Busy Week

I don't know what it is, but I can't say I totally mind either...our schedule is swamped! We have been since our referral. While it is nice that we're occupied and not obsessed with China planning, I think we may be needing a bit of a breather soon. Here is our week:

Sunday, our band at church played for the services. Fun time, but early morning! We were at church at 7:15 to run through everything before the congregation started arriving. Then some of the Group 91 moms went for "beading take 2." We had 5 of the new moms together. We had a great time talking about the girls, travel plans, what to pack, etc. Most of us made bracelets for the girls and some made some other pieces of jewelry as well. I'm waiting for one of the letter beads to be back in stock and I think I'll make a bracelet for myself, but while I was there I made a little something for Hope. SO CUTE...and TINY! It is only 4 inches long (and still may be too big)! Below are a couple of shots so you can see how it turned out. With the black background you can really see the letters, but the light amethyst is more visible on the white. Finally...Ron called the jury line and found out that he had to be at the St. Croix County Courthouse at 8:15 on Monday morning. Did I mention that Ron was on the jury duty list this month? We needed something else to do right. :)

~ A little "bling" for one of God's newest Gifts from Guangxi ~


Monday...Ron started jury duty. He was picked to sit for a trial that could potentially last most of this week. Otherwise, we had a pretty low key day. We started filling out our Visa paperwork. It doesn't seem too awful. We're getting good at filling in all our personal information on forms.

Tuesday (today)...I worked a little bit late this afternoon and then we (Ron joined us after he was dismissed) met our dear friends in Woodbury. OK, imagine the two biggest plastic bins you can. Now imagine them FULL (to the point of overflowing) of clothes...plus a huge shopping bag full of more clothes to go with it! That is what Hope was given as hand-me-downs! I can't wait to spend some time going through everything! I love little girl clothes! We have such generous friends! Hand-me-downs are the best! But, I must admit, I have trouble leaving most stores now without buying at least one little thing for baby Hope. :)

Check it out!

Wednesday...After work, I'm going to go for my next Hep. shot and then meet with Hope's doctor to talk about some things we might expect during travel. He also has a Chinese daughter and has returned to China on several occasions for medical trips to orphanages. I'm a little nervous about going alone. Ron's jury duty conflicts with the appointment. This doctor is a great resource so hopefully I'll take good notes. I don't want to miss anything. Then for the evening, we'll have the usual church stuff.

Thursday...I'm working late.

Friday...SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS...we're driving to Black River Falls to meet Mark & Andria for dinner. We can finally give them Hope's photo. They've been able to see it, but we haven't seen them yet since our referral. It has been way too long since we've all been together. We'll get to meet their new puppy, too! Check out the blog entry called "I almost forgot" to see pictures of little Stella.

Saturday...working

Sunday...FINALLY a day for us! But, we'll have an evening dinner with the Ron's family to celebrate his parents' anniversary. That will be a nice way to end the weekend.

So, we're running! But, life is good. Bring on our TA! I'm ready to start saying "no" to some of this other stuff and start packing. ;) Anyone seeing this, please remind me when the time comes, that I really did say I'm ready to say "no." I might need a little strength booster.

Update on the Wait

It is hard to believe that it has been almost two weeks since we received Hope's referral. We can't get enough of her picture! I have one on my lanyard and Ron keeps one in his pocket everyday. BUT, we don't yet have one up in our house! We just haven't been anywhere to enlarge one yet. I'm feeling like a bad Mom already. Even Grandma and Grandpa have a framed photo up in their living room. Maybe that is the project for this week. :)

We have collected all of the info and payments for the agency that we need at this point. We can still do a little research and gathering of information for our Visa application which we'll have to send in after we receive our travel approval. Other than that, we just need to wait some more. I can't tell you what a difference it makes to have Hope's picture to look at everyday. I think the next 6 weeks or so will go by pretty quickly. It won't be long, and we'll have her home.

The exciting news for the past week is that we've been in contact with Brian Stuy at Research-China and he has located Hope's finding ad. How amazing it will be for us to have the earliest existing picture of Hope in our possession. With so little of her history available, this little tangible piece of her past will be priceless.

