We have travel dates....22 Day count down

This was a fast week, we got word of our Consulate Appointment, booked airline tickets & got the final trip itinerary all within about 2 days. We will be leaving for Beijing on 10/22 and will meet Madison on 10/28! It's hard to imagine that 22 days from today we will finally be on the last leg of this 2+ year journey (and getting ready to start a whole new one as a family of three).

Our trip goes as follows:

10/22 Leave MSP (transfer in Detroit)
10/23 Arrive Beijing at night
10/24-10/27 Sight see & adjust to the time change
10/28 Fly to Nanchang & Meet Maddy in the afternoon!!
10/29-11/1 Finalize adoption & take in a few sites in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province.
11/2 Fly to Guangzhou (stay at White Swan)
11/3-11/4 Medical exam & complete paperwork for the US Consulate
11/5 Consulate Appointment
11/6 Citizen Swearing In Ceremony @ the consulate
11/7 Leave for Home - arrive 2:30 pm same day (due to time change)

We also got word that our items for the care package made it to Ann @ Red Thread so she has assembled everything & sent it off to the Orphanage. We weren't sure if our package was going to make it to her, so it brought a tear to our eyes to see our stuff all ready to go! There was much prayer involved for the package to make it safely and we thank God that everything came together. Here is the picture:

We received our travel approval today!

Our agency e-mailed us today with our travel invitation letters from China. We are so excited to be one step closer in our journey to Madison. Next week we should have our Consulate Appointments set in Guangzhou & then our itinerary will be set. We are hoping to be able to actually book our tickets end of next week!

This is going very fast (of course there is still an element of slowness knowing that she is still there waiting for us). Tonite we worked on our packing list so we can feel a little more organized.

Last week we sent a care package to Madison with a blanket, camera, & a photo book with our pictures. These were sent to a lady in China that does Care Packages who will add a few other items & translate our letter for us.

We have also put a few finishing touches on the nursery:

A little about Jiangxi Province

Over the past couple of days I have been researching the province where Madison comes from & have learned a lot. This province is known for it's porcelain, which will be adding to our list of things to buy. The climate is sub-tropical so even in late October/early November it should be pretty warm still. Jiangxi is also one of the poorer provinces in southern China as many of the larger cities in the south attract workers away for better paying jobs.

Above is a map of Jiangxi, currently Madison is in Leping (which is to the east of the large lake). When we travel to the province we will likely go to Nanchang to get her as this is where the Civil Affairs Office is located.

More info can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiangxi

P.S. Our acceptance went off on Friday (along w/the 4 other families in our agency's travel group aka 'Group 92') via DHL to China. Now we wait for the Travel Approval (which will come in about 4 weeks).

Introducing Madison

Here are the pictures of our Jiangxi Jewel. We are in love with this little girl already. We're still mulling over what her middle name will be, but most likely something with 'Yi' in it which means 'happy.'

It's a Girl!

We got the call today @ 12:15 pm telling us about the referral of our baby girl.


Name: Le Ping Yi (Yi means 'Happy')
Born: 02/5/07
She is currently in foster care out of Leping SWI in Jiangxi Province.

We are so excited to finally be able to see her face! We have pictures but are unable to upload them, should have these uploaded tomorrow.

Referrals are on the way

The current buzz is that referrals are on the way from China. For those who aren't familiar with how this process works, here are the steps:

1. Our file got matched with an available baby (this should have already happened)

2. Our referral (along with the other 4 families in our agency's travel group) will be sent with a picture & information about the baby.

3. This info is translated into English & we are called with basic information (aka 'The Call')

4. We will go to the agency to get our picture, file & letter of acceptance (LOA).

5. We sign the letter of acceptance once we are comfortable with the information provided (& have the medical information reviewed by an adoption specialist) & this gets sent back to China. Hopefully this part won't take more than a couple of days.

6. China then sends us an invitation called a Travel Approval (TA) allowing us to make our consulate appointment (CA) with the US Embassy in Guangzhou, China.

7. Once our CA is made, we can make our travel plans & start packing!!

Hopefully getting the above steps c0mpleted won't take more than about 4 weeks so we can have about 3-4 weeks notice after that before we travel. As soon as we get information I will post this. Hopefully this will be Tues or Wed at the latest.