WE GOT OUR TRAVEL AUTHORIZATION TODAY!

At approximately 4:04 p.m. today my phone rang and it was Karin from Hand in Hand calling with our travel authorization! We are so excited but need to wait to get the US clearance before we can request a consulate appointment and book our travel. We hope that clearance will come soon! We'll keep you posted. I'm too excited to sleep!

New Picture of Kristi-May 2008

Here's the latest photo of our precious girl! We are getting closer to bringing you home, dear Kristi Zi Han. Update: We got re-fingerprinted last week and all our criminal checks in place for every state/country we have ever lived and all looks good. Just waiting for travel authorzation and consulate appointment now but no idea when it will come. It was so wonderful of one of the traveling families to take pictures for all of us still waiting.

Thank you and Continued Prayers for China

Thank you all for your inquiries regarding Kristi Zi Han and her safety. There are currently families from my Nanjing Kids Yahoo Group in Nanjing right now (they received their children on Sunday, Mother's Day-how perfect) and it appears that they are all safe. I will report more as I hear any updates. I imagine they felt it though. I am on a trip and I called Mom and she said the quake's center was about an inch and half :) from Nanjing on the globe and then Roger and he said about 12 hours away which was some relief but then I see all the devastation and it's so sad. The world becomes so much smaller and the people not so anonymous when someone you love is so close. Thanks so much for thinking of us.

Letter of Acceptance Delivered at Last!

We finally got the original on Monday evening-THANK YOU GOD! It's back to China and now we wait some more. We'll have to have a lot of things fall nicely into place in order to make it to China now before the Olympics (re-fingerprinting, new I-800 processing) but we're still hoping and praying - join us please! Thank you so much. After a few days of freaking out I was reminded so graciously from above with a little quote that I happened to read - "Don't miss the magic of the day by focusing on what's to come." (unknown) So we did just that - enjoying all the magic and wonder of living with a beautiful, lively, ever questioning ("why do plants grow?", "how do our bodies get to heaven?") precious 4 year old!

LOA - WHERE DID YOU GO?!

Our LOA is MIA! Just a temporary bump in the road but Mommy is starting to lose her mind! The original is somewhere between here and Arizona and we just want to sign it and bring our Kristi home!

We got our Letter of Acceptance!

Yeah-some exciting news to report! First of all, yesterday we received 6 new pictures of Kristi Zi Han and current weight (25 lbs) and height (32 1/2 inches) and then today we got our Letter of Acceptance! We are hoping to travel to China and meet our beautiful girl within the next 4-8 weeks. We'll keep you posted. I am new to blogging and still figuring it all out but it's a wonderful way to keep everyone posted. Thanks in the meantime for all your support, encouragement and prayers.