Travel dates Sets

We have made our travels. We go from Tampa to Newark then direct to HGK. We arrive midday the next day. We're to stay there until the 18th when we meet our group in the airport and travel to Kunming, the capital of the province of Hunnan. Maybe we will meet our daughter then which is Farther's day.

We stay there a week to complete the adoption. Then it's off to Guangxou and the embassy where we have a June 27th appoinment and have to wait for our visa. We return to Hong Kong by train.

We visited Hong Kong in 83 and will be happy to see that city again. ..Take the Star ferry

So exiciting a day

Travel Approval

Today was another exciting day. We received our travel approval to go to China. We were caught off guard at how quickly this happened. In fact we were on the telephone with Dr. Dumois, a special doctor who reviews medical records for international referrals, when we got the news. Pam was so excited that she started to hyperventilate. We had to spend much of the rest of the day putting together our application for a visa to China. That involved getting photos, money orders and solving the Fed-Ex puzzle. Along the way we heard many stories, sometimes frightening , of others who had adopted from China. Seems like everyone here knows someone who has done this.

The whole time a bright glow inside us moved us forward. Just three more weeks until we travel.

We are one step close to holding our LiLi.

Referral Day

After a long journey on April 28, 2006 we received our referral. Here she is. The name the orphanage gave her was Dang Fu Run. We think she is the first girl to be referred from Baoshan City Yunnan Province. We tentatively named her Lili. The next day we went to Oaxaca, Mexico. This trip was previously planned to distract us from the anxiety of waiting and possible disappointment should we have to wait another month. In restaurants Pam will go to "powder her nose" and the food will come while she is gone. When I made the plans for the trip we both knew this was our way of making the baby come.. It worked.

On November 27, 2004 after spending a week-end with our cousins and their children we were feeling a bit low because here we were 51 years old and had no children of our own . That morning we listened to Scott Simon tell a story about his daughter http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4189029 .He had adopted a child from China and he was older than we were!! It occurred to us that we could do this. That night I researched the web to find adoption agencies and information. It was exciting..Was it real? The next day we told our friends Charlie and Marijke . They were the first to congratulate us. It seemed real.