We made it! We are in China!

Hey everyone,

We finally made it! After a two hour drive to the airport, a two hour flight to Newark, a 13 and a half hour flight to Beijing and a half hour drive to our hotel....WE ARE HERE! First of all, let me say that BG was an angel! I mean an angel! We were so blessed on this trip! When we got ready to board the first plane BG was heading down the portal and JT said "you ready?" and she answered, "let's go get Lili-Kate!" Off she marched like a big girl! On our flight to Beijing, we were with mostly chinese and a few Americans...but right beside us was a woman and her 20 month old little girl. She wanted to play with BG and the mother called BG "sister". The entire trip she called BG "sister". That little chinese princess stole my heart. The people here are very nice and we have a great guide to help answer our hundred questions! Of course we are EXHAUSTED! We are 13 hours ahead of our family at home and trying to stay awake to get on schedule but...I don't know if I am gonna make it! :) I will start posting some pics as soon as I can...

Believe it or not...

This was too funny to share so...here goes...

When I took the kids to meet my dad on Friday, after dropping them off I opened a fresh pack of my favorite gum, stride. On the inside of the flap was a To Do List...

This just so happens to be the first thing we will do when we get there! Ha!

Getting ready to go...

We are ready to go! Not physically in the sense I have a ton of packing to do but emotionally ready to go! I took a couple of pics of the girls room. BG and LK will share a room together. We put LK's bed up on New Years and so BG has had time to adjust to the idea that she will soon have a sister in the room with her. Remember she's two...she says to me when she sees LK's picture..."there's LK...she's my sister...she's in China". She knows the best way a two year old can know. It feels like we are being carried...if you can understand what I mean. Have you ever just felt like you were being "carried"?

Can't wait to go to China...can't wait even more to meet my girl!

Confirmed Consulate Appointment!!

Okay, well we are in full swing now...we have our confirmed consulate appointment for May 11! That means that we will leave Nashville on April 28th and return home with Lili-Kate on May 13! My head is spinning! I am thinking of all the one hundred million things I need to do before I leave. Wow! We will be flying into Beijing and then on to Nanning and finally to Guanghou. If any of you have been there this time of year please fill me in on what to expect with the weather. Any must haves or must dos? Thanks to all of you who have shown your support and prayed for us! Off we go!

We are finally going to China!

We are excited today to find out that we officially have the fingerprint approval and will have a confirmed consulate appointment in the morning! Yay! That has been one working on my patience! It looks like we will fly out on Tuesday, April 28 and return on Thursday May 14. Of course we will have confirmed travel once we have our confirmed consulate appointment. The realization that it is only two weeks away is overwhelming! I am working hard to finish up all my schoolwork before we leave and I have bought everything for our travel. We desperately need your prayers because we will be taking BG with us. I think it will be wonderful for LK to have her there too! Friends at last! While I was getting ready this morning BG was in the bathroom with me and she asked out of the blue, "where's LK?" And (by faith) I said to her, 'we are about to go on the airplane and get her'. This was before the call that we had the fingerprint approval. Pray for us...our kids...and LK! Much love! *bt*

We are going to China!

We were very excited to get the news that our fingerprints are approved. We hope to be in China on May 2 however, we still need our approval on paper in our mailbox. The reality of three weeks until we meet our precious LK makes me sooo very excited! I have a few things to get done to get us ready to go. I can hardly believe it is here! Time to figure out how to use skype! Thanks to those of you that have continuously prayed for our fingerprints to get sorted out. It's finally here...yay!
*bt*

Okay, don't hate me...I went back to Hawaii! JT and I spent five days in Oahu and it was wonderful! Thanks to Aunt E and Nana and Grandaddy for helping out with the kids! It gave us a chance to have some time together...haven't had that since our honeymoon 15 years ago! It was awesome! While we were there, we were able to have JT's prints redone so now we just wait for the approval and our Consulate Appointment and we are off to get our L-K! While we were in Hawaii there were so many Asian families and it really set it on me. We are going to bring our precious angel home very soon! I will keep everybody posted when we know our dates for travel! Love and aloha! *bt*

We have our TA!

Just got the call from our agency that we have recieved our Travel Approval! That was the final thing we needed to travel. However, because we still don't know the status on JT's fingerprints they cannot make our Consulate Appointment or make any travel arrangements. Please say a prayer for us that we can get these fingerprints found! JT will not be able to update them again until the end of the month if they cannot locate them and that will cause our trip to pick up LK to be pushed out atleast another 4-6 weeks...maybe longer.

TA! It is finally here! Yay!

Still waiting...

Well yesterday was a month since we recieved our LOA. Our Travel Approval should come within approximately 30 days so I am getting excited...and anxious to hear something. It is amazing to think that we will probably be traveling in about a month to go get our LK. All the waiting, praying, hoping and preparing and we are almost there...that is if they find JT's fingerprints. We have been notified that they don't know exactly what happened to them when we had them redone three weeks ago. So, I am hoping for the absolute best! They will magically show up and off we will go...Pray they find them!

We all made it back safely from Hawaii. Needless to say, it was a very eventful trip. Three with a stomach virus and a two year old on a ten hour flight-wow! Fun though! Just got me ready to make the big trip to China!

It is unfortunate but we have not had any more updates on LK since our LOA. I hear it is not that uncommon for folks to get updates and such but we haven't been so fortunate. I sure wish we knew more about her. I don't even know for sure what size she wears. I guess we will know soon enough. My sister in law gave us a small tricycle so now we have two. Bella knows that it is for Lili...she still points to her bed and says that it's LK's. It is as real to her as it can be for a two year old. It's really sweet! Maybe we will hear something real soon!

We're home

Well, we made it home after a 16 hour journey from Hawaii. We left there around 6 pm yesterday and arrived in our driveway at 11 am today! Needless to say, I am exhausted, as are the kids! I thought flying all night would be the best route but um...not so sure! No one really slept! Except BG...for about 3.5 hours. We got home, crawled in the bed and I slept so hard that I woke myself up gasping for air. I guess I was too tired to breathe!



Hawaii was beautiful and very eventful! We are glad to be home and back to some normalcy. Saw today that TA's are coming for those with our LOA dates! Bad news...got a call and they have somehow misplaced JT's renewed fingerprints...the ones we drove all the way to Birmingham to get. Not sure what happened there and we are waiting to hear-what now! Can't travel without those. I am dreading that reallllyyyyy longgggg flight to China after this realllly lonogggg flight to Hawaii but I am so anxious and excited about getting to our LK and seeing her and BG together! It is getting so close! Several of the family are having dreams about her!



I will be keeping you posted...*bt*