Thursday, December 29, 2016
Last Official Update
These came in our last official update before travel...along with our little peanut's measurements. She's 30" tall and 19 pounds.
Friday, December 23, 2016
Another Step
Another step
December 23, 2016
Yesterday I was able to get a form filled out to get the ball rolling on Allie's immigrant visa. We also received an important email from the National Visa Center. Now all our paperwork (called our Article 5) can go to China where US officials will carefully review it for about two weeks, then send it to the Chinese organization in charge of adoptions, who will take a week or two to issue us our approval to travel to China and the official consulate appointment date that will determine exactly when we travel. If all goes smoothly, we will have Allie's "Gotcha Day" Feb 5th or 13th. Coincidentally, Feb 13th is the day we decided to pursue China adoption.
The big thing will be for all to keep moving so that we get our travel approval before the gov't shuts down for Chinese New Year. Could be several more weeks delay if not.
And our visas came in the mail yesterday! As I mentioned before, mine is restricted so I must enter the country by March 13th. Should not be a problem, but you never know. I suppose I would just have to redo it (and repay for it) if it looked like there would be a big delay.
Well that should be our only pre-Christmas update. Time to focus on celebrating Christmas, which has been a little tricky with all this adoption stuff, Matt sleeping and working the past 3 days, and Gray having a stomach bug. Hoping for some relaxing family time the next few days. Merry Christmas!
Lucia likes this
Cindy CPraying for things to progress timely. Merry Christmas to you & all your family!❤🎄🐪🎚🎁🎶🏈🎉
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Approved!
Merry Christmas to us! We have been approved for our I800 (the one with the missing signature)! Next up, getting some forms to be taken to the Chinese embassy so we can get our official travel schedule. It is getting real!! After reading a bunch of to-do lists and packing lists, there will be plenty to do to stay busy between now and take off. Now, gotta go online and fill out another document....
Sarah ZCongratulations!!! Wonderful news!
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Visas on the way (Thank you LORD!)
Today was the day for our visa pickup. I may have explained before that with the visa, you hire a courier near a Chinese embassy to take your documents, pick them up, and send them back to you. There were a bazillion special instructions for how to fill out each line correctly, how to mail it, how to create the correct shipping label, etc. I had to print out a page of instructions to send with Matt to make sure we did the right thing when he went to mail it. And then there was the issue of my visa having to have a waiver attached b/c I work for a church (saying I wasn't there on work-related business) and having to be submitted later b/c it was a limited one that was only good for 3 months.
But we got it all mailed and I felt good about it....until I started hearing about the new visa photo requirements and several folks getting their visas rejected. No smiles, both ears showing, head exact right size etc. Gray took my photo. That's right. And I was kind of smiling and you could see 1 1/3 ears. And I took Matt's and there were a few shadows.
We don't get an email saying all is good once it's picked up. We have to dig out our prepaid envelope tracking # and check it. So this afternoon I began checking and nothing. But thank goodness I just checked and the envelope is headed our way. Whew. Now we just need that I800 approval. I'm hoping by Friday.
The good news with this extra wait is that it's looking more and more likely we will be on schedule with our neighborhood friends, who were just a bit behind us.
Didn't get any pictures, but the first of our neighborhood adopting families is about to leave for China in 2 weeks, so we had dinner as a group last night--last hurrah. I think we are all a bit excited and a bit nervous! Thank goodness for Lisa and Dennis, who give us lots of expertise and comic relief!!
On another note, I finished painting for a bit this past weekend. It has been good to do some things I've needed to get done, like cleaning, getting ready for Julia's birthday, etc. I loved the painting though, and I hope to get back to it. And as time-consuming as it was, thanks to lots of support from family, friends, and strangers, it really was a huge fundraiser for us.
Saturday, December 17, 2016
China Blog Pics
A lot of these pics I got once I finally figured out how to navigate to the older posts with the help of a Chinese speaking friend. The others that have the same little girl in the foreground came from a Facebook friend whose daughter was adopted a few months ago. She is from the same province as Allie, has the same type of CHD, went to Little Flower and then the same foster home, and was adopted at about 1 1/2 years like Allie will be. So cool! Too bad she lives in Texas!! Anyway, see if you can spot Allie in these pics. Her hair is always my key to finding her. 😍😍
Alicia WI love the one she's photobombing through the tunnel! She has the sweetest little face! :)
December 19, 2016
Saturday, December 10, 2016
Setback
We've been waiting on our immigration approval so we can get on with getting our ducks in a row on the China end. Was thinking it should have come earlier in the week and turns out it would have but we (well, I) messed up something with our paperwork and we got a letter today with a paper I didn't get Matt to sign that we'll have to mail back on Monday and continue waiting for the approval paper. Can't say I'm shocked because this application had it's own checklist of things to submit, but I did check off that this paper was signed. Oh well, nothing to do but press on! I think our chance to go January has passed us by so hopefully February will work if I don't mess up something else!
In the meantime I am wrapping up the last of the painting orders and I've sold most of the stuff left from the last show. We are up to about $23,000 raised of the estimated $30,000, so that's pretty awesome and definitely never thought we'd get that much help. Thanks to each of you who have been a part of that!!!
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
November Allie:)
HollyC392She got her stuff finally!!! And we got pictures:) Can't wait to show Gray that she is pointing to him!!
November 27,
Jeannie MOh I LOVE this. Getting to 'hold' her family 💚
December 4, 2016
HollyC392Yes. Julia had some like that she used to love so hoping Allie would like it too.
December 10, 2016
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