Video Test

I'm working on making sure I can post videos while in China. If this works, you should be able to see a short clip of Julie singing part of "I've Got a Home in Glory Land." Specifically, she is singing "way beyond the blue!"

Trip Itinerary

We just received the details of our in-country itinerary for our adoption trip. Here it is!

Wednesday, July 4
Depart for Beijing Flight: UA 0851

Thursday, July 5
Arrive in Beijing Flight: UA 0851

Saturday, June 7
Beijing Sight-Seeing: Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, & Summer Palace (Lunch & Dinner Included)

Sunday, July 8
Church service & Great Wall (Lunch & Beijing Duck Dinner Included)

Monday, July 9
Morning Flight to Changsha
Afternoon - Meet Melody Joy SiWei Potter!!

Tuesday, July 10
Civil Affairs Appointment - finalize adoption

July 11- July 13
Paperwork, Sight-seeing, & Shopping

Saturday, July 14
Afternoon flight to Guangzhou

July 15 – July 17
Fill out Consulate Forms & Medical Exam

Wednesday July 18
Consulate Appointment 9:30 am

Thursday, July 19
Pick up Child’s Visa

Friday, July 20
Depart from Guangzhou
Depart from Hong Kong
Arrive in Chicago!!

Flights!

We are excited to announce that we have plane tickets to China! It's really going to happen! Here are the details:

Wednesday - 4 July 2007
Flight #: UA0851 - United
Depart: 04 July 2007 12:46 PM - Chicago O'Hare (ORD)
Arrive: 05 July 2007 03:00 PM - Beijing (PEK)
Flight Time: 13.14 hours

Friday - 20 July 2007
Flight #: UA0828 - United
Depart: 05:20 PM - Hong Kong (HKG)
Arrive: 06:55 PM - Chicago O'Hare (ORD)
Flight Time: 14.35 hours

We are so happy to have a direct flight over this time. Last time we flew through California first. But check out those flight times, ugh! Also, I think it's pretty funny that on the way home we leave at 5:20PM and arrive at 6:55PM the same day. Crazy!

Random Recent Pictures

At the FCC Annual Picnic:


Sporting her Big-Girl-Bow-Upgrade and her Shrek doll from McD's:


Sprinkler fun!


Hose fun too!


First time licking the beater:


New hairdo, watching Signing Time (signing "eat"):


Julie with the new doll she got for her birthday. She has officially named her "Alex," after the little boy in her Signing Time videos!


Not feeling well.


Julie and her good friend from next door. They are so sweet together!

Good News, Bad News, Good News

The first bit of good news is that our TA (travel approval) arrived on Friday! I got a call from our agency around 2 PM asking if we wanted to be included in a travel group leaving July 5th. Yes! We are actually hoping to leave July 3rd so that we have a few extra days in Beijing to adjust to the time difference and also visit some friends who are living there for a few years. All the details will be finalized this coming week, but we know for sure that we will be in the air by the 5th. That is less than 2 weeks away! Melody will be in our arms on July 9th. Wow! I just keep looking at Julie and wanting to enjoy these last days with her as my only child. Life is about to change for all of us!

The bad news is that Julie has been sick and we're all wiped out as a result. She started having trouble sleeping through her naps about a week ago. Then she started whimpering at night, but going back to sleep. By Thursday, she had a 102 fever and was pretty lethargic. Friday night she woke up screaming at 2AM, making for a really loooong night. We finally took her to the doctor Saturday morning. They think she has an ear infection. You might wonder why we didn't think of this, since her symptoms fit so well. The reason is that Julie has tubes in her ears, so when she gets an infection it usually drains out the tubes, making it easy to recognize. There's nothing draining and she's not even poking at her ear. There was an awful lot of wax in her ear though, so maybe that was clogging up the tube? In any case, she started antibiotics yesterday. Unfortunately, they hadn't kicked in as of last night, so she woke up crying and ended up in our bed again. All three of us are so tired at this point, and Julie is getting quite cranky. She is napping right now, and I'm praying it lasts more than half an hour. I'm going to call her ENT tomorrow just to follow up.

I told Larry today that we should not be surprised if we run up against more "coincidental" opposition as our trip approaches. We may have a defeated enemy, but he is still an enemy. The ultimate good news, though, is that "the one who is in us is stronger than the one who is in the world" (1 John 4:4). I am so grateful for that!

Happy Birthday Julie Lu Lu!

Today our big girl turned 3! If you ask her "how old are you?" she has learned to reply "I three!" I tried to fill the day with things she enjoys. We started out at the playground, where I let her jump in puddles formed by yesterday's thunderstorms. From there, we went to the library and checked out one of her favorite videos. Of course, then we had to come home and watch it! Next we went to our neighbor's house and played in the sprinkler and water table. Julie loves playing with our neighbor's little girl. Then we ate lunch and Julie went down for a nap. Less than an hour later she woke up screaming. This has been happening for about a week now, and it's not the first time. It seems like we go through a week of this kind of thing every couple of months. I wish Julie could tell us what is going on when it happens, but for now all we can do is comfort her. So, nap time ended very early, which led to a semi-cranky rest of the day. We had fun nonetheless! Daddy accompanied us to Tumbling class, after which we went to McDonald's for dinner. We came home, watched the library video again, had cake, took a bubble bath and went to bed. In all the hubbub, we never gave Julie her gifts! I guess her birthday will last a little longer than planned! It is now nearly 9:45 and she is still awake in her crib, so I guess her birthday hasn't really ended yet anyway. All in all, it was a great day of celebrating our very special little girl.

