Another Newsless Day

So I spent the better part of the day cleaning out Fred's tank... what joy, what fun... and every break I took, I checked email to see if I heard from the agency. Nada... at the very least, I thought I would have heard something about the email I sent advising that we want to stay at the Victory instead of the White Swan! I know they don't like making alternate arrangements (which is fine, because honestly, I think I can handle that myself if they would let me) but I was really hoping today would be the day to get our CA... oh well... I'm not giving up hope! There is always tomorrow...

Hip Hip Hooray... we got TA's

Got an email tonite that TA's have finally arrived for our group. Except for the 2 people traveling to the new orphanage... they didn't get theirs yet... but the rest of us FINALLY did...
We still don't have a consulate appointment, so we still have no clue when we will be going... but they are saying we should travel between 8/29 and the middle of Sept. I'm still liking the end of August... but they said it would take between 3 and 10 days to get our consulate appointment.. we can't book flights until we know what that date is... we have to back track 2 weeks from that date for our flights.

It's Been a LONG day

Well, today the woman came to pick up the bird cage and perch... one less thing in the garage! YEAH! I then spent all day getting the guest room ready for Z's visit and working on packing for the trip... I have to get that room ready for Z to have easy access to paint!
Then we went to the Chinese Buffet for dinner... It was yummy as usual. The waiter was telling us how special it is that our daughter is from Changsha. He seemed so excited for us. It was really cool. He also wanted to be sure we knew that it was the birthplace of Mao Tse Tung... (sp?). He said it was the center of Chinese History. Everyone came over to congradulate us about the referral. Mom & Dad already showed all of them the pictures... they all said it was cute how excited they both are. Now it's almost 3am and I'm heading for bed.

Immigration Man...

So we got our passports back today with the China Visa stamps. The Fedex guy was less than thrilled apparently, that the package needed to be signed for... although he didn't stop his private conversation on his cell phone! How RUDE! oh well... we are one baby step closer to our daughter. At least now when we finally receive our TA's, we will be ALLOWED to go because we have our paperwork.

How Smart was Einstein

I recieved my order in the mail of the box set of Baby Einstein DVD's. I found it on Craigs List and even though I planned on putting them on our gift registry, I just couldn't resist the bargain. It was a sealed box set for $39. I had priced the individual DVD's and they were something like $15 each.. so this was a HUGE discount. I did register for a bunch of the B.E. CD's... so there is still something fun on there! :-)
No other real big news for today. Working more OT... the more I work now, the less I work after we come home! (I'm taking this as time off instead of pay... )

An Apple a Day

The pediatrician called this morning to say that they have prepared all the prescriptions for us to take to China. Hopefully we will have no need for any of it, but better safe than sorry. Two of the scripts are for powder forms of the meds so we only add water if we need to. Makes it easier to pack too...

Oh and our other Yippee news is that Rachel's Aunt Z will be coming to visit before we leave for China. She is going to relax by the pool and when it starts raining (as it does every day this time of year) she will be painting special things on the walls of the nursery. She is going to paint a sky and clouds on the ceiling (I've invisioned that forever) but I'm leaving the rest to her brilliant talents... Our main goal is to cut the PINK! I really love the color I painted the room, but it really is way more pink than I anticipated! so she will add some decorative things to make the pink less pink looking! LOL

And today I finally bought a camera! Chris at work will be thrilled to finally get his back, since he loaned it to me 3 long years ago (told me to keep it to take to China... didn't know then it would take this long!) I got a Canon G9, after one of the women on one of my adoption boards recommended it. It is really cool. It is a point and shoot, but you can actually add additional lenses to it! kind of the best of both worlds! a good point and shoot combined with a good DSLR. can't wait to play with it.

TA's Have Started...

Just not ours... well, not our agency, I should say... We are still waiting for our travel approvals. We also have to wait for the consulate to make our appointments, not to mention that we have not gotten our passports with the visas back from GW. So, we are still playing the waiting game. I really think we will be leaving around August 24th. That is my current prediction. So we probably won't be in China for Tommy's birthday, but we will almost definitely be there for our 9th wedding anniversary!

Let the photos begin

Got notification today that my care package arrived at the orphanage. No way of knowing for sure, but hopefully the cameras were still inside and the nannies will start taking lots and lots of pictures of my little dumpling... I sent 2 cameras as well as a list of question for them to answer... can't wait to see what we end up with when we finally go to pick her up!

Gotta Love Target

So went on another little shopping excursion yesterday... finally bought the crib mattress, some more cute little clothes, the baby monitors and a set of headphones for me to use on the plane with the laptop... Thank you Bart for letting me buy with your employee discount!! saved me $70 on my little trip!! :-) I figured I need to buy stuff that we would normally get at a shower, but since we are having our party after we get home, I know these are things I will need right away... save the shower for the toys and clothes, I guess! LOL... besides... I'm having WAY too much fun buying all these cute little girl clothes! from now on, I only buy 12 month size... I think I have enough 9 mos and I KNOW I have enough 6 months!

Visa or Mastercard

So I dropped off our Visa application at FEDEX today. It should arrive at Great Wall on Monday. Marla was going to drop off hers too, but the girl from the travel team at GW never called her back to answer her questions! looks like the travel dept is nowhere near as efficient as the referral team!!!
We still have not heard anything regarding our Travel Approval (TA). Once GW gets our TA, we will know when we are heading to pick up our little dumpling!!! This is going to be a miserable 6 weeks (roughly how long before we travel)