Travel plans

We have received our itinerary and I've come to the the stage of trying to pull myself together and actually plan for the trip. I've done this enough to know that once the travel approval comes everything spins out of control, so I should be able to prepare for that, yet I never do.  I have spent almost a week trying to gather paperwork, get the kids packed and ready, prepare schoolwork for my absence, and get baby items purchased.  And I have completed none of that.  I still don't even know what size diapers I should buy.  When you don't start out with newborns, there's always a bit of chance involved in choosing sizes for everything.  With Merrilee everything was too big, and with Katie Mei everything was too small.  With two kids, I'm just stuck.  I love it, but it makes planning much more difficult.

We are leaving on October 27 from Atlanta and will be flying into Beijing on the 28th.  We will be traveling for about 18 hours, which is remarkably short compared to other trips we've had.  We will spend Saturday the 29th touring Beijing and on Sunday will fly to Gansu province to meet our children. This is a big change from our previous three adoptions.  We have always had two days to tour Beijing, so I don't know what will be left out of our trip.  I'm almost disappointed that we won't get to go to all the usual places, especially the international church service we're used to enjoying, since I know this is our last adoption trip.  But I'm also excited that we'll have our babies by Sunday morning back home, and will hopefully be able to share those photos with everyone before they go to church.

Our Civil Affairs appointment will be on Monday, October 31, when we will officially be made the parents of Joshua and Sarah in the eyes of the Chinese government.  Then it's three more days of appointments (passports, notary offices, etc.) and sightseeing in province, before we head out to Guangzhou on Friday, Nov. 4th.

The remaining seven days will be getting the children's medical exams, doing paperwork for the American portion of the adoption, and more sightseeing and shopping.  Our Consulate appointment is on the 9th and we depart Guangzhou for Hong Kong on the 10th.

We will leave the morning of the 11th from Hong Kong to return home, and will arrive the evening of the 11th in Atlanta.  It's going to be a very long day.

Merrilee, Jacob, and Katie Mei will be staying with my parents while we're gone, and I'm already starting to miss them terribly.  It will be a little over three weeks without them, and my heart is having a hard time already with the separation.  The last time we were apart for very long was while I was in the hospital with Katie Mei for her surgery, and it was so difficult for me then.  Please pray for all of us as we muddle through such a long span of days.  It's hard on the children as well, but I'm so thankful that right now they're very excited to go see their grandparents.  They've been talking about it non-stop for days.