whoomp, there it is!

Oh my heavens!  It is official, we are logged in to China!  I still can't believe it.  I was sure that we would not hear anything this week, and probably not next week, and then there it was in my inbox, three sweet little letters, LID!  We are dancing and jumping and joyfully singing over here!

china is closed

Okay, so China is not actually closed, but a very important part of it is.  The Chinese Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA), which oversees the adoption process in China, is closed this week while they update their computers.

What this means for us is that while all of our paperwork has made it to China it is not being processed during the shut down.  It will not be logged into the system and we will not get a log in date (LID) until it reopens. Getting an LID is very important because we most likely will not be matched with a child without one.

Because of the timing of our paperwork it is likely that we would not have been logged in this week anyway.  Let's just hope that when they reopen they are speedy at processing paperwork and that there is not a backlog.

In the meantime, we are enjoying summer!

Watching the fireworks on Memorial Day!

first day of vacay!

Today is the first day of summer vacation (for the little ones and for me-big brother still has a couple of weeks).   John is officially no longer a pre-schooler.  Sniff, Sniff.  I'm sad, but I know he is ready to move on.

I am really looking forward to a more relaxed schedule. I'm hoping to tackle a few projects and work on my shop a bit.  Summer here we come!

d t c

Our dossier was sent to China on May 16th!  Last Thursday I was at the airport getting ready to leave for a girl's weekend to the beach when I saw an email from our social worker telling us she had just sent our paperwork off.  Talk about a good day!!  The whole weekend was so much fun, but I think that was the highlight of the trip!

lost in translation...

Our paperwork is out there...somewhere.  It may be in Houston at the Chinese Consulate office, it may be somewhere in Alabama being translated, or it may be sitting on a desk in Birmingham being prepared to be sent to China.  Wherever it is, it is moving closer to Mae.

This part is hard because we have no control over how long each step takes.  While everything is moving at the right speed it still seems slow.  We have been monitoring which checks have been cashed, so we know it is making progress.

Hopefully our agency will send us news soon that is ready to go to China.

fun at Asiafest

On Saturday we took the boys to downtown Plano for the 10th annual Asiafest. Andrew was not thrilled about going, but of course once we got there they all had a ball. We watched martial arts performances, made some fun origami, ate delicious food, and played on a fantastic playground. It didn't hurt that the weather was just about perfect!

While we were there John made it all the way across on the monkey bars for the first time!

We will definitely be returning next year!