So Anita gave me the opportunity to write to you tonight. You may see the title and wonder how this is connected to china, but bare with me and I'll try to explain.
Today was our last day of site seeing in Beijing. We had another delicious breakfast in the hotel and then we reconnected with Candy and Mr. Hao (our driver). The first stop was to the Olympic village from 2008. We got to look around at the different buildings like the Birds nest and water cube. Very interesting buildings. Candy explained the buildings are still used today for various sporting events and concerts. From here we jumped back in the car.
Our next stop was the Great Wall. On our drive Candy shared with us some interesting facts about the Great Wall. I wish I could remember them all, but that's what Wikipedia is for right :-D. There are presently only three sections of the Great Wall open to tourists. The section we went to had a very nice visitors center at the base of the mountain, a tobagan run and a cable car to the top. From the visitors center we took a shuttle to a path that would lead us to the Great Wall. As a side note, up until now the only pets we'd seen were the birds we saw in the restaraunt yesterday. Well that all changed today. There were so many dogs here. And they knew how to beg for food really well. The interesting thing is that they are all strays and belong to no one. Anywho...the Great Wall...it was beautiful. The views are impressive and the thought of how this was all constructed is mind boggling.
Once we finished at the Great Wall and got some food we made one quick stop at the pearl market before heading to a show. The show was called Golden Mask Dynasty. The show is a love story about a queen and king from warring nations, how they fall in love, and how their live joins the nations. The story obviously has some sad parts in it as every love story does, but had a happy ending. The stage performance was amazing, the set was incredible, and at one point about 20 some ladies came out and danced with real white peacocks on their heads. It was one of the most interesting things I've seen. I wish each one of you could have seen it. Overall Anita and I both loved the performance with all the music, dance, and aerial portions of the show.
So in summary we had many bird and dog sightings today. Anywho, that's about all that went on today. We're pretty pooped after all the walking at the Great Wall. Tomorrow we leave for Myla's province. As soon as we can get some good internet we'll make sure to upload some pictures. Have a marvelous day everyone!
Saturday, January 2, 2016
Friday, January 1, 2016
Day one
Today was our first day of sight seeing in Beijing. After a good nights rest, we got dressed and headed downstairs to have breakfast. Our hotel had a very big breakfast buffet full of both American and Chinese foods. We were pretty impressed by their selection. We met our guide again, her name is Candy and she will be with us while we are here. She took us first to Tiananmen Square where she gave us a lot of background information about the history of it.
After touring that we walked down to the forbidden city which is very close by.. Here she explained the dynasty of the emperors of China as well as several other interesting facts about the Chinese culture and symbols. The buildings are just beautiful! There is so much intricate wood carving details and the buildings are just incredible!
Once we finished that Candy took us to a restaurant called old Beijing noodles king which is well known for their noodles in a type of soy sauce. They were DELICIOUS!! I could have eaten the whole bowl!:) one funny thing Candy mentioned was that in Beijing people like to take their birds out on a walk down the street!!! The restaurant had several birds in cages and we just found that very different:) after lunch we did the hutong tour where we had a different tour guide show us around the "old Beijing" on a rickshaw. She gave us a lot of information about the symbolism about the entrances to people's homes, the thresholds, statues, and no number of knobs above the door. Another funny moment was when talking to Tina, we were learning about how she got her name. In China they like to pick themselves an American name. So as she was telling us about her family we asked her if her little daughter had a name. She said no but wondered if we had any suggestions. So we just kind of randomly said Sarah. She said she liked that name but wanted to know the meaning. Once we found out that Sarah meant princess she said that was a perfect name!!:) so we helped name her child!!;)
once we finished there we rode the subway to the pearl market where we did a little shopping. That was our last stop. We made it back to our hotel and called home quick to talk to the kids. They were very excited to at hi to us! For day one we have done pretty good with the jet lag, but now it is catching up! We are off to bed so we can be well rested for our second day of sight seeing tomorrow!:)
Our internet here is awful! We are hoping to get that fixed soon! Hopefully we can upload some pictures soon!
After touring that we walked down to the forbidden city which is very close by.. Here she explained the dynasty of the emperors of China as well as several other interesting facts about the Chinese culture and symbols. The buildings are just beautiful! There is so much intricate wood carving details and the buildings are just incredible!