More from the Photo Shoot

The "portrait" picture of Julie is our attempt at taking her 3-year old picture (her birthday is tomorrow!). Last year I took her 2-year old picture outside and we liked the results. So, we tried again this year. Of course, there were many attempts before we got a shot that worked. I stood behind Larry making faces, which Julie diligently copied, and Larry snapped pictures. Here are some of the others he got. They really crack me up. You can pretty much see exactly what I was doing because she is such a little mirror!












(I actually really like the fountain shot and the one with the flowerpot. There's something about the indirect view that is very sweet.)

Portrait

Preschool

It's been a busy morning around here. First we had Julie's exit meeting for Early Intervention, followed by regular speech therapy, followed by a big evaluation at the local preschool for special education services. Phew! No wonder she's napping well today. I've been unsure how to feel about the whole preschool thing, whether I really want to give Julie up for 2+ hours four days a week at such a young age. Today was encouraging. Everyone at the school was extremely nice, understanding, professional and very sweet to Julie. I think I carry around too much baggage from my 8 years as a high school teacher. Early Childhood education is not quite the same. We'll find out the results of their evaluation on June 21st. Then we have to make some decisions.

In other news, our LOA made it to China! We went to the FedEx sorting center Friday, reclaimed our package, filled out all the international forms, and sent it off. Thankfully, FedEx paid for it ($47!!). Tracking confirmed its delivery at 9AM Monday morning, China time. I've been working on packing all weekend, particularly medicines and feeding items. There's so much! No carry-on-only for us this time!!

FedEx Dropped the Ball

Here's what I posted to our agency's Yahoo group just moments ago:

I am once again reminded where our ultimate faith must always reside...and it is not FedEx! We got our LOA from AWAA yesterday, signed it, and rushed it to FedEx to send it back overnight. It got scanned in at the sorting center at 4:40 yesterday afternoon. This morning we excitedly checked its status and were sad to see that it never left Illinois. We got on the phone and started figuring out what was up. Apparently, a worker "put it in the wrong bin" and it never went anywhere. They offered to send it same-day to AWAA, but only getting it there by 6PM, which is too late to make the mailing to China. AWAA won't send another package until next Friday. BUT, there is good news! Allison graciously gave us the info to send it directly to China ourselves, so it will, indeed, get mailed today. FedEx is holding it at the sorting center and we're going to go intercept it. Please pray that all goes smoothly from here on out, and that it won't cost too too much. FedEx may have dropped the ball, but I know that God caught it and is holding it in His mighty hands.

LOA!

Our Letter of Acceptance (LOA) from China is here! We are on "day 54" since sending our Letter of Intent (LOI) to adopt Melody, and we've been waiting "oh-so-patiently" for the coveted LOA to arrive. I can hardly believe that it has! Our agency will overnight it to us, we will sign it, and we will overnight it back to them. They will send it back to China on Friday. After that, we wait for one last piece of paper to come from China: the Travel Approval (TA). That will take 2-6 weeks. Then we get on a plane and get Melody! At this point, it looks like we will most likely travel in July rather than August like I was estimating. How exciting is that!?!?! Praise God! I am so happy I could bust!

Sticker Sensation

Grandma sent Julie a sheet of stickers recently. I had to finish vacuuming so I gave Julie the stickers to keep her entertained. In the past, she would have taken one sticker off, played with it and tried to put it back on the sheet. Not this time! Here is the result of Julie's sticker time:



This is serious business!


Look at me!


They're even under my armpit (and on my back)! I love Julie's smile in this picture. It is somewhat difficult to get pictures of her smiling since she doesn't know how to do so intentionally yet. Isn't she beautiful?!


Thanks for the stickers Grandma! We LOVED them!

Melody's Care Package

We sent a package to Melody's orphanage this week. We originally tried to send it via FedEx, but they don't service that local area of China. Fortunately, the United States Postal Service does! We included a letter that we had translated into Chinese (thank you Rachel!), a blanket and family photo album for Melody, disposable cameras, and chocolates for the staff. We are praying that it actually gets there, that Melody gets the gifts, and that the cameras will be used and returned to us. We have been so blessed by the photos from when we sent Julie a care package before her adoption. I hope we can give Melody the same blessing.

More Camping Fun

We got Julie a hula hoop at a nearby convenience store - it was a big hit! She loved watching me throw it and have it come back. When she wanted me to spin it around her she'd lift her arms and say "hula!"


Our last night at Turkey Run we moved into a room in the lodge. It was very nice to have air conditioning and a bed! Julie was thrilled to see the crib, even if it was made for much smaller children. She also loved the pool. She learned to put her face in the water...


all the while laughing about it with mommy.


She even figured out how to paddle forward with her face in the water!


She also learned to jump off the side, go under, and pop back up!



Next she figured out how to swim on her back. To turn back over, she would just flip onto her tummy then bring her face out of the water. It was so neat to watch!


She loved it when Daddy threw her up in the air.




Funny face!


Just plain fun.


We had a really great time on our trip. I think we're going to be camping a lot more in the future!