Home Improvement- What could go wrong?

While we admit the timing of this project wasn't perfect (we hadn't been expecting a referral until May) everything had been going along quickly.....until now. Now that we are running out of time we have hit a couple of snags. Our new wood trim didn't match our existing wood trim so it had to go back to the paint shop for some additional color- which added a week to the process. But the biggie is that the paper they had taped to the floor to protect the hardwood pulled off a bunch of the finish off the floor. Now the floor has to be re-finished. That in and of itself would't be that big of a deal except that the flooring subcontractor is booked until the end of April and they want to start the job on April 30. It is a 4-5 day job and for at least 3 of those days we will have to kennel the pets and stay in a hotel as we won't be able to walk on the floor. We are thinking that we will be leaving for China at the end of that week. Not exactly a good time to be kicked out of your house- not to mention we would still have to clean up from the work. UGGGGH!!! I talked to our design coordinator and I think they are going to try to find another option. Despite all of this, the work is beautiful, the crews are easy to deal with and I would whole heartedly recommend them and use them again (you know, in 10 years when we finally recover form the stress of this). During our homestudy our social worker asked us how our marriage was, was it strong, do we have a lot of conflicts. We laughed and told her we had been remodelling for 10 weeks- of course we have alot of conflcts. Hopefully, our next post will have our confirmed travel dates...........

Travel Approvals???

We got an email from the agency telling us that they have been notified that our travel approvals are on their way via international mail. There is still a chance that ours is not included (rarely, the list the agency receives doesn't match the actual TA's sent) but it looks like by the beginning of next week our agency will have our TA in their hands and they can begin to work on getting our consulate appointment. They are thinking we will likely get a consulate appointment mid to late May so we will be leaving early to mid May. Whooo Hoooo!!!!!

More info from China!!

Along with everything else we have received this week, we have also received more info about D. As of March 5 she was able to roll over, sit up, pull to standing and climb on furniture. She is unable to stand or walk alone (although I suspect it won't be long till she is running after her brothers) She weighs about 17 pounds and is 27 inches tall- which puts her in the 10%tile for height and 5%tile for weight on the US growth charts. She had an ear infection at 6 months but recovered and her caregivers report she has infantile asthma "caused by cold". I am not sure what that means exactly but they also report it is a "calm period" so it sounds like it is not a big deal for her. She also interacts with caregivers well and cooperates with caregivers and other children. She has plenty of expression and action when playing.

We have our homestudy update this week and we are hoping our social worker gets our reports to USCIS QUICKLY as we can't get an appointment with the consulate unless we have current immigration approval. We are hoping our travel approvals don't come until after we get our new authorizations. It is frustrating that our hold up at this point is going to be related to our government.

Here are the rest of the updated photos

Happy Birthday

Today is D's first birthday so to celebrate I went out, got my hair done and engaged in some "retail therapy" Little did we know that Miss D was having a birthday party in China. The agency emailed us these photos of her with her birthday cake. That is one big cake for a little person. The pictures were a fabulous surprise!!

Back to China

We just got word that our LOA is on it's way back to the agency staff in China who will then hand deliver to the CCAA!!!! The agency thnks we will have travel approvals in 2-3 weeks (which doesn't really help answer when we might travel) but we are down to the last 3 big hurdles)

31 days!!!!

On Monday afternoon, I got an email from Fed EX that our agency had mailed something to us. I don't think I have ever dialed so fast calling the agency. I talked to the match coordinator and she confirmed that it was our Letter of Acceptance (LOA). We were not sure when it might come- we know people who have gotten theirs in 20 days and people who are still waiting after 150 days. Most people get them after about 80 days-so ours came pretty quickly. Fed Ex dropped it off at 8:45 on Tuesday morning. I opened it and took it to B's office for him to sign and by 3:00 it was signed and on it's way back to the agency. They will send it to China on Thursday or Friday but we are in the home stretch!!!! Once the CCAA has the LOA back, they will send our file to the travel department to get our travel approvals. Typically, TA's come within 3-5 weeks so we are thinking we will get it early to mid April. When we can actually go to China will depend on when our agency can get us an appointment at the US Consulate. There is a big trade fair in Guangzhou (where the consulate is) which curtails alot of adoption travel the last 2 weeks of April due to the lack of hotel rooms and their high cost during the fair. The trade fair also causes a bit of a bottle neck while more people than usual try to get the same number of consulate appointments. Our agency is telling us late May to late June for travel. I am hoping they are being pessimistic. If it wasn't for the possible probelms with the consulate- I would think we could easily be there by the middle of May at the latest. We also don't know if we will be traveling solo or with a group. In a perfect world we would like to go with a group, but it will just depend on the timing. Of course, if we go solo it will be easier to get a consulate appointment (cause they could squeeze us in between big groups- like how it's easier to get a table for 2 rather than a table for 10 when you go out to dinner) As always, time will tell

While you are here... (and an update-sort of)

Feel free to post comments while you are here. We are planning to archieve the blog and keep it for D as a keepsake of the weeks (months??) leading up to her arrival home.

The CCAA sent out referrals and many people got their LOA's included with the referral package- but not us. We really weren't expecting ours to come but...... We are hoping to get ours by the end of the month- but that is only a hope at this time.

Although we do have an update of sorts, the contractors have removd all the plastic so at least we aren't living in a bio dome anymore. Hopefully, we will be priming the walls this weekend and have them install the trim early next week. We are currently shopping for carpet. You know, looking at hundreds of little pieces of carpet that all look about the same and are all too small to tell if they will really look good in a room. It's the kind of fun most people can only dream about.