Travel Approvals Are Here!

The much awaited Travel Approval (TA) for our group arrived this afternoon at our agency from Beijing. Our agency now has lots of work to do over the next two weeks ... best guess now is that we will depart for China on either Friday, July 17 or Friday, July 24.
We do already know that, while in Nanchang, we will be staying at the dramatically named Galactic Peace Hotel ... a brand new, very Western and lovely looking hotel! You can google it and see pictures.
Dates should firm up next week.
Lots to do!

Two Great Air Mails to China!

Our agency has now sent back each family's referral acceptance -- the package should be in Beijing at this point!

For us, that is the first step in making the adoption official. Next, we will wait for Beijing to assign us our consulate date and send our travel approval. Based on recent events, that could be in as soon as 10-14 days from now!

Also, Lin-Lin should soon receive a soft photo album with some pictures of us, Oak Park, and herself inside -- we hope her foster mom and dad will show her the pictures so she recognizes us next month. Finally, thanks to all the nice RQ cyberfriends from all over the world who have left comments on this blog! It's really fun to read them and they are appreciated!

Updated Measurements!

The CCAA sent updated information on Ella-Lin yesterday, since our paperwork has data as of mid-March. She is growing really well and is now in the care of a foster family until we come to China. Director Zhou of the Fuzhou Institute has seen all the babies in our travel group in the last few days and reports that they are all thriving.

Ella-Lin is in the 50th percentile for weight for a 10.5 month old baby girl ... the 65th percentile for height ... and about the 65th percentile for head circumference ... this is by American growth chart standards!! So she is really doing very, very well!

In addition to the care package, we have also sent a soft photo album with pictures of Marc, me and Tyler, our house and one photo of Ella in there as well. More to come (soon, I hope) about travel arrangements!

Cute Care Package for Lin-Lin

Thought everyone would like to see the cute care package contents that are being delivered to Lin-Lin this week via a great service. There are moon cakes, a blanket, a stuffie, some tea for her caregivers and an envelope where the caregivers can send a note back to us about her.

We hope to hear this week that our travel group's acceptances are headed back to Beijing! Then it should be just a couple (2? 3?) weeks before the trip dates can be established.

More to come!

Make a Smilebox photobook