Once we finished that Candy took us to a restaurant called old Beijing noodles king which is well known for their noodles in a type of soy sauce. They were DELICIOUS!! I could have eaten the whole bowl!:) one funny thing Candy mentioned was that in Beijing people like to take their birds out on a walk down the street!!! The restaurant had several birds in cages and we just found that very different:) after lunch we did the hutong tour where we had a different tour guide show us around the "old Beijing" on a rickshaw. She gave us a lot of information about the symbolism about the entrances to people's homes, the thresholds, statues, and no number of knobs above the door. Another funny moment was when talking to Tina, we were learning about how she got her name. In China they like to pick themselves an American name. So as she was telling us about her family we asked her if her little daughter had a name. She said no but wondered if we had any suggestions. So we just kind of randomly said Sarah. She said she liked that name but wanted to know the meaning. Once we found out that Sarah meant princess she said that was a perfect name!!:) so we helped name her child!!;)
once we finished there we rode the subway to the pearl market where we did a little shopping. That was our last stop. We made it back to our hotel and called home quick to talk to the kids. They were very excited to at hi to us! For day one we have done pretty good with the jet lag, but now it is catching up! We are off to bed so we can be well rested for our second day of sight seeing tomorrow!:)
Our internet here is awful! We are hoping to get that fixed soon! Hopefully we can upload some pictures soon!
Thursday, December 31, 2015
We made it!
Just a quick update:
After a very busy day of traveling, we made it to Beijing! Because of the weather in Chicago, our flight was delayed in Indy and Chicago. Our flight was long, but we made it safely last night. We met our guide at the airport and she and her driver took us to our hotel. We are ready to get a good nights rest!!! Tomorrow we will do some sightseeing around Beijing!
After a very busy day of traveling, we made it to Beijing! Because of the weather in Chicago, our flight was delayed in Indy and Chicago. Our flight was long, but we made it safely last night. We met our guide at the airport and she and her driver took us to our hotel. We are ready to get a good nights rest!!! Tomorrow we will do some sightseeing around Beijing!
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Here we go!!!!
This is it!!!! Tonight I checked off the last item on our "to do" list!!! Tomorrow morning we will get up early to make the drive down to Indy to which we catch a flight to Chicago and then fly from Chicago to Beijing!! Tonight we had or last dinner at the table as a family of 5!! Next time we eat a meal together it will be as a family of six and every seat at our table will be filled!!! That is so exciting and at the moment hard to wrap my head around! It's here!!!!
It's crazy to think that this is finally happening! Everything we have imagined is about to become a reality! Our emotions are all over the place! December 30th will not only celebrate our marriage, but now will hold a special place in our hearts as the day that we began this last leg of the journey to bring home our final piece to our family puzzle!!
We are so excited to get on a plane!!! I will try my best to send daily updates on here! So please check in if you would like to see all our adventures. You can also subscribe to our blog to receive updates by email:) I'm not sure if we will be able to get on Facebook but will link my blog if possible.
After we get Myla on Jan.4th she will be with us the rest of the trip. She will be legally adopted that day according to China. She will be legally adopted by the US and a US citizen on January 11th. And just as a note the time difference is 13 hours!! A rough outline of our travels is listed below! We love you and are so thankful for all of you!!! We couldn't not have done this without you!! We can't wait to introduce you to her when we get home!!
12/30 flights to China
12/31 arrive in Beijing
1/1 sight seeing day
1/2 sight seeing day
1/3 flight to guiyang province where Myla is
1/4 1:30p travel to civil affairs office to get Myla
1/5 return to civil affairs office to finish paperwork
1/6 possibly a visit to her orphanage
1/7 flight to Guangzhou for US consulate appointment
1/8 Myla's medical appointment and visa paperwork
1/9 rest day
1/10 sight seeing day
1/11 consulate appointment @8:30a
1/12 pick up Myla's visa
1/13 fly home from Hong Kong!!!!!!!
It's crazy to think that this is finally happening! Everything we have imagined is about to become a reality! Our emotions are all over the place! December 30th will not only celebrate our marriage, but now will hold a special place in our hearts as the day that we began this last leg of the journey to bring home our final piece to our family puzzle!!
We are so excited to get on a plane!!! I will try my best to send daily updates on here! So please check in if you would like to see all our adventures. You can also subscribe to our blog to receive updates by email:) I'm not sure if we will be able to get on Facebook but will link my blog if possible.
After we get Myla on Jan.4th she will be with us the rest of the trip. She will be legally adopted that day according to China. She will be legally adopted by the US and a US citizen on January 11th. And just as a note the time difference is 13 hours!! A rough outline of our travels is listed below! We love you and are so thankful for all of you!!! We couldn't not have done this without you!! We can't wait to introduce you to her when we get home!!
