We're going to China!

This past Friday I noticed a lot of travel approvals were being issued to people in my adoption group online. Randy and I just knew ours was coming that day. When the end of the work day came and went, we decided to just enjoy our weekend and figured we would hear something early the next week.

But then, Saturday I checked my email mid-afternoon and had an email saying our travel approval had just been delivered to our agency's office! On a Saturday! We were so surprised - I just cried and cried! This meant we would be leaving SOON! I posted a status update on Facebook that said "My water just broke! Aka...we got travel approval!"

Our coordinator said she would be applying for our consulate appointment Sunday night (Monday morning China time) and we should have it confirmed by Tuesday and would be able to book our flights! Monday we didn't hear anything - until 9:30 that night! We got an email from her that said our appointment had been confirmed for April 15! We're so thankful for our agency and coordinators who seem to work all the time!

The consulate appointment is the last thing you do in China before you are able to travel home. That is where Calli's visa will be issued. You are allowed to leave after 7pm the following night, so this information was what we needed to be able to book our flights.

It also means that we leave NEXT WEEK! One week from today we will fly to DFW with the girls, where they will stay with all their grandparents for two weeks. Then our long day of flying begins the next morning at 5:45!

We will have Calli in our arms on Sunday, April 7. Just writing that makes me tear up! This has all made me so emotional! I am excited, and I also feel like I may throw up many times each day!

After this long year of waiting waiting waiting for a million different steps, all the sudden we are in hurry up mode! Packing, booking flights, calling credit card companies, packing, making lists, downloading VPNs, packing, making sure we're caught up at work and around the house are all consuming our time, as well as spending quality time with the girls before we leave them for two weeks. My thought the past few days has been that I want to be as present as possible with the girls as our family's world is about to change dramatically.

This is happening!!!

New Pictures of Calli!

We received the last update we will get on Calli this past weekend! Our agency requested our final update back in January when we got our LOA, so I have been stalking my email every day since then! We haven't had new pictures since December and we have just been dying to see our sweet girl's face again!

She is getting so big! Her hair is growing, which we knew Kendall would like. :) She is 18 months old now and we also were given updated measurements. She is 24lbs and 31 inches tall, which puts her in 18-24 month clothes. She is in a shoe size 5.5 or 6 and she has 6 teeth! We can finally start picking out clothes and getting her packed!

She is all bundled up - that is just the way they do things in China. She lives in southern China, and it is typically about 70-75 degrees there during the day right now. Of course that must mean scarf weather! :)

We think she must still be living with her foster family because this looks to be the same place she was when we got the pictures in December. Sometimes children will be sent back to the orphanages when the orphanage gets word that a family has their LOA, and we weren't sure if that would be the case for Calli or not. We just know so very little! But we are thankful to see she is in the same place currently.

So what's next? Well, we are on Day 8 of our Travel Approval wait! Those have been coming in anywhere from as early as day 7 all the way to like 4 weeks. We are certainly hoping to be on the shorter end of that wait! We would love to hear that we have TA this week, apply for a Consulate Appointment, get our visas and plane tickets next week and leave as soon as April 4. It all depends on when we get this TA though, so pray that that comes quickly!! We are more than ready to go get our little girl.
Also, please continue to pray that God will prepare her heart for when we come to get her. I know I've mentioned this before, but this will probably be a very terrifying experience for her and we are praying that her foster parents, or whoever is caring for her, are showing her the pictures we sent of our family, telling her that a "mama" and "baba" are coming for her, and helping prepare her heart. We know it's best for her in the long run, but in the short term I just get so sad thinking about taking her from the place she's known most of her life and doing anything that would make her scared. Please pray with us about this.
So that's all for the final update! These are the last pictures we'll see before we hold her in our arms! Can't wait for that day!

Update - Article 5

It is March! We are really hoping to travel in April, so to be just one month away is super exciting to us! I thought I would give a quick update as to what's going on with our paperwork.

We received notification on February 13 that our second round of immigration paperwork was approved. This approval was titled "Petition to Classify Convention Adoptee as an Immediate Relative." Love that! It was specific for us and for Li Xiao Fei so we are matched now in the eyes of Homeland Security.

Next that approval went to the National Visa Center, they put it with some other forms and then cabled it to the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China, where Calli's visa will be issued when we finalize her adoption there!

Once it got to the consulate, then our Article 5 drop-off happened. (I'm still not sure where it was dropped off and where it is picked up - this step is confusing to me).  The Article 5 is an official document from the US Embassy that lets the CCCWA (the child welfare agency in China that oversees all adoptions) know that Calli's paperwork for her visa is good to go. Our scheduled pick-up date for that is next Tuesday, March 12. Once we get that, then we will wait for the CCCWA to give us our travel approval!

Travel approvals are taking anywhere from 10 days to 3 weeks to come. We are certainly praying for the shortest amount of time! Once we get our travel appointment, we'll request a consulate appointment date, get confirmation of that, and then book our flights! We'll hopefully fly out just a week or two after we get our consulate appointment.

So in summary: (you're welcome) :)
Article 5 pick up (next Tuesday)
Travel Approval and Consulate Appointment (hopefully just 2-3 weeks)
Travel! (1-2 weeks after that)

We are still hoping to leave that first week of April, but we'll see! Not sure about avoiding the trade fair at this point, but we know God has that all in his hands.

And the biggest thing we're still waiting on: an update on Calli!!! Our agency has requested it but so far we haven't seen it. We are just so wanting to see new pictures and get her measurements. The last pictures we have of her are from mid-December. Praying that update comes this week!