Michael, here we come!!

Well, we are packed and ready to go!!

We were supposed to leave on a 12:40pm flight today, but now are not leaving until (hopefully) 5:30pm today. We are sure glad we have that "free" day on Thursday once we get to Beijing.
We will continue to post to the blog throughout our journey, as long as we can get good internet connections. So keep watching and I will try to journal as much as possible during our trip.
In the meantime, here are a few pictures of Michael's room, that we just finished over the weekend. Check out the great "murals" on the wall that Daddy painted for Michael. Just adorable.

Thank you all for your support and well wishes! Zaijian!!! (Good-Bye!!!)

Leaving on a jet plane

In just 48 hours, we are on our way to China to bring Michael home. We feel every range of emotion right now, including being excited, nervous, anxious, scared, AND happy! The car seat is now in the van, and we are ready! We think!?!

Anyway, there was a slight change to our scheduled itinerary, and we found out that we actually will not get to see Michael until Monday, July 30th, at a meeting scheduled for 10:00am that day. One day later than we thought, which is disappointing. We hope the day gets here quickly!

In the meantime, we are looking forward to our trip over and to all the great things we will see during our first few days in Beijing, including the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, and the Temple of Heaven.

We had an opportunity to meet one couple from our travel group, who live just 40 minutes north of us. We met for lunch this past weekend. They too will be getting a boy, who will be only 2 months younger than Michael. They were very nice, and we look forward to traveling with them during our 16 days in China.

We have a laptop ready to come with us, and plan to update this blog (with hopefully no problems) throughout our trip. So please check back and follow us on this wonderful, exciting journey to Michael!

Our Travel is Confirmed!!!!!!

We finally received written confirmation from the US Consulate in China, and so our dates are official!! Here is our schedule:

Depart Chicago: Tuesday, July 24th (one week from today!!!)
Arrive into Beijing: Wednesday, July 25th
Thursday/Friday - we will have time to rest and do a little sightseeing
Orientation meeting with our travel group: Saturday, July 28th, plus more sightseeing
Travel to Michael's Province and "GOTCHA DAY": Sunday, July 29th
(we will be staying in the city of Nanjing)
Consulate Date in Guangzhou: Tuesday, August 7th
Visa Issued: Wednesday, August 8th
Return HOME: Thursday, August 9th

We could not be more excited!! I'll post more later.

So what day will be "Gotcha Day"??

No news yet, so we are once again "patiently" waiting to find out our confirmed dates for travel. We did go ahead and research flights, and do have some on hold for the next 72 hours. We certainly hope to hear something before then so we can get them ticketed. Right now, we are flying out on July 24th to Beijing, with a return home on August 8th from Hong Kong.
Hopefully we get news tomorrow so we can be more sure of when we get to see Michael for the first time!!!

Our TA has arrived!!!!

Our Travel Approval has arrived today at our agency!!!! We just received an email from them letting us know that the TA's were in, and they are now waiting to get confirmation on the consulate appointments. We are tentatively scheduled to be in Beijing on July 27th!!!!! Holy cow, that is just 3 WEEKS AWAY!!!!!!
They are hoping the consulate appointments can be confirmed for the week of August 6th, and we would then return home around August 8th. We should know in the next couple of days the dates for sure.
And, we are planning to arrive a few days earlier than they want us to be there, so we have time to do a little more sightseeing, so that means we could be leaving in about 2 1/2 weeks!!!!!! WOW!!!! We have soooooo much to do!

No travel approval news yet.....

......at least not yet for us. We are still waiting. Others, though, who received their referrals at the same time we did have been getting calls that their TA's are in, and they are traveling within the next few weeks.
It is not unusual for some agencies to receive TA's, and some to come later. It depends on the processing of the acceptance paperwork over in China relating to the specific orphanages. So, we will continue to wait (patiently?) for the news of our travel dates.

In the meantime, referrals for July are finally arriving, so it is exciting news for our fellow adoptive families who are getting referrals this week. Dates covered this time were from November 8th through November 14th. Referral time is so wonderful!

TA's are beginning to arrive!

The latest news from my favorite adoption website ("Rumor Queen") is saying that some agencies have received travel approvals as of today. That is good news for us, as that is the next step we are waiting for... to receive our travel approval. Once we get that, our agency will work on getting our appointment set with the consulate, and then we will get confirmed travel dates! We could get those dates pretty quickly once the TA is received, so we should know soon when we will be leaving for China! So hopefully we will hear something from our agency within the next couple of days!! One step closer to Michael!!!!!!