Thursday, August 27, 2009

Update

We're heading to china!

Heading to China in two weeks

We received our Travel Acceptance on Tuesday, Aug. 25. And it was settled on Wednesday, Aug. 26, that we would leave for Beijing, China on Thursday, Sept. 10, which is two days prior to my Nana's 90th birthday. We are disappointed that we will miss her birthday but Nana, along with all of our family, will be excited when we get home with Mary Elisabeth on Sept. 23.

We need all your love and prayers as we finish up some final paperwork and get ready for an adventure of epic proportions. Also, today, Aug 27, was Mary Elisabeth's second birthday. I even bought her a little purple dress and purple socks...I guess Lonoke colors but she will definitely have her share of Black and Gold!!!

Mark and Linda

Saturday, August 8, 2009

RA sent to America World, CCAA

We received our referral acceptance paperwork from America World and the Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs on Tuesday. We signed them and overnighted them back to America World on Wednesday. We're working on an addendum to our home study concerning special needs children, which An Quin Shu (Mary Elisabeth) has. We'll get that submitted to US Immigration before we travel and we'll be good to go.

Luckily, we've also got our finances set for the adoption, which is a relief in itself!!! So, hopefully, it won't be long until we had to China and bring home our little China doll for everyone to see.

As far as the trip, we've talked to several people about their trips to China. In fact, there is one family in China right now getting their second daughter. We were supposed to travel with them if we had both stayed in the regular program and not gotten into the waiting child program.

Here is their blog

http://emmajune.blogspot.com/

Then another person we know recently returned from China with her baby girl. She was able to give us some good insight on what to expect and what to bring. Here is her blog

http://countingdowntograce.blogspot.com/

We'll be updating the blog some as we get ready to go. And we'll update while we're in China. We've ordered a small laptop computer to take with us and a point and shoot digital camera. But when we get home, I'm going to break out the film camera, which means I've got to buy a film battery for my Canon EOS A2 camera. I want Mary Elisabeth to be able to have negatives and prints for when she gets older. It think it is a nostalgia thing for me. Both of our parents had negatives and prints. And we'll get plenty of prints made from our digital files...I just mainly want the negatives. It's just too bad that the new Wal-Mart in Lonoke doesn't process film on its' 1-hour machines but luckily Cabot still does!!!

Take care

Mark and Linda