One Step Closer!

Hooray! We got a call from our agency this morning! Our TA is on its way. They expect that they will have it before Friday and are planning on us getting Lia on May 5th. We will likely leave On April 29th or 30th and spend a couple of days in Hong Kong before heading to Guangzhou to finalize the adoption. We are still hoping to be back home in time for Caelan's dance recital on May 17/18. YEAH!!

UPDATE: Our agency has our TA!!!

Waiting, still

No word on our TA. I am hoping this week, though the time keeps dragging on and on. Spring break was restful, as we spent the entire time taking care of two very sick kids. They both are feeling better now, though I am going to double check things with Garrett's ped today. Caelan will be back at school this morning.

Sigh...

Our bags are packed. Yes. I am ready!

Is today going to be the day?

UPDATE: We did not get our TA today. I am very disappointed, but our agency is hopeful that we may get it later this week or next.

Come on TA....

We will be at home all day today, as Caelan and Garrett are sick with a stomach bug. What a fun way for Caelan to spend her spring break:(

I am hoping that we will hear something today about our TA and will be able to start planning our trip!

Very Funny

I love The Office. This is too funny. And for all of you (Mom and Julie, especially!) who don't think the show is hilarious, maybe this will change your mind!

Check out this video: The Office: Top 10 Jim and Dwight moments



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Still Waiting...

There is a good possibility that our TA is on its way- maybe we will hear something on Monday! I am still not sure what this means for our travel plans, but I would love to go in April. When we get our TA, our agency will discuss possible travel dates and then try to get our Consulate Appointment. Then tickets will be purchased! Yeah! We are so ready to bring Lia home!

In the meantime, here is a picture of Garrett pushing his friend Amelia around on his green tractor. They go to preschool together, and are just so adorable!


Here are a couple of Easter Egg hunt pictures of Caelan and Garrett.

St. Patrick's Day/ Tea Party/ State Project

I have some pictures. The first couple are from the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Bay City. I had to work, so I wasn't there. Garrett has little tolerance for waiting, and they stayed for only about 30 minutes of the parade. I am pretty sure that the plane ride to China will be fun.




Superman, I mean Garrett, and I have been having frequent tea parties. We have to refill the tiny tea pot 20 times before we actually consume a cup of tea.


Caelan did a project for school on Illinios. I am pretty proud of her. She completed the poster and then went over everything on the poster in front of the class. She also read Shel Silversteins poem "Sick" since he is also from Illinois. She wanted to bring in a treat for her friends, and as we were going over food from Illinois, I read "Twinkies." My poor, deprived child (hee hee) had never heard of a Twinkie, so even though I am pretty good about not allowing much junk, I did let her bring Twinkies in for her class. Every child should have a Twinkie at some point, right? Well maybe not.

Waiting for TA

Still waiting. I really don't expect to get our travel advisory until next week or later. I can't wait to find out when we will be leaving! I know that it won't be until May, but I am still hoping that somehow we will be there in April.

Letter of Acceptance

I am shocked to be posting this, but we just got our Letter of Acceptance today. The CCAA has accepted us as Ji Xiang Wan's family. I can't even describe how exciting this is, or how unexpected this is, as I didn't think that we would hear anything for another month. Next step is that we will be issued a travel advisory, and we can then begin making travel arrangements. The TA should be here in 2-3 weeks! Wow! What an exciting day!

And here she is again, our sweet girl, soon to be Lia Xiang Wan.

39 Days

It has been 39 days since our Letter of Intent was mailed to China. It has been 44 days since we first saw Lia's picture. Looking at how quickly people from our agency seem to travel, I suspect that we could be in China as early as late April or as late as mid-June. There are some people who travel more quickly and quite a few who have waited close to 6 months for travel. I hope that things move quickly. I am planning (and praying) for May travel.

A couple of new pictures

OK, Mary Beth, this is for you. I just downloaded 105 pictures, here are the only two that made the cut. I will try to get some better pictures of the kids, the ones I have here must have been taken BY the kids- lots of our dog and Bob with large goggles on.

Recently, we brought the kids ice skating. I ended up as the parent on the ice, since as we were getting ready, Bob informed me that he couldn't skate:) I still think that it would have been very likely that even after years and years of skating at Rosedale Park, he is probably a better skater than me. Both kids caught on pretty quickly and I was soon able to let go of Garrett.



This winter has been very snowy. Here is one of them playing in the snow.

Hello to any of my Dillingham Students!!

Bob and I met as first year teachers in Michigan. We both were having rough school years and started talking about how great it would be to move to Alaska. For both of us, it was a place we wanted to see and knew that a two week trip wouldn't be enough for either of us. Less than a year after we met, as adventurous early 20-somethings, we took teaching jobs at the middle school in Dillingham, Alaska.

I mostly taught 8th grade, but also taught high school math and high school alternative education at times. For two years, I helped coach the middle school girl's volleyball team. It was such a small, tight knit community, and I really got to know many of my students. We stayed in Dillingham for four years (fall 1998-spring 2002), until Caelan was 6 months old. I had to drag Bob out, he would have retired there. I felt that it would be good for the kids to know their grandparents and cousins and Alaska was too far.

I have kept in touch with one student over the years, Iris, and love to hear what everybody is doing. It is so funny, because right now they are around the age that I was as their teacher. Some of them are graduating from college and having babies! Due to the recent "Love without Boundaries Facebook Challenge" I signed up for a facebook account. Iris became my "friend" and I have also connected with other students. I can't wait to catch up with many of them. So if any of you DHS students are reading this, I can't wait to hear what you are up to!!!!!

New Picture

We have a new picture of Lia, taken when she was 2-3 months old. I think I should invest in some hairbands, what do you think?

