Saturday, October 29, 2005

Merry Christmas?

That's right, were in the Christmas spirit already! Deann came up with the idea of decorating the house for Christmas before we leave for China. Crazy you say? Well, we have to keep up our traditions and our tradition is to decorate for Christmas on Thanksgiving Day. We return from China on Thanksgiving Day and we might be a little too tired to decorate:) that day. Hence, Deann's plan to decorate now. We have Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations up at the same time. Truthfully, I just can't get into the Christmas spirit this early, but it will be nice to return to a fully decorated house. Especially, since we have Hannah to think about and decorating may have taken a back seat to adjusting to our new family. Not to mention the jet lag.

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Happy Birthday Hannah!


Hannah is one today! Happy birthday Ya Fang! Because we will not have her today, we are planting a tree in her honor. We will be celebrating after church with Mama Jo, Big Pop and the Adkins at the Happy China Restaurant. We miss her so terribly. At times there seems to be a huge hole in our hearts. This may be the hardest day waiting so far.

We are literally counting the days. MaCayla and Deann created a calendar and posted it in the kitchen. MaCayla marks of each day as they pass.

We understand the Chinese often shave a child's head to celebrate their first birthday. We really hope Hannah's Foster Family doesn't practice this tradition, but if they do we repect their right to honor Ya Fang. May God bless them for helping take care of this precious little girl.

Of course when Hannah arrives in the US we will have a mega celebration for her birthday. Deann and I invited the world to MaCayla's first birthday. It is so funny to look back at the pictures of the people we invited to MaCayla's first party. I know many of them were glad to come, but they had to question how we doted over MaCayla. We did and we still do. Despite her parents MaCayla is a very mature, well adjusted seven year old:)

We love you Hannah Yafang!

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Guizhou Terraces


Guizhou is famous for the beautiful terraces carved into the hillsides.

Monday, October 10, 2005

WooHoo!

We are leaving on November 9th for Beijing and arriving on the 10th. We will have Hannah on November 14th when we travel to Guizhou Province. On November 19th we fly to Guangzhou to receive Hannah's VISA and we return to Atlanta on Thanksgiving Day the 24th. Now all we have to do is figure out how to get to Beijing. Hopefully, this month will fly by.

Friday, October 07, 2005

Officially Unofficial

We have an official Consulate appointment for November 22, 2005, but our travel dates are unconfirmed until next week. Most likely we will start our travel on November 8th. This is one week later than we had hoped for :( Also, we will likely return to the States on Thanksgiving Day. I have never flown on Thanksgiving, but I imagine it is not very crowded. We have been handed every delay imaginable in this process ( no offense to those who suffered through the SARS delay), but nothing worth having is ever easy to obtain. Just like we struggled to have MaCayla which made us stronger and more grateful, so has this process that we believe has been more difficult than Deann's pregnancy. You see Mother Nature doesn't allow more than a few weeks delay from due date to birth. And the baby is with you...physically. We are are at 10 months from DTC to gotcha day. Two months longer than expected and Hannah is not with us.

Monday, October 03, 2005

A Long Journey

An anonymous Chinese philosopher once said- The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Special Delivery

Try the link below to view a video of Deann accosting the Fedex guy as he delivers the "Referral Package"! After you are redirected to the video site, click the play button or the video will not start.

http://www.vimeo.com/clip=11581

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Travel Approval , But No Travel Date?

We finally have our travel approval, but we still do not know the exact date we will be leaving for Beijing... argh! Our adoption agency received the approval on Friday and quickly sent for consulate dates (consulate dates are needed to get Hannah's VISA to the U.S.), but it was already Saturday in China, hence the Consulate was closed and will be closed until Thursday, October 6th. Another holiday week in China. It seems every Chinese holiday has slowed our adoption process. The Chinese do not take one or two day holidays it seems. Their holidays last a week or more(we need more of that in the U.S.). It looks like we will be leaving sometime before the first or second weekend in November. We also received our VISA's this week. We are settin' on ready, and all dressed up with no date to go:).