Happily Ever After...

We are set and ready to go!! Today we got our final confirmation from our agency. ~We leave November 5th Atlanta to Detroit to Hong Kong. ~Arrive in Hong Kong Saturday the 6th and take a train to Guangzhou (We thought it would be fun for the girls to see the beautiful countryside of China on the 1.5 hour trip.) ~We will get the twins on MONDAY November 8th!!!!!! ~We will take another train to Guangzhou on Saturday Nov 20 and spend the night in Hong Kong and be HOME with our bundles of joy on Sunday night November 21st!!!! The super exciting part of all this (besides the OBVIOUS) is  that my sweet sister is getting MARRIED next Friday!!!! And, my beautiful great-aunt just happens to be turning 103 this Sunday. So we leave for VA this weekend to celebrate both of these momentous occasions, and will be home just 5 days before we GET ON THE PLANE TO CHINA!!!!! What a happy wonderful two weeks of JOY and then our trip to the twins. I am BURSTING with excitement!!! Thank ...

That's right, we got TRAVEL APPROVAL!!!!! My super-wonderful awesome agency CHSFS has requested a Consulate appointment for the week of November 15th, and we will hopefully get that because we can leave November 5th as planned!!!! (they have emailed the consulate and should hear back tomorrow or Wednesday with that date) Just 3 weeks from today Sofia and Celia will be placed in my arms!! Since I have been packed for months, and my house is sterile(see previous post) and our tickets are already purchased with FF miles (in faith) leaving on the 5th, all I can do is sit and cry, and REJOICE that we are finally going to get those sweet twinny girls!!

"We interrupt this blog about travel approval woes, to bring you a medical crisis." Aria is our NON special needs child, who happens to have lots of weird issues. Lots. Hives at random, unexplained times, facial swelling, rashes of unknown origins, huge reactions to bug bites, and terrible allergies and asthma to name just a few. For example, when she was 2, she went to bed happy as a lark, woke up at 11 PM with BOTH feet hugely swollen- another allergic reaction we thought, so we gave her benadryl. By the time we got to the Dr (when they opened we were waiting) she couldn't stand the swelling was so bad. She apparently, to the best of anyone's guess. got an infection from a new pair of shoes that rubbed her feet. She couldn't walk for 3 weeks and it was touch and go for a long hospital stay. WARNING:New shoes can cause staph- lysol accordingly. With that are her background, you can understand why I FREAKED OUT this week when I saw a red, silver dolla...

Well, we hit a bump in the ole' adoption road. My agency called this morning and I excitedly exclaim, "YOU HAVE MY TRAVEL APPROVAL?!?" Subtle, I am not. She says, that no, they don't because there is a problem. A WHAT????? Apparently our Letter of Intent (you know, the letter REQUESTING APPROVAL to adopt the twins) is not at the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs, and they say they have never had it. Hmmmmm..... How did you know to give us pre-approval and our official Letter of Acceptance if you didn't first get our request asking for the twins ?!?!? Lord knows it wasn't lost. Nope. It was never given. That's their story and they are stickin' with it. Oh, and a scanned copy will not do. We must provide original signatures for a document they received last March. Except they didn't. They magically knew that we wanted the twins and therefore approved us without ever seeing our request. Yeah, they're THAT good. An...

I need it with my whine. We were supposedly expedited for our TA (travel approval from China) but others on my adoption group received their expedited TA before the holiday, and even a few that weren't expedited also got theirs. Us? Nope. The Chinese holidays ended last Thursday, so our hope and prayer is that we will get our TA this week. This is important for many reasons: My sanity. Our frequent flier mile tickets we have leave on November 5th. That would mean that we would have our U.S. Consulate appointment the week of Nov 16th. Right now, they are filling up the week of Nov 1st and Nov 8th. If those are full, then we may not get our travel dates and we won't find FF mile tickets for 60,000 per person on a later flight. Which means we have MORE expenses we could have avoided. Which makes me cranky. So the easiest and safest way to proceed here is for my phone to ring TODAY with the joyful news of our TA. Except that I am not sure if my agency is even op...

Our agency requested an update and photos of our little sweeties. Celia is making progress at the rehab facility. She laughs when her care givers praise her and she cries when she is put down. Oh no, I guess we won't be putting her down then!! Haha!                   Don't worry Celia, Mommy and Daddy will hold you lots and lots sweet girl!  Sofia decided it was time for her Mommy and Daddy to see the "real" her. She looks like she is dancing and she is SMILING in almost all the pictures!!! Melts my heart. I'm a puddle of gooey love right now.                              I think she's smiling cuz they told her we are coming- don't you??  Look at that head control! Way to go Celia!! We can't wait to celebrate each milestone with you baby girl!!! She needs to have her family to cheer her on, and her mommy fix her hair. At least it's growing, althoug...

Gianna is taking a Geography class on Tuesdays at a church, which she loves, loves, loves! She had surgery on a Thursday, and on the following Tuesday she insisted on going to class, even though she was in a tremendous amount of pain. I stayed with her in her class to keep her safe, and I am so thankful I did. The class "went" to Uganda and met a girl named Beatrice in their story. Beatrice is a real girl, who could not afford to go to school. Her family was given a goat, and she milked it every day and sold the milk at the market. Eventually, Beatrice had enough money to go to school. The teacher told the children that the semester service project was to buy a $70 goat so that another child in Uganda might go to school. She suggested earning a dime or a quarter for odd jobs, and maybe the class could buy a goat or possibly chickens by the end of the semester. Gianna came home exhausted, hurting and starving and asked for a red plastic cup. She went upstairs to her ...