12/30 flights to China
12/31 arrive in Beijing
1/1 sight seeing day
1/2 sight seeing day
1/3 flight to guiyang province where Myla is
1/4 1:30p travel to civil affairs office to get Myla
1/5 return to civil affairs office to finish paperwork
1/6 possibly a visit to her orphanage
1/7 flight to Guangzhou for US consulate appointment
1/8 Myla's medical appointment and visa paperwork
1/9 rest day
1/10 sight seeing day
1/11 consulate appointment @8:30a
1/12 pick up Myla's visa
1/13 fly home from Hong Kong!!!!!!!
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
A special Christmas
I will keep this short and sweet!
Happy Holidays!
Merry Christmas!
Happy Anniversary!
Happy New Years!
to us! We found out yesterday that we will be boarding a plane to China December 30th to bring home Myla!!!!!!!!
I love the holidays but am so anxious now to get them over with!!! We have A LOT to do now to prepare the last minute details before we leave!
And it will be super special to celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary on a plane! Next year is our 10 year so that will be hard to top after this trip!:)
Anyways! Wanted to let everyone know our wonderful Christmas news!!!! We will keep you updated with information as we get it!
Thank you for your prayers and support!! Love you all!!!
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Quick update!
Things have been moving quickly once again these last few weeks! I guess when you are obedient to what God calls you to; he will make it all happen and fall into perfect place! We filled out Myla's visa paperwork last week and sent it in. Then we also had our paperwork sent to Guangzhou for our article 5 approval. For us, this was the last set of paperwork that was to be filled out. This morning we found out that our article 5 has been sent on for approval and we are just awaiting our travel approval from China giving us permission to enter the country. Once we have our travel approval in the next (1-3 weeks) we will pick our US consulate appointment at the US embassy and get our flights arranged!!!! With the expedite letter that we have written that could help speeds up the travel approval. We could definitely be leaving the end of the month if all works out!!! The earliest they thought we could leave would be the 30th which would be super special! That is Our 9th wedding anniversary!!! So ready or not, we are getting on a plane SOON to bring Myla home!!! We are so excited, nervous, anxious, and so many more emotions! Can't wait to begin 2016 as a family of 6!!:)
Friday, November 27, 2015
a little hiccup
Hi friends!! Alot has been going on this last month! Yes it's been a little over a month already that we have been matched with Myla and we are just so anxious to get on a plane and bring her home! We love starring at her pictures and wondering how she is doing or what she has done that day.
We have been busy filling out all kinds of papers from I-800 immigration papers, to visa applications, article 5 papers and so on. (I'm sure none of you know what those are, but just thought I'd put them on here in case you were curious about adoption and for my records too;) We also consulted a few doctors/specialists about Myla's medical condition. (Not sure if you remember, but in China when adopting a child, it is MUCH faster to adopt a child with "special needs" than it is to adopt a "perfect child". And a special need could be something simple like needing glasses/asthma to the more severe special needs like heart defects/cerebral palsy/downs syndrome.) She has been diagnosed with mild a thalassemia which is a genetic blood disorder. It deals with iron levels, anemia, and low red blood cell counts. If severe, you would need routine blood transfusions medication, and more. In consulting a pediatric hematologist at Riley, after looking over her medical file, they believe that she doesn't "have" thalassemia but is a "carrier" for it. Since it is a genetic disorder, she has it in her DNA, but doesn't suffer from the symptoms. Once we get her home we plan to have some more tests done to determine the degree of her condition, but we are happy to hear that she is a healthy and thriving little girl! Because of the condition we were able to get one of our doctors to write an expedite letter for Myla to try and speed up these last few steps so we can travel a little sooner. That way the doctors can do further testing here rather than in China.
A few weeks ago we overnighted a bunch of papers to the USCIS Immigration to get our approval. And we ran into a little hiccup. They say typical turnaround is about 3 weeks. We may have been counting the days but approaching our 3 week period, we received a letter from them that stated that one of the forms we filled out had expired (as in the document format) and that we needed to fill out a new one. They didn't tell us or our social worker that that change had taken effect. So we quickly filled that paper out with some help and overnighted it back to our officer. In the meantime, we filled out our personal visa applications and sent those to Chicago to the Chinese consulate to get those ready for our passports. Early this week we received our passports in the mail and then today we finally received our I-800 approval letter!! We weren't expecting to get the approval letter until next week. HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO US! So that is now checked off the list and we just have a few things left to do.