We've also learned that there is an orginization called Grace & Hope for Children that is active in supporting foster care in Guangxi Province. It is our hope that our Hope is placed in one of their homes. What a blessing it would be to know that she is being cared for and supported by such wonderful organization. Check out their website for more information.

Sippie Saver

I wanted to update and thank everyone who has supported us with our "sippie saver" fundraiser over the past months. We've received most of the sippie cups back and have found some amazing surprises inside. We asked for spare change and we are totally humbled by the results. After a few trips to the bank with full cups and the jar that we've poured them all into on the kitchen counter, we are overwhelmed! I have no words! Below are a couple pictures from our first trip to the bank for deposit into Hope's account. Can you believe the jar?!

"How 36 lbs. can change a life!" - We weighed the jar on the bathroom scale & then weighed it full. :)















These next few shots are from the very first "sippie" we were given from Auntie Andria and Uncle Mark. They were so generous with Hope's gift. I think with that bottle, their sippie contribution is intended for Hope to use a little later on. :) This was last July when we first started thinking about doing this fundraiser. Look at my short hair (and Ella's! - guess she'd just had a visit to the groomer)!


This was our most recent trip to the credit union last weekend. Again...amazing outpouring of gifts for Hope.

CCAA - It's Official

Here is the dialog box as it appears on the CCAA website that announces the processing progress of adoption files. We are in! (LID of 10/26/05)

The same box appeared last June (the month of Hope's birth) stating that our documents were "out of review." Good timing, I'd say.

Hope is famous!

Wow! Another busy day. We spent the day in Eau Claire today at an attachment workshop. I am VERY excited and also VERY overwhelmed with the wealth of information we went through, but it was great. I'll post more about that after I've had time to review my notes and organize my thoughs a little better.

For now, I thought it would be fun to let you all know that it's official...Hope has been recognized! ;) During the conference today, we had Hope's picture out on the desk and the family behind us recognized her. They had seen her photo on our blog and our referral announcement on our agency yahoo group. Too funny! So, I'd like to say "hello" to Nancy & Kyle (I hope I'm OK with the names) from CR Group 98. It was great to meet you! Best of luck with your plans and PLEASE let us know if you have any questions. We certainly don't have all the answers, but we'll share our experiences and what we know. HOPE IS FAMOUS! ;)

Also - the other exciting news of the weekend...Hope KeXuan Charlotte has received her first mail! On Friday afternoon we opened the mailbox to find a beautiful letter to Hope from her new cousin Laura. So, what do you expect from the expectant mother? TEARS! Yup, I had some. How cool! Our daughter got mail! I cut out the address from the envelope and put it in Hope's memory book with Laura's contribution of quilt fabric. What can I say, Laura? We love you! How fun is it that you sent our daughter mail?!

Then, today when we got our mail there was another envelope addressed to Hope from her new great-aunt Bev. I tell you...this little girl is getting some attention! Bev sent a very treasured piece of fabric to add to Hope's quilt, a very special contribution also on behalf of cousin Mike. We could never have expected something so special. Bev, if you're reading, we LOVE it, and love you. Thank you so much for such beautiful thoughtfulness. Also to cousin Brad, the poem you wrote is so precious. Thank you to all the Arizona Lewis family. Hope is one lucky girl to have so many people who already love her so much!

GREAT NEWS!

Ron and I just got home from a pretty long day. We both had things going on after work and then we got to meet our good friends Chris and Cheryl for dinner. They are so fantastic and I think they just may be almost as excited about Hope's arrival as we are. :)

Anyway - good news is that we had e-mail from our Social Worker at CR and she said that all of the acceptances were sent back to the CCAA today! Referrals Monday afternoon and everything returned to China in 3 working days! We're very excited! Now, we wait for TA (travel approval). I say, "no problem." Of course we'd love to travel as SOON as possible, but I can't tell you what a difference having Hope's pictures has made for me. I can be patient for a couple more months. Time will fly by. We are pretty busy people with full evenings and weekends so I'm sure we'll have no problem filling the next few weeks with preparations.