Caelan and the Pool

If you knew me as a child, than you know Caelan. We are so similar in many ways. As a little girl, I had some fear of water. I liked to swim, but hated to be splashed, cold, dunked, go under... Caelan has been a bit like me, but she spends more time at the water because of our little cottage. A month or so ago, I enrolled both of the kids in swimming lessons. It was Caelan I was most worried about. Garrett has no fear and loves swimming.

Well, we get to the pool, the two of them with towels in hand, me with my running shoes, ready for my 30 minutes of exercise. Garrett had a meltdown. He is "scared" to go in the water without me. Caelan hops right in. Insanity kicks in and I decide that despite the fact it is winter in Michigan, maybe a little "mom and me swimming" wont kill me, so we enroll Garrett in the "Waterbabies" class. Yuck. While, I am excited to do this type of thing with Lia, Garrett is a little old for "the wheels on the bus." And I am a little cold.

Back to Caelan. Yesterday was her 4th or 5th lesson, and now she is going under, jumping in the deep water, swimming the width of the pool in the deep water. The list goes on and on. She is doing so well. I am almost shocked. This past weekend she went to a birthday party. A little peer pressure never killed anybody, right? There is a very tall water slide, which many of her friends were not even tall enough to go down. But Caelan must have been convinced to try it by her friends. I watched as she stood at the top. One friend after the other came down nice and slowly, plopping into the deep end. Caelan was peering over the edge, peeking into the slide, but finally- laying on her back with her legs and arms pulled in, Caelan came shooting out of the slide like a cannon. I couldn't believe it.

Pre- Approval!

We just received word that our agency has our pre- approval. Basically this is the Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs acknowledgement that they received our Letter of Intent and agree to shift our paperwork to the waiting child program process. This isn't an indication of how fast things will move alone, but brings us one step closer to our sweet girl!

Home study visit complete

Well, we have finished our home visit. Our SW came over yesterday. All of the other paperwork is complete. We are all still healthy and our references still think that we will be good parents for Lia. Now we have to wait until our FBI and Michigan criminal checks clear and our agency will write the addendum. I just can't wait to be done with everything on our end.

Lia Xiang Wan

I think that we have decided that Lia's official name will be Lia Xiang Wan. It is pronounced sort of like She- ang Wan. We aren't really sure what they call her at the SWI, but we think she is either called Xiang Wan or Wan Wan.

Our agency received our Letter of Intent to adopt her yesterday and it is already on its way to China. Our homestudy expired after one year, just a few weeks ago, so we have to get updated medical information, new fingerprints, and criminal background check. We also have another home visit scheduled for Friday. So hopefully this update wont push back our travel to China.

As of right now, our agency is quoting 3-5 months from LOI to travel. I suspect that we will go in around 4 months (end of May). I really hope that we will be there before her second birthday on June 6- but it could be well into June before we are able to leave. We just really want her home.

We sent out a care package on Saturday. In it were 2 disposible cameras, 2 adorable outfits, the blanket I made with the extra 100 wishes fabric, a small stuffed bear, a small album with our pictures labeled in Chinese, and a bag of candy for the nannies. I hope she gets it, but there are no guarantees. We were told that in her province it is not likely that they will use the camera and take any pictures, but I hope they do.

Introducing our Little Lia- Ji Xiang Wan

I have been planning and anticipating this day for months. I had 6 pages of questions to ask when we got "the call." I was in shock when our agency did call, and I think the only question I managed to mumble was, "When can we see her file?"

At 11:30 this morning, I got a call asking us if we'd like to take a look at the file of a 19 month old little girl. Her name is Ji Xiang Wan and she is currently living at Huazhou City Social Welfare Institute in Guangdong Province. I called Bob and he and Caelan came home. I managed to print and read her reports while I was waiting for them, and then we opened her pictures together. She is adorable, and oddly enough has the same hair that both Caelan and I had as babies!

Her report says that "Ji Xiang Wan is a quiet and gentle little girl. She is social and not afraid of strangers. If you offer her a toy she likes, she will happily crawl toward you. She often plays with other children in the playroom, and she likes all kinds of toys." According to the reports, it seems that she is walking, has 4 teeth and her favorite toy is a cloth doll.

The next step is that we will write a letter of intent to adopt Ji Xiang Wan. We will likely travel in 3-5 months to bring her home.

We are all so excited. Caelan shared the pictures with her class this afternoon and then has taped them to the crib. Garrett said "Let's go to China." And I said, yes we will. He then said "No, right now!" Sorry Garrett!

Well, here she is!!!

Nine matches so far

We still have not heard anything. It takes a while to translate the files and call families, so I have not lost any hope. I still think we have a good chance to see our Lia soon! So far there are 9 families that have accepted children from this current list of children, there are likely 35-45 children on this list. We have heard announcements for three families in our yahoo group. I am trying to stay busy. I have been exercising like a madwoman. Garrett and I spent the morning yesterday at Chuck E. Cheese. But I have permanantly attached my cell phone to my body. Those of you who know me well, know that I resisted the cell phone for as long as I could. I just got one in March- right after we turned in our checklist:)

Here are two matches we know of so far:
Gigi & Myk
and Jen's niece

THE LIST IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hold on tight!!! CCAI just received a new list of waiting children. Hopefully we will hear something about our little Lia within the next few weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Adoption Fundraising

I was hoping that we wouldn't have to do anything like this, but we are still scrambling to make sure we have the money to cover our adoption expenses. With the addition of our two little travelers, we are adding quite a bit of expense that we weren't originally planning on. I have added some web storefronts on the right hand side. If you need to do any shopping with these vendors, please consider linking through our blog. We will earn money on any purchases made by using these links. Thanks!! And I hope to add a few more soon.