A SHORT POST...

I'm sorry I haven't found much time to post lately! It has been very busy here, as you can imagine! Last night I was actually sitting at my computer working and stopped to breathe a sigh of relief! The mad rush is over!! Well, I thought it was over anyway!!

I got an email from Tracey Gehrke who is traveling at the same time as my husband, and she informed me that we needed 3 copies of the Chinese medicals. Up until a week ago, I didn't even know we needed the Chinese medicals. I didn't even HAVE them. I had to request them from our adoption agency (don't you think they should have known to send these to us?). Luckily they arrived on Monday. But, now I have to go make additional copies, which is not really a big deal...but, just frustrating that we are scrambling to get things together at the last minute because our adoption agency failed to let us know ANYTHING! I'm sorry for venting, but we have pretty much been ON OUR OWN through this whole process and it is just.....ridiculous!

And, my husband.......has not prepared well for travel!! He just got his suitcase packed last night!! And, then he wrote a "list" of things that he needed!!! And he forgot to call his doctor to get his prescriptions refilled before he left!! So, today has not been the much more relaxed pace that I had imagined it would be! It's BUSY, BUSY, BUSY!!

Tomorrow my husband and Carli leave for Michigan. They will spend the night with my husband's parents, and then go the airport on Friday morning for their flight to China!

Please send prayers that all goes well on this long flight! Carli has never flown and I'm.....very nervous!

I promise to keep our blog as up-to-date as possible so you won't miss a thing! Gotcha Day is on Monday, August 4th, but because of the time difference, actually Sunday evening (about 9:00 p.m. Indiana time), Michael will be holding Haley for the first time!! OH YEAHHHHHHHH!!

MY HUSBAND's "PARTY"

My husband decided that he was going to call in last night and use some of his hours of personal time from work (he normally works 6PM to 6AM). He took six hours of personal time, and told them that he would be in at midnight. It was a very busy weekend around here (last weekend before traveling to China). My husband n-e-v-e-r takes time off work.....so, I figured he must really be feeling tired and overwhelmed!!



Well, he called me shortly after he arrived at work last night (12:30). He said he completely regretted taking those hours of personal time because all of his co-workers had a CARRY-IN for him to congratulate him on the adoption and wish him good luck!



So, the guest of honor was a no-show!! Can you believe it?!



See what happens when the poor guy decides to take some time off FOR ONCE?!!
ONLY FOUR DAYS UNTIL MICHAEL AND CARLI FLY TO CHINA!! WE'RE COUNTING DOWN THE DAYS!!!!

PLEASE SAY A PRAYER...

As if this whole adoption process has not been one thing after another for us....

You might recall that a few months ago we received a letter from our adoption agency stating that they would no longer be making our in-China arrangements for us. I remember feeling very upset and frantic!! How could they do this to us in the middle of our adoption?! To say the least, I thought this was very "unprofessional" of them!

Well, we made it over that hurdle and managed to make our own arrangements without much of the difficulty that I had imagined!!

Today we received another email from our adoption agency. They will officially be closing their doors "sometime between July 31st and August 15th". This is the exact timeframe of my husband's travel to China!

I don't know how this will affect us (or if it even will), but I am just a nervous wreck right now! This was very unexpected and, once again, I feel like a bomb has been dropped!! Please say a prayer that we will get through this process without any glitches and that all will go as planned!! Please keep the Gehrke family in your prayers also (they're traveling at the same time...same adoption agency)!!

Have I mentioned a time or two in my blog that this would be our LAST adoption?! Add this to my list of reasons why!! Mama can't take any more of the mayhem!!!

CONSULATE APPOINTMENT CONFIRMED!

Our adoption agency has received electronic confirmation of our Consulate appointment on August 11th (9:30 a.m.)! So, yesterday it was only 99% confirmed. Today it is 100% confirmed!!!!! I feel so much more relieved having that extra 1% confirmation (LOL)!! Anyway - our plans remain for travel August 1st through August 14th. I've posted a travel itinerary on the sidebar of our blog for those of you who will be following along!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

I think Haley has officially graduated from "Princess" to "Jewelry Queen"! Okay...so I send a lot of jewelry in my care packages!! Yikes...I didn't realize she would try to wear it ALL at once!! Is she precious, or what?!

CONSULATE APPOINTMENT AUGUST 11th

We were told that it is 99% confirmed that our Consulate appointment will be on August 11th! It is only 99% confirmed because they received "verbal" confirmation of the appointment and not "electronic" confirmation! WHATEVER!!! 99% is good enough for me!! So, my husband and Carli will be leaving on August 1st! Gotcha Day will be on Monday, August 4th!

NEW PICTURES OF HALEY!

