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Travelling to the south will bring you unexpected happiness...my fortune

We went up to Portland to spend the afternoon with Emma. It has been too long! We picked her up at her weekend coffee job.We first stopped at a pumpkin patch that doesn't really grow pumpkins, they just pretend too; they scatter them about their lot. But, it wasn't open.

We then went shopping for stuff.

 Meggie found her homecoming dress. Eva got more material for her bags. Simon has a new lampshade for the lamp that will now go on his desk so his eyesight doesn't flounder.

We then went to eat at a delicious Chinese restaurant. We had been there with our friends who adopted their daughter at the same time we adopted Lydia. Ironically, they are also waiting for their child from China. Although, whereas, we can expect to wait 61-120 days(we are at 60 days today) before we get our Letter of Acceptance they are on the healthy, as young as possible track and, therefore they can expect to wait about 1090 days for their Letter of Acceptance.

We had a lovely dinner and evening which culminated with a walk along the river and through downtown back to Emma's apartment. It was great seeing Emma!

LeiLei and Log-In-Date

Received an e-mail from Tiffani, whose daughter is in the balloon picture with Yu Lei, letting us know ZhenZhen called the Social Welfare Institute yesterday and talked to her friends, including our Yu Lei. ZhenZhen calls him LeiLei. Tiffani said from what she could tell there wasn't too much to their conversation, but ZhenZhen said that Lei Lei kept saying - Ni Hao ZhenZhen, Ni Hao ZhenZhen. These updates are so amazing. Wish we had his voice recorded!

And, on another note, we finally have our LID(log-in-date). It is August 27. There are so many acronyms but just know this is a good one to have. Our paperwork is all logged in in China and we will get our LOA(letter of acceptance) soon. We then need to fill out one more I-800(Immigration requirement) and then we will receive our TA(travel acceptance) from the American Consulate in China. We then apply for VISA's and make our arrangements.

Lydia's Letter

Lydia is a fabulous seven year old writer. She is an incredibly sensitive and perceptive (mischievous and temperamental, too) child and this comes out in her writing. She is always writing and creating stories. Ahhh...managing her own day is a gift of home-schooling. This is her most recent writing. She's a treasure.
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Yu Lei Holding the green ball

Xinyu China

Click on the link above and get the newspaper article sent to me by Tiffani, ZhenZhen's(holding the yellow ball) mom. Amazing! Thank you Tiffani and ZhenZhen.

Sweet, sweet, sweet!

Xinyu China

Look at how sweet!

This was just last month.

Yu Lei update

I have been asking for a Yu Lei update and we got this information from our agency today:

I have received this update from Marsha, she received the information from Xinyu orphanage.

Yu Lei’s size: height 101cm, head 53cm, chest 57cm, feet-length 17cm. He is healthy, active and lovely. He gets up at 6:30am, goes to bed at 20:30, takes a nap 11:30-14:30. Eats very well, breakfasts at 7:00, lunch at 11:00, dinner at 17:00, he is not picky, likes to eat. He likes to sing and to dance, likes to do things with others.

Lydia's Passport arrived

Lydia's passport arrived without much ado. We had the girl's awesome Chinese teacher translate Lydia's Chinese adoption certificate into English. We then sent the original adoption certificate along with the translation and had the passport within the week.

Now if only we can get our Letter of Acceptance from the Chinese officials. It can take as short as 35 days to as long as 120 days plus. Since our agency has not been able to track our dossier with the Chinese liason, we don't know our exact log-in-date yet. I'm guessing September 1st, give or take some days. That puts us at around 42 days.