Well, More Waiting :-(

I received an email from our agency this morning stating that they did NOT get our travel announcement in the mail today. That means that the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) did not get it done before the national holiday for the Chinese New Year. All of this means that we won't even have a chance of getting our travel announcement until at least February 5th. Our agency is currently trying to schedule travel 3 weeks after receiving the travel announcement, so the earliest we could travel is now February 26th. More than likely though, we won't travel until sometime in March due to guide availability.

Pros:

1. Our house will be closer to completion
2. The weather will be a little warmer in China by then

Cons:

1. WE HAVE TO WAIT EVEN LONGER TO GET OUR MAEMAE!

It ultimately boils down to God's plan and timing. We are so blessed to serve a God who looks out for our best interests in all situations! So, we will continue to seek His will and pray for patience while He irons out the details.

The Past Week

The first thing we did last week was sign our referral and overnight it back to our agency so they could send it back to China. Once that was done, Kala started working with an online company who takes care of care packages for your child. We sent her a pillow with a picture of our family on it, a teddy bear, some fruit, and other kid stuff. That company offers other services that we ordered as well. They have a list of 12 pre-made questions that they can send to your child's orphanage/foster home for the caregiver to answer, and they get the answers, translate them to English, and send them to us. We also sent a disposable camera to her foster home for the caregiver to take pictures of Maelin, her home, and other things Maelin enjoys.

We have also been questioning members of our yahoo group who have already returned with their children. We have learned all kinds of valuable information like: Take small plastic boxes filled with snacks and drinks for the trip. Once the boxes are empty, fill them with your purchases from the trip. Don't play peek-a-boo with your new child because "boo" in Chinese means NO! They have given us tips on where to get our laundry done while over there, where the best and cheapest places are to eat, and where to shop. The group is really beneficial, and we are blessed to have them to answer questions for us!

I am sorry if this post is all over the place; I am trying to get it done quickly! I'll update when we know more.

Also, quite a while ago we were questioning Keelan about what she was going to call Maelin. She calls Rylan bubba, so we asked if she was going to call Maelin sissy. She responded, "No, I am going to call her Mae-Mae!" Well, we found out this last week that Mei-Mei in Chinese pronounced (may-may) means little sister! Doesn't God have a sense of humor. It is awesome to see God's hand in all aspects of this adoption!

It's official, she is ours!!!!

The year started off better than we could have imagined. We got the call from our adoption agency saying that they have our LSC a.k.a. referral. We should travel in late February or early March to go get her. We are so excited! We are in Kermit right now and don't have any of her photos with us, so I will post pictures of her when we get home.