We are on our way baby!!

We leave in 3 short days :)  Wow!  It has taken almost 17 months to get here.  I have had 17 months to prepare but I feel like I'm not ready to leave.  I can't wait until we can hold our sweet baby in our arms, kiss her chubby cheeks, tuck her in bed, give her baths, discover her favorite toys and food, hold her little hand and comb her hair.  I am not looking forward to leaving home for 14 days!  We have never been away for that long!  I am so thankful we are able to take our boys, I wish we could have brought all our family with us, I am going to miss them all so so much!  I still have to pack and get paperwork together.  I hope I don't forget anything important!  Please pray we have safe travels!  I can't wait until I can post pictures of our sweet little Dottie with her new Forever Family!  :)

17 more days!

After many paperwork setbacks, system shut downs, Chinese New Year, VISA's and a very VERY LOOOOONG wait we finally have our Travel Approval!  :)  We started our 2nd adoption journey just before Christmas 2013.  I wanted to make a donation for a child on Reeces Rainbow since that is where we found Isaac and we also received a grant from Reeces Rainbow for his adoption.  As I looked through the children I loved little Leandra.  Our nice had a baby that December and when we went to see her baby my husband said "we need another one" (yes, he gets baby hungry...LOL).  I told him there is a little girl waiting on Reeces Rainbow that would be perfect and he said OK, what do we have to do?  So the journey began again.  This adoption process has been a lot different than Isaacs I think mostly because Taiwan was not a Hague country so the paperwork was not as critical and has fewer requirements.  

While waiting for our approval and thinking we were fully funded for our adoption Dean was put on lifting restrictions and I injured my shoulder and needed to have surgery so now I have lifting restrictions too.  At the last minute we decided to bring our 2 teenage boys with us to get our little girl so they could help out with luggage and lifting.  We expedited their passports and now we have our VISA's and I have been busy trying to make our budget stretch as far as I can.  Trying to plan airfare is a pain.  I'm trying to keep down the cost but I also am trying to avoid driving 12 hours to Las Angeles (since it would save us a bundle on airfare).  We leave in 17 days and feel like I have a million things to do.  Planning a trip for 4 for 14 days and having to work with a travel planner in China who will arrange in country stuff is way more difficult than I expected.  In Taiwan we were on our own to make all travel, hotel, and transportation arrangements. We only had 2 appointments in Taiwan and this trip has many more.  I'm sure we are in good hands but still the communication and working with a tight budget is stressful.  

I want to thank everyone for your help, support and prayers as we move on to the next portion of our adoption.  TRAVEL :)

Waiting for Travel

As we wait for our travel dates I got an update on Dottie (Leanne).  She has grown soooo much since our last update in July and since this adoption has taken us 6 months longer than expected ALL the clothes I have bought for her are going to be too small.  Now I have to start over (those who know me, know, I hate shopping) :(  At least I will be able to give these small clothes to my grand-daughter, she can grow into them.  While waiting my son is moving out since he and his new wife bought a home, They will have their baby, and I have been looking at flights and hotels for our trip.  They just seem to be getting more expensive the closer into summer it gets.  I hope we can get a confirmation soon so we can reserve our tickets and hotel before they go up much more.  I had surgery almost 2 weeks ago on my shoulder.  It is hard doing everything with my left hand and it takes me forever to get stuff done and by bed time I am exhausted.  I start physical therapy this week so I am hoping to get more motion in my shoulder.  Also I have been trying to apply for some grants to help with the travel cost for my boys to come and help us while traveling.  Last week we sent off for their passports and had to expedite them, that cost us $370.  As soon as we get them back I can apply for all of our VISA's.  We still have a little bit of paperwork left for traveling but the majority of it is behind us :)

And I almost forgot  HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!!!

Travel Approval

We got our travel approval on Friday :)  Seems like we have been waiting for it for so long!  So far we have just hit snag after snag after snag.  Chinese New Year starts this week so the official offices will be closed down for a few days.  That is ok though since we can't travel until after our grand-son is born anyway.  We don't want to miss out on that exciting moment.  And since I had to have shoulder surgery on Thursday we are hoping to travel mid April now.  We have everything ready except now since my surgery and I will have some restrictions we have decided to take our teen-age boys with us to help out now I am busy getting their passports and saving another $5k so we will be fully funded.  :)

We got an update on Leanne, she is in foster care and has learned to walk and she is growing like a weed.  We filled out her VISA application and her new name when she comes home will be Dorothy Fawn Xin, we are calling her Dottie for short :)

Sooooo close

Getting our travel approval is so close!  It seems like it has been forever waiting and we keep running into snags but it is getting closer.  During the last month we have encountered the Christmas and New Years holidays when our agency and USCIS has been closed.  China updated their system and shut down for a week then it took a little bit for paperwork to start showing up.  We had to apply for Leannes US VISA and we had to decide on her American name.......She is Dorothy Fawn Xin....for short it will be Dottie.

We started our adoption journey over a year ago and thought we would be done before now, we even got our dossier in early.  Now travel is going to come down to juggling it between 2 grand babies being born, 4 birthdays and I just found out I need to have shoulder surgery.  It is going to be tu

ff!  Please pray that we will get our travel approval soon so we can bring our baby girl DOTTIE home :)