The arrangements have been made, the tickets are paid for and here's what we know:
May 15: Fly from home to Chicago to LA to Guangzhou to Beijing
May 17: Arrive in Beijing (yes, 2 days later)
May 18: Great Wall and other touring
May 19: Holt orientation then touring with group
May 20: Fly to Kunming-We should get Alyson on this day!!!
May 21: Kunming-Actual adoption takes place on this day
May 22: Kunming
May 23: Kunming
May 24: Kunming
May 25: Kunming (all these days in Kunming we are visiting Alyson's home province and waiting for her passport and I'm not sure what else).
May 26: Fly to Guangzhou
May 27: Guangzhou
May 28: Guangzhou
May 29: Guangzhou-Appointment at US Consulate
May 30: Guangzhou-Get Alyson's Visa
May 31: Guangzhou-just hanging out, shopping, wishing we had a flight home this day.
June 1: Fly from Guangzhou to LA, (Alyson becomes a citizen when we land), spend the night in LA
June 2: Fly from LA to home!!!!
It's a long trip but very exciting!
Monday, April 30, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
We have CA and travel dates!!
We have a confirmed Consulate Appointment for May 29, 2007. We will leave for China on May 15th and come home as a family of four on June 2nd!!
I will post our final itinerary after I actually pay for our tickets tomorrow. I don't want to jinx anything and we haven't handed over the credit card yet, but we're pretty darn sure we're leaving the 15th. That's 19 days from now!!!
Monday, April 23, 2007
We got our travel approval!!
We got word of our travel approval today!! It's surreal. After all this time we really are going to go. I've been living the last many many months just waiting for the other shoe to drop or for someone to pull the rug out from under me or whatever cliche you want to use. Now it's really happening. I can't even describe the sense of relief I have now.
Our agency is trying to get us a Consulate appointment during the last week in May so that would mean we'd leave for China aroung the 15th.
Wow.
Michael is upstairs putting together the crib as I type. (We just bought it today.)
We should know more tomorrow about our travel dates tomorrow so stay tuned...
Our agency is trying to get us a Consulate appointment during the last week in May so that would mean we'd leave for China aroung the 15th.
Wow.
Michael is upstairs putting together the crib as I type. (We just bought it today.)
We should know more tomorrow about our travel dates tomorrow so stay tuned...
Saturday, April 07, 2007
We got our LOA!!
Our letter of acceptance or as China calls it, "letter seeking confirmation from adopter" arrived on Tuesday. It sat in the rain for a day because we were out of town and FedEX just left it on the porch without a bag, but we blow dried it, signed it, and it went back to China on Friday April 6, 2007. Yay!!! Our agency sent it to China with a cover letter explaining why it was wrinkled and faded (it was all their fault, but that's a whole other story/drama). They're confident that China won't reject it and require us to submit another one. We couldn't just sign a copy of it because it was an offical document from China with their red stamps (chops) on it and everything. The original had to be signed.
Now we wait for official travel approval which has been happening for other families around 2-4 weeks after sending the LOA back.
People who got their travel approvals in the last week are traveling anywhere from mid-April to mid May. If we get our TA in 2 weeks then there is a chance that we could go late May but only if there are still consulate appointments available. If they can get the most recent batch of people all scheduled to go before mid-May then we have a chance to sneak in before our mid June deadline.
If we don't make it before mid-June then we have to move to Texas first, renew our immigration approval, and get a new homestudy. We really don't know yet how long that all might delay us.
We could also be delayed if Alyson is not ready to travel yet if she is still recovering from her open heart surgery. Our agency has asked for another update with the exact date of her surgery and a prediction on when she will be ready to travel.
We have another tiny little issue that I'm not going to freak out about just yet but we still don't have Andrew's expidited passport. We applied on March 10th and paid the extra money to have it rushed and we were assured that we should have it in 4 weeks. Well, the tracking system online says they have no record of our application. I have emailed them and am waiting for a reply. The 1-800 number is impossible to get through on so we just have to keep trying. If we can get through to a human then there's still hope that they can figure it out and get his passport to us ASAP.
We still have to get our Visas too and we need the passport to do that so things could get a little hairy if we don't get it soon!!
Now we wait for official travel approval which has been happening for other families around 2-4 weeks after sending the LOA back.
People who got their travel approvals in the last week are traveling anywhere from mid-April to mid May. If we get our TA in 2 weeks then there is a chance that we could go late May but only if there are still consulate appointments available. If they can get the most recent batch of people all scheduled to go before mid-May then we have a chance to sneak in before our mid June deadline.
If we don't make it before mid-June then we have to move to Texas first, renew our immigration approval, and get a new homestudy. We really don't know yet how long that all might delay us.
We could also be delayed if Alyson is not ready to travel yet if she is still recovering from her open heart surgery. Our agency has asked for another update with the exact date of her surgery and a prediction on when she will be ready to travel.
We have another tiny little issue that I'm not going to freak out about just yet but we still don't have Andrew's expidited passport. We applied on March 10th and paid the extra money to have it rushed and we were assured that we should have it in 4 weeks. Well, the tracking system online says they have no record of our application. I have emailed them and am waiting for a reply. The 1-800 number is impossible to get through on so we just have to keep trying. If we can get through to a human then there's still hope that they can figure it out and get his passport to us ASAP.
We still have to get our Visas too and we need the passport to do that so things could get a little hairy if we don't get it soon!!
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