Thursday in flight From Andy

October 18th (Somewhere over Canada)
Andy here.. We’re on a 747 and just finished dinner. Everyone is doing fine and it hasn’t gotten to the boredom stage yet. Since we’re heading for Tokyo, there are a lot of Japanese folks on board. Everyone is very nice and polite and smiling at Taylor. She just finished watching a movie (thanks Pa!) and now is playing with her Leapster (Dora the Explorer). Taylor is being very, very good and her only complaint so far is that it’s taking too long to get to her sister! This little creature is a "grazer".. She hasn’t stopped eating since we left the driveway this morning! :) Right now, she’s listening to iTunes of her favorite Disney Princess songs.
Everything is still kinda surreal. It feels like we’re going on a normal vacation rather than heading to China to get Taylor’s mei mei. It won’t hit me until I hold Tess in my arms and concentrate on keeping her from going ballistic. That is my only anxiety... trying to figure out how to minimize the trauma that this little 2.5 year old is going to go through in the next few days. We are hoping it will be a fairly "soft landing" :)
Right now, we’re working on some sort of sleep schedule.It’s about 6:45 PM EDT but 12 hours (AM) later in China. We know that whatever we try won’t work totally, but anything is better than waiting for the "zombie" stage to hit.
Not much more to say... I’m going to try and talk Sharon into playing a few games of cribbage and then walk around the plane a few hundred times. :)
Will post a few pics of the plane ride once we get on the ground and get some sleep.
Andy

Today we're on our way, Thursday Oct 18th

This is Taylor cutting off the final ring! That means we leave today!

We're all sitting at the airport! Thank you Kathy for the ride up, unfortunately we forgot to take Corky out of the back seat (Corky is Taylor's Zebra). Guess this means that Taylor will have to pick out a new stuffed animal in China and fortunatly Taylor hasn't asked for it yet.

We're scheduled to depart at 12:05 and arrive in Guangzhou at 11:00pm on Friday (total time including to/from the airports will be about 27 hours.

We'll try to write often and include pictures when we can.

We love you all and appreciate all the support we've gotten while we were waiting for Teresa's referral.

The schedule is that we'll be getting Teresa on Monday morning (Sunday night back home) so by Monday afternoon we'll be sure to post some pictures of our Gotcha Moment!

Wednesday, Oct 17th... the night before

Well, we thought we'd be bored home alone so we had some company to share in our last night - Andy's son Tim and daughter Jennie helped to send us off as well as our good friends Kathy, Erik and Katie! Taylor thanks you again for the fun toys, between that and the goodie bag from the Morse's and Pa's DVD Player, Taylor should have plenty of activities to keep her busy on the airplanes tomorrow, and if not we'll make her sit next to Uncle Dougie for a while :)

Here's Jennie and Taylor's first picture together, Jennie lives in Canada so doesn't get to visit often.

Donation Thank You!

We would like to express our thanks and gratitude to everyone that donated money towards the washing machine and air conditioner that we will be purchasing with the Offer Family from California who's daughter is in the same orphanage as Teresa.

Thank you to: Todd, Gina and Anna Wilson (Anna is also from Hengshan, China), the Livie Family, the Reeves Family, Nana & Pa, Freedom Cad employees, the Frank Family and special thanks to Uncle Lou & Aunt Lauren for everything.

Travel Dates Confirmed!

We're off to China on the 18th of October traveling through Manchester, Detroit, Tokyo and Guangzhou before we meet Teresa on the 22nd in Changsha!
We are counting the days by having Taylor cut off a red link in a construction paper chain we created and when she wakes up on the 18th there is a GOLD LINK which signifies our day of Travel. For anyone with youngin's this is working GREAT so Taylor doesn't ask us each day if we're leaving today. (Thanks for the idea Jim).
There are a total of 5 families traveling to China during that time with Wide Horizon's for Children, and from what we can tell only Teresa and one other beauty are from Changsa. We'll hopefully have an uneventful journey and will keep everyone up to date.
Comments posted to bog sites are not visible in China so if you want to get in touch with us I'll be checking my personal e-mail account which is myfirstnameourlastname@yahoo.com
So if you know us you can reach us!
TTFN (Ta Ta for Now) and check us out again on the 19th for an update~

Travel meeting and Donation Request

We finally have the date of the travel meeting. Its going to be on Friday 10/5, we're expecting to travel mid-late October though they are trying to move as quickly as possible. We've been fortunate and have found a wonderful liason and have rec'd additional information about Teresa's personality, weight and height as well as more information about the Hengshan SWI (Social Welfare Institute). Through the relationship with Ann (our liason), we've learned that the orphanage is in need of a washer and air conditioner, which we and another family have agreed to donate. If you would like to help with the donation please send us your donation as soon as possoble. We have already rec'd some and will make sure to include as much as we can about the donations we rec'd and when we purchase these large items in China!
We're excited and Taylor asks every day if we're leaving to go get her sister tomorrow. She is very anxious to get her home too!
Love to all!

TA's are HERE, TA's are HERE

We just got the call that our Travel Authorization (TA) has arrived and WHFC is scheduling our Consulate Appointment. We're hoping to travel mid to late October (the sooner the better!)

We'll know more next week after our agency has some time to work on the arrangements.

Since people have asked, we'll let you know that all three of us will be traveling with my Brother Douglas! I don't even know if he knows yet as he wasn't home from work when I called. Sadly Samantha (our niece) who was scheduled to come with us will not be able to take the time off from college but we will miss her and think of her during the whole trip!

The next step is the travel meeting and then travel. We'll update the site as soon as we have more information.

Here's hoping for quick travel so we can put a smile on this beautiful little girls face and love into her heart!