We Made it to Beijing!

Sorry its taken so long to post, but we have been going non-stop since we arrived late on the 20th. We have toured the Summer Palace, Beijing Zoo Panda's, The Temple of Heaven, Acrobatics Show, Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, and The Great Wall of China. We even got to go by the Olympic Stadium and Aquatics Center. We finally had some time tonight to get the computer up and running, but we haven't downloaded any photos yet. We will try and do that tomorrow night. We have been trying the food and learning about the Chinese culture. Emma's favorite event was getting to go to a Tea Room--her new favorite thing is Rose Tea! We have been exhausted by the end of each day, I guess they are preparing us for the exhaustion to come with having new babies!

We will fly from Beijing to Guangzhou tomorrow afternoon and will be there until the 9th of April. We found out today that we will be getting our babies on Monday the 24th at 3:30 in the afternoon. Just hearing our guide tell the group about what to expect was overwhelming, I can imagine what the real deal is going to feel like!

Hope everyone is doing well. We will post pictures soon!

Updated Photo of Ava

Ava’s photo was included in the January 2008 Love Without Boundaries update.  Looks like she loves her formula.  A big thank you to this organization for providing wonderful nutritional support to Ava’s orphanage.

 

 

We Finally Have Travel Plans

We finally have travel plans for China!  We will be in China for 21 days, yes, that’s 3 weeks!  Here is a rough look at what our plans are:

 

March 19  Leave Albuquerque and fly to San Francisco and then Beijing

March 20 Arrive Beijing

March 21-22 Tour Beijing

March 23 Fly to Guangzhou

March 24 We get Ava, GOTCHA DAY!

March 25-April 8 Paperwork, Tours, Paperwork, Tours

April 9 Fly home from Hong Kong to San Francisco and finally Albuquerque

Ava in the LWB Update

This post is from the Love Without Boundaries November/December 2007 Update. Ava's orphanage receives nutritional support from this wonderful organization. This is what the nannies had to say about Ava. Oh boy, it sounds like she will keep us busy...

It’s hard to believe with this sweet face, but
they say “B” is a very naughty baby. “She is
restless. When she starts to walk, she also
becomes a little trouble maker. When the
nanny put the clean diaper on the table, she
walks over and pulls all the diaper to the floor
and laugh at it. When the nanny prepares the
bath water for the babies, she likes to play
with the water and make the floor wet. But
she is so sweet. So the nanny would just
smile and tell her not to do it again.”
“

Ava at 6 Months Old

Here are some photos from a family who also adopted from Qujiang in January of 2007. They took some photos of some of the babies and look who they took a photo of! This is Ava at around 6 months old. What a sweet little face! You can see the whole slide show of the orphanage visit from this family in our favorite sites section on the right.

Travel Approval Finally Came

After you get matched to a baby, you then accept the match, we call it the referral in our world here. Then the excruciating wait for Travel Approval (TA) begins. You would think the wait of over 2 years would have been the hardest part of this whole process. Nope, once you see your baby's face, know that she is waiting to join your family, but you can't just hop on the plane and go get her--that is the hardest part. After scouring the Rumor Queen for hints of TA's coming in, I soon discover that ours is taking an especially long time. After a couple of weeks, other agencies start receiving their TA's, but ours is no where to be found. Frustrated does not even begin to describe what my travel group has been feeling over the past 33 days during this TA wait.

After 4+ weeks of waiting, it finally came yesterday afternoon. Now that we have TA, we have to wait more, I know, shock there! We have to wait to get our appointment at the Consulate in Guangzhou before we can book our travel arrangements. Our agency is requesting this appointment for the week of April 1st. If things go as planned we should be leaving for China to week of March 20th to go get Ava. We will be in China for 14-17 days, depending on when our appointment gets booked. Things are finally moving along!!!!!!!!!!!

More Photos of Ava Le Bei