Article 5!

We received word from our agency that our Article 5 will be delivered to Beijing on Monday.  Then we wait for our Travel Approval.  We are anxious and excited. We are getting close.  We're praying that things will go fast so we can be in China in 4 weeks.  God's plan is perfect. We're ready to see what His plan is.  Not much longer.  We're getting so close.

I also woke up to a sweet photo of Hope. This was taken in April 2006.  Just a few weeks before her 7th birthday.  I can not wait to love on this little girl.  I had a dream last night that she was brought to All Children's Hospital in St. Pete for her palate surgery. We found out and I said "we are going". So we went and did not let anyone know that we were her future family. We did not want them to tell us we could not see her.  In my dream we met Hope there and she was perfect.  Then I woke up.  I can not wait to meet her & Maggie.  I hope our meeting is great and that they are happy when they meet us.

TWO WEEKS!!!

In Two Weeks, we will officially be waiting for China to issue our Travel Approval (TA).  We are SO excited.  This wait can take 1-3 weeks (on average).  So 3-5 weeks from now we should know when our travel dates will be.  We are praying that we receive our first choice of Consulate Appointments (which would be ASAP).  So, if we get early CA, we could be leaving in 5-7 weeks from now.

We are now talking with our travel coordinator with our adoption agency.  She emailed us the hotels we will be staying at.  I'm so excited and looking up the one in Beijing and in Hefei. Because we've never stayed in these hotels before.  We are staying at the China Hotel Marriott in Guangzhou. We stayed there the last time and it's wonderful!

We are staying in the Poly Plaza Hotel in Beijing

We will be staying at the Holiday Inn Downtown Hefei

We will be staying at the China Hotel Marriott in Guangzhou

We've Been CABLED!

I'm so happy. I screamed with delight (and freaked my family out).  We received an email this afternoon from the National Visa Center stating that our applications have been forwarded to China.  This is GREAT news. And it happened fast.  We were put in their system Wed night.  And cabled Friday afternoon.

So we immediately called our agency and emailed the PDF's to them.  We just received an email from our agency saying the girls visa applications are now on their way to China. They should arrive on Monday and we're praying they are dropped off at the consulate on Tuesday.  If they are, then on Tuesday June 26th they should be ready to be picked up and then forwarded to Beijing where we will then wait for our TA.  We could receive our TA hopefully the first 2 weeks of July.  And then we get our CA (consulate appointment) fast so we could leave a week after TA (that is our hope).

So if everything goes how we want it, we could leave by July 26th.  The latest we think we could leave is August 9th.  If we leave August 9th, I will miss the kids first day of school.  :-(  So we're praying we can leave the end of July.

Thanks for praying with us.  We're getting close.

Happy Day!-UPDATED!

Updated below original post

"Hello,

Congratulations! Your I-800 provisional approval notice was approved on 6/1/2012. You will receive a hard copy in the mail within a few days.

I hope this information helps."




I am beyond excited!  FINALLY!!!!  Our I800's have been APPROVED!  It took 18 days from when it was received in TX.  But it's done!  YAHOOOOOO!!!!  And it was done on Maggie's 12th birthday.  What a GREAT birthday gift.  :-)


Next step, politely emailing the NVC starting in a week requesting our PDF to send to our adoption agency.  Receiving the PDF via email will save us about a week waiting for the hard copy to come in the mail.  Our agency needs this (it's the info saying our approval has been cabled to Guangzhou, China) so they can send the girls Visa Applications to China.


Once that is sent, we wait 2 weeks for our Article 5 to be picked up.  


Once the Article 5 is picked up, it goes to the CCCWA where they will then issue our Travel Approval (TA).  This can take 1-3 weeks. 


Once we receive our TA, then our agency requests our Consulate Appointment (CA).  We usually find this date out within a day.  


As soon as that is made, we plan our travel.  We leave 2 weeks before the CA date.  So we could leave 1-4 weeks after we receive our TA.  


