Enjoying A Nice Spring Day At Home and the Tennessee Aquarium

Happy Halloween!!

Emily is still too young to really get into the activities of our churchs Fall Festival, but who could resist dressing her up anyway. Hope all of our friends and travel companions are having fun during the holidays with their precious family additions!

Happy 1st Birthday Emily!!!

Today was Emily's first Birthday!! We are so happy that we were able to celebrate it with her. She had a very full day. We started out at church this morning and then had a "Happy Birthday/Welcome Home" celebration this afternoon. We've had her for about 5 weeks now but it seems like we've always had her. She enjoyed her party even though she wasn't sure about the cake. All in all it was a great day for us and her.

Recovering after a few days at home

We arrived home almost a week ago now and things are beginning to settle down and allow us to rest and recover from our journey. Emily is doing great. She actually slept all night last night in her crib. This was the first time we've been able to get her to do this since we got home. She has met many friends and family since landing here. We are so blessed to have her in our lives and we're still in awe at what transpired during the two weeks we were in her homeland China. Our plans were to post here about the trip, but China blocks most blog sites so it was just too difficult to try and upload photos. We were able to use our other site to keep everyone informed and show them all the sites we were experiencing. It was a once in a lifetime trip and we will never forget it.

Travel Plans

Here is our schedule for the trip. Can't believe its finally here.

Day 1-Depart for Beijing
Day 2-Arrive Beijing
Day 3-Tour of Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, and Summer Palace
Day 4-Church Service and a vist to the Great Wall
Day 5-Forever Family Day
Day 6-Civil Affairs Appointment
Day 7 & 8 - Sightseeing
Day 9-Travel to Guangzhou
Day 10- Emily's Medical Exam
Day 11-Consulate Paperwork
Day 12-Consulate Appointment
Day 13-Oath Taking Ceremony
Day 14-Get Emily's Visa
Day 15-Travel to Hong Kong
Day 16-Arrive Back Home

Almost Packed! Ready to Go!!

Sherry has been working really hard for the last couple of weeks getting everything ready and packed into suitcases. Sounds easy, right? Well just try packing for 2 weeks in a foreign country, having no idea exactly how big your child is now, and trying to keep each bag under 44 lbs. It is not something you just do quickly. Hopefully we've gotten everything we need and aren't carrying a bunch of stuff we don't. The flights are going to be long, but will be just a memory when we finally hold Emily. We're going to try to update this blog while we're there, but if we can't then we'll use our other website that is linked to this page or have someone post for us.

TA's, Tickets, and Packing

Friday we were surprised by a phone call from our agency informing us that our travel authorizations had arrived. We really weren't expecting them until this week but are glad that they showed up earlier than expected. By yesterday we were told that we had Consulate appointments and would be traveling around the beginning of September. As of this evening we have airline ticket confirmations and have most of our packing done. Emily here we come!