We'll Be Home for Christmas

It's been a long time since we've updated so here it goes. Yes, the title of this update is accurate, we won't be going to China to pick up Kassidy over the holidays. Our final travel approval has not come back. The new regulations have made the process slower so our paperwork has been stuck at the US Immigration Service and the US Consulate in Guangzhou. It was cleared through all of that at the beginning of the month and still is in Beijing waiting for the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) to give the final approval. We feel certain we will get that before Christmas which means we will be traveling in January. We are disappointed since we will not have her home for Christmas and because we missed her 6th birthday on December 8th. We sent her a birthday package but it definitely is not the same as being there.
We have been busy with Christmas activities these last few weeks. Attached are some pictures of parades, concerts, musicals, and parties we have been attending or taking part in. The picture of all the little girls in the group picture was from the FCC (Families with Chinese Children) Christmas party. That picture was like trying to herd cats. I doubt there is one picture of all of them.

Christmas in China?

We adopted pre-Hague in 2007 and now are adopting under Hague. We really did not see much difference until now, post LOA. The time and paperwork to get a TA is ridiculous. The time between our LOA in 2007 and TA was about 2 weeks. Now we have to send our I-800 and I-864 to USCIS before traveling. Well we send it to the Chicago lock box, then Mei sends a notice around saying that you now need to send it to a lock box in Lewisville, TX. Too late its on the way to Chicago. We thought that would be fine, it would be taken care of under some old process. We then find out that the process is to have someone at CIS take our paperwork and send it to the Hague office in Missouri. I was told that they do nothing to it at CIS, just send it to Missouri. Are you kidding me? Then I find out it takes 2 weeks to do that. It has been almost three weeks and I find out that it has not made it to Missouri. The call taker in Missouri said that they will send the paperwork from Chicago to Lewsville, TX and then send it to the Hague office in Missouri. She said it will take an extra week for that transfer. I believe they are still using pony express for shipping. After all of this gets completed Mei has to send the approved paperwork and our signed LOA to Guangzhou for the processing that usually got done while we were in Guangzhou. Mei says 2 to 3 weeks for that process. After that they send it to CCAA and they process our TA, then we travel. Looking at a calendar that puts us in China at….you guessed it…Christmas. Living in SC and knowing that our new daughter is in north China I guess we have a shot at a white Christmas.

The Difference Between Listening and Doing

While taking Kristy to pre-school Tuesday she just blurted out that she was going to listen to the teacher today. As a little background she did not do much of what her dance teacher asked her to do last Tuesday during dance class so we have been working on that all this week. So I repeated to her that she was going to listen to the dance teacher today. She said, "and in school too." I was curious to know if she knew the difference between listening and doing so I asked her if she is going to do what the dance teacher asked her. She came right back with, "I don't know about that."

LOA!!

After only 61 days (Kristy's took 78 days) we received our LOA! There is a bunch of new procedures (meaning paperwork) that has to be down before we get travel approval. Our best estimate is late November or early December. We went in July in 2007 last time. I believe we will be dressing different for northern China this time around. We will get to see Christmas decorations this time.

Day 60 of the LOA Wait

We are officially at day number 60 of our wait for our Letter of Acceptance (LOA) from China. We waited 78 days for Kristy's so I expect we will have a similar wait. If we don't hear anything this week we will not hear anything until October 12th at the earliest. Next week is a week long national holiday in China which means all government offices will be closed.