Right now, we think it's highly likely we could be leaving around August 2nd or August 9th. Looks like we might be spending our 21st wedding anniversary in China.  :-)  


We are ready!  And so happy to be on to the next phase of this journey.  


UPDATE:
Our I800 approvals came in the mail TODAY.  And it has an approval date of 5/31 (Thursday).  NOT 6/1.  So we are ONE day closer to the girls than we thought.  PRAISE GOD!  

Happy Birthday Maggie

Today is Maggie's 12th birthday.  We wish we could be there with her.  But unfortunately we are still waiting on more approvals.  So we sent her a birthday party.  She received a letter from us, a Panda Bear stuffed animal, some candy, fruit to share with her friends and a cake.  They celebrated early since today is International Children's Day.  It's a big deal in China.  So I'm sure they are busy with those celebrations.

We received photos the other day.  I love seeing the smiles. I love how they are trying to get Hope & Maggie to act like sisters.  I hope that they have started to bond in that way.

Here are a few photos from the party.  As far as the approvals go...We have an officer who does not think that every day matters. She is slow and will continue to be slow. She will get to it when she gets to it.  We did not have a good phone conversation with her the other day so we are very upset.  She is rude & ugly. We are praying that she did approve us and that we are already on to the next phase of approvals.  3 more approvals before we can book travel. We hope that we will get them all by this time next month.

Happy Birthday Maggie. We're trying to get there as fast as we can!  We love you.

The fruit

The Cake

Ready for the party

Sisters!

Look at Hope Laughing!  I love it

My favorite photo.  

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOPE!

At 11 PM last night my phone got a text. It was from the lady who we ordered Hope's birthday package from.  She was letting me know she just received photos and was emailing them to me now. So of course I jump up and wait.  I waited for 30 min before I texted her again. I felt bad because it was 11:20 PM.  She replied and said "OH no!  The file is too big. It's a zip file and I can't open it".  So we went back and forth and thankfully my hubby understands zip files and macs etc.  So we had to download something to open the file. And she had to send it to another email account because it was huge.

Around midnight we get it opened.  And we received 19 photos of the party.  Hope looks happy.  Maggie is there too. I was happy to see that.  There were about 6 other kids there too.  I'm so glad she was celebrated this weekend.

Here are some photos.  Enjoy!

Today....

Today, May 19th, is Hope's 13th birthday.  It's hard knowing she's becoming a teenager and we're not there with her.  BUT, this will be her last birthday without us.  We will celebrate once she is home.  We did order a party for her and were told they would celebrate today. We are anxiously waiting to see if they send us photos.  Once they do, I will post some here.

I think our agency is not liking me too much.  You see, I'm a little anxious about getting to China.  They kept saying "No rush in sending us the next forms needed to go to China. Once you get the 800 approval you can send them".  Well, I don't want to waste time.  So I sent everything we had to them this week.  The last two things they need from us we can send via email.  So, once they receive that from us, they can immediately send the package to China. No waiting for the mail to arrive.  That saves at least 2 days.  They should realize by now that I'm not going to wait for a piece of paper.  I'm not going to sit here and do nothing.  So, they can be upset with me if they want.  I really don't care. I just want to get to China ASAP.  :-)

Update on the I800's.  This is another approval that we are waiting on. But thankfully it should not take long. Hopefully 2 weeks from now we'll have that.  We sent it all to China on May 11th. They received it on Monday May 14th.  We received a text yesterday with our receipt #.  They said it is being sent to the NBC for review & approval.  Then it will go to the NVC where they will issue our I800 approvals.  This should all take about 2 weeks.

Once we receive the I800 approvals, we email that to our agency. They send our DS 230 package to China. A day or so later we receive a PDF that goes to our agency.  Then it gets dropped off and two weeks later our Article 5 is issued.  That gets sent to Beijing and they issue our Travel Approval.  Once that is issued (about 1-3 weeks after the Article 5) then our agency requests our Consulate Appointment and then we book our flights.  We hope to leave anywhere in the middle of July to beginning of August.

Two months from now we would love to be in China. So keep praying.

Thanks!