Our Travel Meeting. Wow GREAT group of folks!

We got home very late last night from Philly. We had a great time meeting everyone at the travel meeting. Our moderator, Grace is from Bejing and has a thick Mandarin accent. She is beautiful! She was a circus performer when she was a young girl. As a child, she said they only had one outdoor faucet to share between 10 families and most people still live like this in China today. Only in the large cities as the middle class increases is there indoor plumbing.

She was just trying to prepare us for what we will see while touring the country and not to expect what we as Americans take for granted. Chinese people do not have the everyday luxuries we have here.

We filled out a lot more paperwork and were given even more to take home to have notarized. At the meeting everyone brought their most important paper: The Adoption Acceptance Form. Of course, we all checked the box "YES! We accept the child mentioned above." Duh! No brainer. Grace collected all the Acceptance Forms and will FedEx them to China on Monday. As soon as China receives the acceptance of all the adopted families for March they will then process a 'Permission to Travel form' for each family. This can take typically 2-3 weeks. We all are praying for 2 weeks processing time! Once Grace receives the Permission to Travel forms back from China, she can begin reserving our flights. So please be aware I cannot give you a travel date until everything is final, however, we were told Grace hopes to send two groups before Chinese New Year (Jan 27th) and two groups at the end of Chinese New Year. So if we are in the group that gets all their paperwork back in first, we will most likely travel the 2nd or 3rd week in January, but don't hold your breath as after a year and a half of waiting, the tickets will get here when they arrive via FedEx!

We met some very nice and friendly people we will be travelling with and everyone was proudly showing off their baby pictures to each other. Several families are going back to China for their 2nd and 3rd child! They all look VERY healthy and the excitement in that room was off the hook!

Grace advised us that because so many of the parents in China are poor, they are unable to afford another child, for this reason so many are abandoned. Because so many are abandoned there is very little chance of 'baby trafficking'. No parent who leaves a child ever recieves money or any compenasation. In fact, it is illegal to abandon your child and a parent found doing this will be imprisioned. As with many babies, they are wrapped lovingly with a blanket, pehaps a note, or extra food. You can tell it was with great sadness they were left to hopefully find a better life living with someone who could care for them in a good home.

We are so very excited to meet Natalie and bring her home. We will fly non-stop to Hong Kong where we will spend the night. We will then fly to the very cold region on Shaanxi (shan SHE) to Shaanxi's captial Xi An (she AHN). All the families adopting from Shaanxi will stay at the hotel in Xi An, but the babies will travel from their orphanage in Yu Lin City (see Encarta Atlas under Yulin, Shaanxi) which is much further north than Xi An!

Under Chinese law, we must remain 5 days in the province we are adopting from, which is, of course, Shaanxi. We will use this time for local court and notary processes and when all the paperwork is completed we will return to Guangzhou, the capital of China to complete the medical exam, shots, apply for a Visa for Natalie so she can leave the country. On the last day in Guangzhou we will be packed and ready to leave, but will not be able to leave until we are handed our Visa. As soon as we are handed our Visa for Natalie we will board a bus headed for Hong Kong and stay there one more day and then fly home! We hope as many of our friends and family will meet us at the airport and give Natalie the biggest welcome to America and her new loving home she could ever have!

As tired as we will be from a 15 hour flight it will be a great joy to be welcomed by the friendliest people on earth who will be touching Natalie's life from that day forward.

We are so happy to have all your support throughout this lengthy and emotional process. What a blessing for us all. We thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts,

Natalie's Mom & Pop, waiting for our pretty pearl.

Natalie's Beauty Shot

We went to our travel meeting yesterday and met all the families we will be traveling with. Some are going back for their 2nd and 3rd child. Wow! We hope to leave in January 2006 before Chinese New Year (Jan 27th). And, of course we have even more paperwork to complete AND have notarized, glug. It's all worth it. As soon as we get our Travel Permission Letters back from China we can start our travel plans and luckily for us we have an wonderful adoption agency that does all that for us. Including applying for our travel visas. Aaaah! One less thing to do! Love to all!

HOW MUCH DO WE LOVE FEDEX!

WE GOT HER PICTURE! It came Friday December 9th! It was such a surpise! She is from Shaanxi Province China. She is about 9 1/2 months old. She is adorable and has a huge shock of hair! Wow. Hubby got to open the FedEx envelope while I jumped up and down waiting to see her little face. We just can hardly wait to meet her in person. We requested a girl, birth to 12 months. We received an angel! Isn't she just the cutest?!