Good morning! It's 7:00 a.m. here and I woke up to new pictures of Haley! Thanks, Laura! And, how nice that she is in a picture with Jack (Betsy's son) and Cate (Kim's daughter)!

Here she is.......

This is Haley with Cate and Jack! You can follow their adoption journies by clicking on the links I have provided on the top right-hand side of my blog.

THE LONG-AWAITED "TA"!!!

The adoption agency overnighted our "TA" which is actually called a "Notice of Travelling to China for Adoption"! It indicates that Chun Liang should be placed with us for adoption, and we are instructed to travel to the adoption registry office within the Civil Affairs Department of Anhui Province to proceed with the adoption formalities! And, then it has her picture in the lower left-hand corner! It was a picture that was in her original referral file (the kids said she looked very sad)! This is the picture on the "TA"....

Geeze, they could have picked one of the MANY pictures of her cute little smile!!!

We are sooooo close to finally having our little girl! And, it feels sooooo good! The last 13 months have been very tough, and the five months since we sent our Dossier to China have been even more tough....because you just WAIT and HOPE!!

Thank goodness the wait is over!

I did go ahead and make flight arrangements based on a consulate appointment date of August 11th or 12th. I maybe should not have done this until we received confirmation of our consulate appointment, but....I did it anyway! I used the Northwest Airlines adoption fares, so we can change the dates at no extra cost if we need to. But, I needed to lock in at a price that was still within our reach!! The prices just keep GOING UP and I was afraid that if they went any higher, we could not afford for Carli to travel. And....I really want her to go!! So, for the two round-trip tickets and Haley's one-way....it was $5550! That is just unbelievable!! I can't even begin to comprehend WHY these tickets are so expensive (only $800 round-trip for Lauryn's adoption two years ago)! So, I think I'm going to go THROW UP now!!! FIVE THOUSAND..FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS FOR AIRFARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! O-U-C-H!!!

IT's HERE!!

Our "TA" has officially been received (a month and four days after LOA)! Our adoption agency is going to try and get a Consulate appointment for August 11th or 12th! We should have confirmation of that date within the next few days! So...as it looks right now, my husband and Carli will be leaving for China on August 1st (two weeks from this Friday)! WOW!!

P.S. Yes, I will keep blogging since I will be going out of my mind here at home (wishing I was in China)! It will give me something to do to keep my mind occupied! My husband will email pictures and video to me each day, so all of you wonderful people out there can continue to follow along on our journey!

We love you all :)

"TA" IS ON THE WAY!!

I woke up this morning to a wonderful email from the travel agency in China who has been working on arranging our in-China travel!!! The email said they contacted CCAA to inquire about our TA, and they were told that our TA has been sent out and we should be receiving it shortly!! Talk about a round-about way of finding out that our TA is on it's way!! I guess that's ONE good thing that has come from having to make our own travel arrangements (ha ha)!! So.....we don't "officially" have our TA, but it is on the way!! You can imagine my excitement here this morning!!

I haven't posted this to any of my Yahoo groups yet....and I won't do that until we have it in-hand! But, I did want to post this on my blog for those of you who follow along!

For those of you who don't know what "TA" is.....it's the piece of paper we've been waiting for that will allow us to TRAVEL!

WE ARE STILL PLANNING ON HAVING CARLI TRAVEL WITH "DAD" TO CHINA (AS LONG AS WE CAN FIND REASONABLY PRICED TICKETS ONCE OUR CONSULATE APPOINTMENT IS MADE)! KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED!!

I'M GOING ON STRIKE!

I am officially protesting the long wait for our TA and....I'm going on strike!!

I have added a "video montage" on the top right-hand side of our blog for your viewing pleasure! But, as far as my blogging goes.....THERE WILL BE NO MORE BLOGGING UNTIL WE RECEIVE THAT LONG-AWAITED TA!! *%$# &%$#*

P.S. Kim, I am now an official member of your "whiney butt" club!!

NEW PICTURES OF HALEY!

It is after midnight here, but I couldn't wait to post the new pictures of Haley that we just received from the Clark family who visited the orphanage today! If you will recall from my previous post(s), the Clark family adopted one of Haley's foster brothers (AJ). Thank you, Ruth, for taking the pictures! And, thank you for delivering our package to Haley! It is the last one she will receive before she comes HOME!!!

Our sweet Haley!

Notice the Tinkerbell barrett (again)!! We sent this for her in a package a couple of months ago!

Here's Haley holding the package that we sent for her!

Giving the "peace" sign!

Haley hugging AJ (must have been saying goodbye)! Hang in there, little princess, you'll be coming home very soon!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LAURYN!

