More News...

Updated picture today! I can't imagine her sleeping on that hard mat, but I am trying to remember that this is a different culture. I want to leave NOW!!!

Please pray for our friends, the Vairs. They just had word that their little Norah has been very sick. She hasn't gained any weight since her measurements were taken 4 months ago and they are obviously concerned. Apparently, she is better now, but they want to be there to take care of her. We all just want to get our babies and start loving on them and giving them what they need!

Updated Information on Eliana

We did receive an update today on Eliana that was taken July 13- almost 10 months. She was 10 months old on July 23. Her weight was 8 kg (17.6 pounds) and her height was about 27.5 inches. Her head circumference measured 16.9 inches and her feet measured 4.7 inches. Of course, we still dont know if she was weighed and measured fully dressed or not, but summer weather has hopefully stripped her of some of the extra bulk. The report says that she currently sleeps alone in a crib and that everything else is "normal." She is sitting, but not standing, walking, or talking and she has two teeth. No pictures were sent, but our agency said that the orphanage is working on it and will hopefully email us some soon.
Truthfully, I was more than a little saddened to find out that Eliana has been out of her foster home for about 4 months. She was there for about 5 months and it seems that she returned to the orphanage at about the time of her earlier medical report and pictures that we received on match day. I am all the more anxious to go get her and it breaks my heart to think that she has had to experience so much change and loss at such a young age. Hang on, sweetie, Mommy and Daddy are coming soon!!

Okay, not that kind of visa... The Fed Ex man just came and brought our passports with CORRECT visas as well as our tickets!! We have everything we need. No more hoops, no more approvals, no more waiting for this or that!! Now on to final preparations with packing and getting things ready for Nana and the boys!! Thank you God!

We have final travel dates as we purchased our tickets over the weekend. FYI- airlines get a little freaked out when children travel on one-way tickets. Anyway, all is well and we will leave early on August 16 returning on the evening of August 30. I ask for your continued prayers that our corrected visas will be here this week.
Big thanks to Nana Kolde who will be coming to stay here with the boys and our hobo-cute dog, Cooper. The boys are really looking forward to her coming and it is a relief to know that they will be in such good hands while we are missing them across the miles.

We Have Dates!!

I haven't been this excited about a date since 1990!! We have received our travel approval and our consulate appointment. So, we now have an official date to get Eliana! We will get her on August 19 in Nanchang, Jiangxi province. That means we will be leaving for Hong Kong from Denver either on August 15 or 16 in order to meet up there with our group on August 17. We will return home with Eliana on August 31 give or take a day due to the time change.

Thanks to all of you who have been praying for us!! We still waiting on our visas to be fixed and returned, but other than that, we have received all of the approval and made all appointments necessary to officially bring Eliana home. It is finally happening!!

Almost there....

Well, we have our TA and the other group at our agency got their consulate appointments today. So, hopefully, ours will come tomorrow. They are traveling on the 17th and we were told to expect to be going right about the same time. So, all we need is for that lovely email to come through tomorrow morning and for the consulate to get our visas fixed asap. The countdown is on!!!

Excitement and Panic

Well, the exciting news is that we have received our travel approval... the document we have been praying for and now we request a consulate appt (takes 1-6 days), then we travel 7-14 days after that. The panic is as a result of the fact that our travel agency just contacted us and let us know that the visas that we received were processed incorrectly!! We rushed to Fed Ex to get our passports back to San Francisco tonight for overnight delivery. They will call us tomorrow to let us know if they can do expedited service for us since it wasn't our mistake. Pray that they will do it, and that we won't have to pay the extra fees for expediting them. The consulate made the mistake, but the travel service we used should have caught the mistake last week before returning them. I am trying to focus on the excitement of getting our TA, but I am more than a wee bit stessed about the visas.
So, we wait again. Waiting seems to be a theme in our lives- you'd think I would learn to mellow with age, but I'm still fighting it. Well, more news to come soon!