Our next steps are to send our papers to China to the US embassy in Guangzhou and get our article 5 approval which takes about 2-3 weeks. Once we have that, we apply for Myla's visa and wait for travel approval which can take about 2-3 weeks. Once we have travel approval we will make our flight arrangements and BOARD A PLANE TO CHINA a few weeks later!!!!! We were hoping to travel sometime in late December. That is still a slight slight possibility, but it is looking more like January possibly February. (with Christmas and the Chinese New Year we may run into another little hiccup), but she will most likely be home before her 3rd birthday in March!!
Thank you so much for all of your sweet wishes and congratulations about our new daughter! We are so excited to get things moving again and bring our sweet girl home. I can't wait to introduce you all to her and for her to see how many people love and care for her! It's because of you that we are making it through these little hiccups! There have been so many of you who have been praying for us from the very beginning, have wrote us notes of encouragement, have helped us fundraise, and have just been there for us through those hard times. We are so GRATEFUL for you and couldn't have done this without you!
Please continue to pray for our adoption, that our paperwork would keep moving, and that things would fall into place in God's perfect timing. You could also pray for her safety and the big transitions ahead for all of us.
Hopefully the next update will be about our travel arrangements to China to pick up and bring home our little girl!!!
We have been busy filling out all kinds of papers from I-800 immigration papers, to visa applications, article 5 papers and so on. (I'm sure none of you know what those are, but just thought I'd put them on here in case you were curious about adoption and for my records too;) We also consulted a few doctors/specialists about Myla's medical condition. (Not sure if you remember, but in China when adopting a child, it is MUCH faster to adopt a child with "special needs" than it is to adopt a "perfect child". And a special need could be something simple like needing glasses/asthma to the more severe special needs like heart defects/cerebral palsy/downs syndrome.) She has been diagnosed with mild a thalassemia which is a genetic blood disorder. It deals with iron levels, anemia, and low red blood cell counts. If severe, you would need routine blood transfusions medication, and more. In consulting a pediatric hematologist at Riley, after looking over her medical file, they believe that she doesn't "have" thalassemia but is a "carrier" for it. Since it is a genetic disorder, she has it in her DNA, but doesn't suffer from the symptoms. Once we get her home we plan to have some more tests done to determine the degree of her condition, but we are happy to hear that she is a healthy and thriving little girl! Because of the condition we were able to get one of our doctors to write an expedite letter for Myla to try and speed up these last few steps so we can travel a little sooner. That way the doctors can do further testing here rather than in China.
A few weeks ago we overnighted a bunch of papers to the USCIS Immigration to get our approval. And we ran into a little hiccup. They say typical turnaround is about 3 weeks. We may have been counting the days but approaching our 3 week period, we received a letter from them that stated that one of the forms we filled out had expired (as in the document format) and that we needed to fill out a new one. They didn't tell us or our social worker that that change had taken effect. So we quickly filled that paper out with some help and overnighted it back to our officer. In the meantime, we filled out our personal visa applications and sent those to Chicago to the Chinese consulate to get those ready for our passports. Early this week we received our passports in the mail and then today we finally received our I-800 approval letter!! We weren't expecting to get the approval letter until next week. HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO US! So that is now checked off the list and we just have a few things left to do.
Our next steps are to send our papers to China to the US embassy in Guangzhou and get our article 5 approval which takes about 2-3 weeks. Once we have that, we apply for Myla's visa and wait for travel approval which can take about 2-3 weeks. Once we have travel approval we will make our flight arrangements and BOARD A PLANE TO CHINA a few weeks later!!!!! We were hoping to travel sometime in late December. That is still a slight slight possibility, but it is looking more like January possibly February. (with Christmas and the Chinese New Year we may run into another little hiccup), but she will most likely be home before her 3rd birthday in March!!
Thank you so much for all of your sweet wishes and congratulations about our new daughter! We are so excited to get things moving again and bring our sweet girl home. I can't wait to introduce you all to her and for her to see how many people love and care for her! It's because of you that we are making it through these little hiccups! There have been so many of you who have been praying for us from the very beginning, have wrote us notes of encouragement, have helped us fundraise, and have just been there for us through those hard times. We are so GRATEFUL for you and couldn't have done this without you!
Please continue to pray for our adoption, that our paperwork would keep moving, and that things would fall into place in God's perfect timing. You could also pray for her safety and the big transitions ahead for all of us.
Hopefully the next update will be about our travel arrangements to China to pick up and bring home our little girl!!!
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