Having Faith home

Well it's been awhile since my last post.  We've been busy, with me having to go to physical therapy twice a week and trying to teach Faith, English which she is learning rather quickly.  Faith always has to touch everything and she takes apart toys, pens just to see how they work.  She also likes to help in the kitchen with whatever she can.  She's pretty smart and can pick up things rather quickly.  Well I'm posting an adoption announcement.  If you didn't get one, sorry we only have so many.

Top 20 things I learned in China

20. For the drivers in China, seatbelts are supposed to be required,  but apparently wearing a shirt is optional.
19. By day 11, I've finally mastered chopsticks - well sort of.
18. Cars park on the sidewalks and people walk in the streets.  Really there are no sidewalks, you have to 
      share with the vehicles,

17.  Fences around ponds are optional.  One misstep and you are in the pond.

16. Chinese mosquitoes are just as vicious as American mosquitoes.
15.  By day 7, no more rice and dumplings !!!
14.  At the zoo, apparently "Don't feed the Bears" sign is just a suggestion.
13.  According to Paige, Faith is a souvenir.
12.  I found out that all shrimp is peel and eat, even in the noodles.
11.  Shrimp, clam, pineapple and pepperoni pizza is not good.
10. Chopsticks are hard
 9.  Salespeople follow you around and want to show you everything.  Pushy, maybe that's what I'll call it.
  8. Crosswalks and stop signs are just a suggestion. You have to see it to believe it.
  7. The bathrooms have no plugs to plug in a curling iron/hair dryer.
  6. None of the plugs that came with the adapter were the right size
  5. The beds are very tiny and rock hard - just over a twin size for two people.

 

  4.  Apparently,  pizza, chicken nuggets, salad, meat and cheese tray are breakfast items in the hotel buffet.
  3.  If you are driving or riding in a car in Beijing, you are taking your life into your own hands.
  2.  You must drink bottled water.  There is not a water fountain to be found.  Their water is not purified.

And the #1 thing I learned in China is ...
     
      Squatty potties - yes they basically are a hole in ground and in some places like the Great Wall the squatty potties are BYOTP - bring your own toilet paper.

 

We're leaving in 5 days !!

Can't believe we're leaving for China in 5 days.  But first I have an appointment at the Cleveland Clinic to try to figure out why I have no balance.  Talk about stress.  And then we looked at the stuff we got as gifts and a lot of them were made in China so back to the drawing board on that one.  We are so excited to meet Faith.  I think Paige is expecting her to be playful but we know better and are expecting the worst, hoping for the best.  I know a lot of people have prayed for her as well.  Here's to a long plane ride.

Exciting news!!

Our adoption agency just called and they received our TA.  So now we have to send our passports to an agency in New York and they will get us visas.  Then it's off to China to pick up our daughter.Yeah !!

And still waiting...

We are still waiting on our TA.  But even if it comes in the next week or so, our agency does not send families the last 2 weeks in April and the 1st week in May cause of a trade show and National May Day in China.  Apparently, during those weeks it's very busy and the hotel rates are hiked up plus on National May Day the government offices are closed.  So we are thinking Mid May.

Still waiting..

Nothing new.  We are still waiting on the TA.

Waiting ..

We received the letter we were waiting for saying that the visa info for Faith was being sent to China.  We overnighted a copy of this letter to Yongmei - our Chinese adoption coordinator.  She then sent our info packet (not sure what was in it) to China.  The only problem is that the offices in China were closed until Feb. 22nd because of the Chinese new year.  It's the year of the Tiger by the way.  Anyway, because the offices had been closed since Feb 15th they are a little behind.  It's supposed to take two weeks for the officials to sign a document then our "guide" will pick up the forms and overnight them to Bejing.  A TA or travel approval will be issued within 3 or 4 weeks.  So we are looking at about 6 wks I think at the earliest.  I was hoping it would land on Paige's spring break but unless there is a miracle, it will be later.  Paige's recital is May 2nd so she might miss it, and she's okay with that.  And on a side note, Paige's Birthday was yesterday and we got her ears pierced.  She was soo excited.

Yay !!

We finally got our I800A re-approval today and now we can go forward with the rest of the paperwork and travel to China.  So far we have gotten bunkbeds for the girls and got a new camcorder because our old one is broken.  Can't wait - still trying to learn Chinese. So until I write more, Zai jian.

Cramming time

Okay on Monday we got our LOA, letter of acceptance for our China adoption.  We are still waiting on our acceptance for I-800A.  Once we get that we can file our I-800.  This is all immigration stuff.  In a nutshell, we should be traveling probably no later than March.  Now we have to learn some Chinese to communicate with our new daughter, clean out Paige's room and get bunk beds for her room, and do all the little things like making sure we have gifts for the orphanage people, and electricity converters, ect.  It's exciting but lots of work to be done.