Travel Plans! Finally!!

Today was our long awaited travel meeting and we were presented with our itinerary. We leave in just over 2 weeks. Here we come Lily!!!!!!! Here is our itinerary:

October 16th: Leave Boston at 8:31 AM.
October 17th: Arrive in Beijing at 1:55 PM
October 18: Great Wall and Summer Palace
October 19th: Forbidden City. fly to Nanchang at 5:20 PM
October 20th: Lily placed in our arms forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
October 21 - 24 - Nanchang
October 24 - 28th Guanzghou
October 28th - Back to Beijing
October 29th Fly Home. Land in Boston at 9:28 PM!!

Amazing that after all this time we finally know the day we will have our baby in our arms. We do have a small glitch in our Immigration approval and at this time we may not able to leave China! I have been assured that this will be cleared up before we leave for China so I am praying that it will be resolved asap!

Video

I spent the day learning how to download video from the camcorder to the computer. Yes, that took me about 4 hours to do! I also learned how to edit movies, really cool! I thought I would post a video just to make sure I know how to do it once I am in China. The following video is a clip from our referral call. I was way more emotional than I expected and turned into a blubbering mess, so I cut the video short. It's really hard to watch myself on video and for all of you expecting a referral call I recommend not wearing a sleeveless shirt unless your arms are toned! So here it is, enjoy!

TA!!! Finally!!

When our agency said Travel Approval takes 2 - 4 weeks to receive from China I should have expected 4 weeks!! I thought no way would it take 4 weeks, every other agency is getting them back in 2 - 3 weeks. Well of course ours took 4 weeks but the good news is we finally have TA!! China has approved us to travel to China to complete our adoption!! We still do not have travel dates because now our agency needs to make our Consulate appointment. The CA is where we will get Lily's Visa and that is the last part of the trip. We should have CA in the next few days and then we will know when we are traveling. We are very close!!

More Informaton

It is amazing to me that just 3 short weeks ago we received our daughter's referral. All we knew was her Chinese name, D.O.B., province, orphanage and 4 pictures of her at 4 months old. In such a short time we received pictures of this beautiful baby at 2.5 months old, a video of her in the orphanage and just last night we received 5 NEW pictures! I now have pictures of Lily from last week! She looks healthy and strong! We now know she is 16.5 lbs and has not yet gotten any teeth. I am so relieved to know that she is safe and being well cared for but at the same time she needs to be home with her family. Today may have been the day she saw her family for the first time. I sent a care package 2 weeks ago to her orphanage and today I received confirmation that the orphanage received the package and I can only hope that means the nannies are showing Lily the photo album with her mommy, daddy, big brothers and grandparents. I sent two disposable cameras and I hope that when Lily is put in our arms we will also receive more photos of her daily life in the orphanage. I sent her a taggie blanket and small stuffed animal and I hope that tonight she sleeps holding those and somehow knows that people she has never met love her more than imaginable! There are so may people to thank for this information. Here is a shout out to a few: Thanks to Stephe for motivating me months ago to have a care package ready to go, thanks to Di for giving me the letter written in Chinese to include in my care package, thanks to Carrie for sending me the pictures and video from her April visit to the orphanage and thanks to Adele at Blessed Kids for the newest pictures, measurements and confirmation that my care package has arrived. I am just so grateful for all the people who have made it possible to connect to my daughter across the world!