC.  I told them that we received the receipt, but nothing else.  They had me send a copy of the receipt and said that was the letter they needed to send all of our documents to China for travel approval and a Visa appointment.  I wish we had known that!  So the final portion of our paperwork went to China on Friday, June 18.  We should have travel approval sometime in the next two weeks.  We are not going to make the early July deadline, and therefore, my sister will not be able to travel to China with us.  We hope to be traveling in late July or early August.  We are feeling much happier that we are on the downslope of the all of the paperwork and this whole process.  We really can’t wait to  come home with our little girl!

Happy Father's Day!!