Thursday, August 27, 2009
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
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
Friday, July 31, 2009
We'll be heading to China!!!
We got a call from America World Adoption today and we received our referral acceptance...which means we will be going to China in the middle of September to get Mary Elisabeth!!!
We found out on June 5 that we had been matched up with a little girl named An Qingshu. Her nickname is Yin Ping in the orphanage. The following is an email that we sent out to people back in June.
Linda wrote this email earlier this week! Her mom is feeling better now!
Today we received a message from America World referring to our position with the adoption. The Chinese Government has pre-approved our adoption. This means that we are closer to referral approval. Referral approval is the final step before travel authorization. Once we reach the RA stage, we can send care packages, etc. to our Mary Elisabeth. The time line for the next step is that we can receive our RA anywhere from 1 month to 3 months from our request to adopt (June 5). Of course this time line is not engraved in stone, but it is definitely cause to praise
As you can see, it will be a wild time for the next month and a half. Please say a prayer for us. We've got a lot left to do in a short amount of time.
Mark and Linda
Monday, January 26, 2009
First Update of 2009
Well, our family got through Christmas, spending time with our family. Dec. 25 would have been Mark's mother's 62nd birthday. It was very hard for everyone but we were there for each other and we know that Mom is watching out for us and we firmly believe that Mark's mom and Linda's dad are watching what is going on in China and looking out for Mary Elisabeth.
Has she been born yet? We don't know but since our parents are in Heaven, they have a look in to things that we don't have here. We just hope that 2009 is our year to get our little girl. We want her to grow up with her cousins Devon and Heather. They are the closest to her age as her other first cousins are so much older but will love her just the same. We know that. On the Linda's side of the family, Emmy will have Deanna, Kortney, Jay, Kaycee and Orion. Orion is the youngest and is in the 10th grade this year. Deanna is older than Mark :) Emmy will have one second cousin whom she will be close to, Victoria Rivers, she is Deanna's 11-year-old girl.
So, please continue to pray for us. This is continues to be a struggle in patience for us. We know it will all pay off for us, we can feel it.
Mark and Linda
Has she been born yet? We don't know but since our parents are in Heaven, they have a look in to things that we don't have here. We just hope that 2009 is our year to get our little girl. We want her to grow up with her cousins Devon and Heather. They are the closest to her age as her other first cousins are so much older but will love her just the same. We know that. On the Linda's side of the family, Emmy will have Deanna, Kortney, Jay, Kaycee and Orion. Orion is the youngest and is in the 10th grade this year. Deanna is older than Mark :) Emmy will have one second cousin whom she will be close to, Victoria Rivers, she is Deanna's 11-year-old girl.
So, please continue to pray for us. This is continues to be a struggle in patience for us. We know it will all pay off for us, we can feel it.
Mark and Linda
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Update
I saw that it has been since May since we updated our blog.
Mark's mom died of cancer on July 28. It has been a tough time for our family but we're getting through as best we can. It is especially tough on Mark because he and his mom worked together at the newspaper for 13 years. They were especially close.
We got fingerprinted again at USCIS on Sept. 17 in Fort Smith, AR as our I-171H expired on Sept. 25. Our social worker took care of sending our home study there and we should be getting our new paperwork soon! At least it wasn't as stressful as meeting the deadline back in April 2007.
We continue to think about how our lives will change when we get Mary Elisabeth. We've lost two parents -- Linda's father and Mark's mom. In fact, Linda's dad only knew one of his grandchildren as he died in the early 1980s when Linda was in college. We are going to make sure that Emmy knows her grandparents inside and out!
We've both got birthdays coming up. I guess we'll enjoy them!
Thanks for checking us out.
Mark and Linda
Mark's mom died of cancer on July 28. It has been a tough time for our family but we're getting through as best we can. It is especially tough on Mark because he and his mom worked together at the newspaper for 13 years. They were especially close.
We got fingerprinted again at USCIS on Sept. 17 in Fort Smith, AR as our I-171H expired on Sept. 25. Our social worker took care of sending our home study there and we should be getting our new paperwork soon! At least it wasn't as stressful as meeting the deadline back in April 2007.
We continue to think about how our lives will change when we get Mary Elisabeth. We've lost two parents -- Linda's father and Mark's mom. In fact, Linda's dad only knew one of his grandchildren as he died in the early 1980s when Linda was in college. We are going to make sure that Emmy knows her grandparents inside and out!
We've both got birthdays coming up. I guess we'll enjoy them!
Thanks for checking us out.
Mark and Linda
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