Michael and I bought Lauryn a Barbie scooter for her birthday! We weren't really sure what she would think about it, but she LOVES it! Here's a short video of Lauryn with her new scooter!! I'll post pictures and birthday party details later!






What a busy day! After the 4th of July celebration, and Lauryn's birthday today....mom and dad are POOPED! We ate lunch today at Lauryn's favorite restaurant, Panda Grill (Chinese)! We told her that she could pick any restaurant she wanted, and we had a feeling that it would be Panda Grill. On the way into the restaurant, mom dropped the camera and...it hasn't worked since! Yes, people...I dropped the camera and BROKE it (of ALL times to do something like this)!! I was almost in tears when we couldn't get it to work! So, while the rest of us were inside eating, my husband drove to the nearest Walgreen's and bought a disposable camera JUST SO WE COULD TAKE SOME PICTURES!


The people in the restaurant LOVE to see Lauryn when she comes in, and when they found out that it was her birthday today....they made a very special fruit and cake platter for her (sooooooooo cute)!!



The only pictures we have from today are the ones on the disposable camera, which I cannot post on my blog....and the few pictures that we took of Lauryn BEFORE the camera got dropped! We did take a lot of video today, and I posted a short clip of Lauryn with her Barbie scooter (she could not be separated from her scooter the rest of the day)!

LAURYN's HAIR WAS NOT DONE TO PURPOSELY LOOK LIKE HALEY's, BUT.....SOMEONE DID MAKE A COMMENT ABOUT THE SIMILARITY TO THE FIRST PHOTO WE RECEIVED OF HALEY...





















HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LAURYN!

ONE MORE VIDEO CLIP FOR YOU TO VIEW OF OUR "CRAZY" BUNCH! WE SPLIT THE GIFT-OPENING FOR LAURYN, SO SHE OPENED SOME OF HER PRESENTS IN THE MORNING AND SOME OF HER PRESENTS IN THE AFTERNOON. IN THE AFTERNOON, AUSTIN, CARLI AND DYLAN THOUGHT IT WOULD BE GREAT TO WRAP PRESENTS OF THEIR OWN FOR LAURYN! DYLAN WRAPPED A $3 COUPON FOR TOYS-R-US!! CARLI WRAPPED A LITTLE STUFFED ANIMAL! AUSTIN WRAPPED SOME LIP GLOSS THAT HE SAID HE's HAD FOR A WHILE (WHAT?!)!! OKAY..I'M WORRIED ABOUT THAT BOY!!

SO...HERE's LAURYN OPENING A FEW OF HER PRESENTS...

THAT's A GREEN "BALLOON ALIEN" IN THE BACKGROUND! WHEN MY HUSBAND WENT TO BUY FIREWORKS THIS AFTERNOON, THERE WAS A BALLOON ARTIST WHO WAS MAKING BALLOON CHARACTERS FOR KIDS! DYLAN WANTED A BALLOON ALIEN (THE GUY DID A GREAT JOB)! AND HE ALSO MADE A TEDDY BEAR BALLOON WITH "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" BALLOONS FOR LAURYN (IT IS SOOOOOO ADORABLE)! WE'RE THINKING ABOUT HIRING THIS BALLOON ARTIST FOR HALEY's "WELCOME HOME" PARTY!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!

Happy 4th of July! We had a GREAT day today! The rain held off...there wasn't a cloud in the sky!! The kids played outside most of the day!! Lauryn helped mom in the kitchen today with the deviled eggs, the pasta salad and the cake!! She actually decorated the cake all by herself (and was VERY proud of it)!! I have never seen a kid eat deviled eggs like Lauryn! She LOVES them!! So, she snuck a few while we were making them! We had a wonderful cook-out tonight (Andy and Jessi were the grill-tenders)!! Then, the kids got their showers and we headed up to the high school parking lot to wait on the fireworks! It was sort of "chilly" tonight (which is JUST FINE by me)!! They actually moved the location of the fireworks (much to everyone's surprise in the parking lot)! So, the view wasn't as good as we are used to....but, we still had fun! Lauryn does not like loud noises, so she hid in the back of the truck most of the time (or had to be held by mom and dad)! It's now 11:30 p.m. and we just got home a half-hour ago! The kids are in their pajamas and it's time for bed! Tomorrow is Lauryn's birthday! I am too tired to download a lot of pictures from tonight, but here are some......

DO YOU NOTICE LAURYN HIDING UNDERNEATH THE BED-COVER ON MY HUSBAND's TRUCK?!!! I TOLD YOU SHE DIDN'T LIKE THE LOUD NOISES!!

HE's GOOFY...THAT's WHY I LOVE HIM!!

ANDY & JESSI :)

HOPE YOU ALL HAD A SAFE AND WONDERFUL 4th!