Also - we have received the complete translations for Hope's referral reports. Ron and I are still thinking about how much of Hope's story we'll be sharing with people. We feel pretty strongly at this point, that her story is her story. We'd like Hope to know her history and allow her to make some of the decisions about what information is public and what is private. So, most of that is still in the discussion phase. Of course, everyone has advice for us, and we are thankful for all the opinions, but please understand that we're still working through this process and we're figuring out the whole parenting thing as we go. Everyone has been so compassionate with our experiences so far...Thank You.

What we do know, for the curious out there...is that in January (on Ron's birthday, in fact) Hope was about 14 lbs. At that time she was almost 7 months old. She'll be 10 months old tomorrow by the way. All we can do is guess about size. I'm thinking I may be packing 3 different sizes of clothes and then leaving there what doesn't fit as a donation. I'm not sure how that will all work. I still need to study some growth charts and things.

Here is a brief summary of some of Hope's stats:
Name: Lin (surname) Ke Xuan
Birthdate: June 13, 2006
Province: Guangxi (Southern China)
Orphanage: Yu Lin SWI (Eastern Guangxi)
Foster Care Placement: November 2006 (YES! She is living with a family!)

The final bit of important information from today was the translation of Hope's Chinese name.
Lin: family name, from the orphanage name, Yu Lin social welfare institute
Ke: lovely, lovable, cute
Xuan: dignified, imposing

I'd say that we have one darling little girl and judging by how adorable and intelligent she looks in her pictures, her name fits her to a "T."

Have a good night everyone - Beth

It's sinking in...

I'M A MOM!!! OK - so maybe it hasn't completely become real to me yet, but I'm loving this feeling now, whatever it is. Ron and I can't stop smiling and looking at Hope's picture. I'm after her toes all the time. I just wanna kiss 'em! ;) Thanks so much to everyone who has called, checked in with us, sent messages, surprised us with gifts and balloons, etc. We couldn't be more proud of our little girl. We just feel so blessed. With all of the emotions we've experienced over the course of this journey, it was so hard for me to imagine that some of the heartache would ever fade. BUT, believe me, when we saw Hope's picture for the first time, it all became clear. Hope is our daughter, our little girl. And, for her to join our family, we had to take every single step we took...baby steps and all. So, though I will never forget all of the facets of our journey thus far, I am so grateful for God's plan in our lives. I won't ever forget that it took 1 year, 5 months, and 2 weeks of waiting with our paperwork in China to see Hope's picture. I'll always know the memories of doctor appointments, negative pregnancy tests, the long paperchase to complete our dossier, the trips to the USCIS office for fingerprint appointments, the tears and heartache of the wait that just kept growing and growing...but (and now I can say BUT...), it all brought us to this point, when we can say we are the proud parents of a beautiful little girl.

I have a couple more things before I sign off and go back to bed (the cold I've had for a week, finally took over during the night).

1 ~ I'd like to request prayers for one family in our group who did not receive a referral on Monday. We started with 10 families in our group. One family found their little girl on a waiting child list and have already completed their adoption of little Ella. One other family made the decision a couple months ago to discontinue their adoption plans. So, on Monday, our agency should have received 8 referrals for the remaining families in our group. Instead, only 7 arrived. At this point, all I know is that Crossroads is checking into the situation and there are no answers as of yet. So please pray for the Cox family as this all gets sorted out.

2 ~ Many have asked, "What happens now? When will you travel?" My best answer to the travel part is that we still don't know. I'm getting good at saying that. :) We are waiting for the translations to come through for all the referral documents (hopefully today). After the families in our group have all reviewed those translations, the agency needs to have our acceptance letters and they get sent back to China. YES! We all love our babies and they are just perfect for our families. :) Then, China sends us travel approval (TA). With that in hand, our liaison in China can schedule our consulate appointments (CA). Those appointments will determine when we have to be in China. So, my best guess right now is late May/early June (maybe by Hope's 1st birthday). I'll keep track of everything here as I learn more.

Thanks again to all of you, the special people in our lives, for your love and support. We're almost there!

Beth (who needs a new box of kleenex and her pillow)