Friday, August 29, 2008

We're going to China!!

We leave September 11 and return home on September 27 with Anna Kathryn!  Gotcha Day will probably be on September 15 or 16.  

After the frustration of this week Mark and I are so excited... and relieved... and excited!  Yesterday we heard that more consulate appointments had opened up and that AWAA was trying hard to get their families into those slots.  I tried not to get my hopes up too much, but of course I did anyway.  We didn't hear anything further the rest of the day, and we went to bed wondering (hoping) we'd hear something today, before the long Labor Day weekend.  

I even checked my e-mail at 10:15 last night, hoping to hear something... if only I'd been a few minutes later!

This morning when I got to work and opened up my e-mail it was waiting in my inbox:  an e-mail titled "Concrete Travel Dates."  I gasped so loudly my media assistant came running in to see what was the matter.  

So the day has been a blur of grade level meetings (I scheduled myself to do a media center orientation for the faculty in all three grade levels), e-mails and frantic phone calls about flights, and confirmation of plane tickets.  

We have one minor issue to deal with, still.  I also got an e-mail stating that the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou does not have any record that we were re-fingerprinted last December (which we had to do to renew our paperwork for USCIS, which allows us to bring AK into the country as a US citizen.)  We got our updated form in late April, after we finally made it through the homestudy update.  I panicked for a minute, then settled to down to figure out what to do.  I tried calling 4 times, but never did manage to talk to a human.  I ended up leaving work early, going home, scanning our official document, and emailing it along with a rather pleading message to the Charlotte USCIS office.  Hope they get it and send along the information ASAP.  Please pray that we get this particular bump smoothed out quickly.

So, this weekend, we are cleaning closets (and my grungy house), making lists of stuff to pack, and gathering what we need.  I can hardly believe we have plane tickets to China!  In 2 weeks, we'll be there, and a few days later, our daughter will be in our arms.  As Allison would say-- wowzers.  

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yay! Do you need any help with anything? Just let me know! I'm so excited for you!

Kristi said...

How wonderfully exciting!!! I was praying for you after I read the last post where you were concerned you wouldn't be able to go until November. We're at day 77 waiting for our LOA, but I'm hopeful that news will come this next week!
I sure can't wait to read about your travels in China!

Tim and Tanya said...

Hey travel buddy! We are still processing the fact we will be in china in 13 days after over two years of waiting!! We are excited to meet you!

Barb said...

What wonderful news!!! We are so excited for you guys. Such a long wait and now it's finally here. Are your flights about the same as Allison & David or not? We're sending all our good wishes for an exciting and SAFE journey.

Heather said...

That is WONDERFUL news. Congratulations.

Tim and Tanya said...

Hey! We are flying from Phoenix to Oregon, then to Tokyo and onto Beijing. We are scheduled to land in Beijing at 9:30 pm. We can't wait to meet everyone! I think Gotcha Day will most likely be Monday or Tuesday - we should find out this week! Exciting!!

Anonymous said...

This is GREAT news! I knew that you sisters would have these two new baby girls close together. God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.