Morning Sickness

Kala was all excited that our third child would not cause any morning sickness. (or so she thought) Kala got sick during the landing and used the famouse puke bag located in the seat-back pocket. In her defense, the "landing" was more like a semi-controlled fall; but God has a sense of humor. The flight to that point was great. We got a little stiff, but it was better than I anticipated.

Upon arrival, we went through customs and met our guide outside of baggage claim. She had a van ready that took us and two other couples to our hotel. After we checked-in, she led us to McDonald's and Wu-Mart.

We bought some bottled water and snacks at Wu-Mart then back to the hotel. We ate dinner at a restaurant in the hotel-well, Kala ate. I took one bite and that was enough! The China diet begins. My part, try new stuff, and don't complain if I don't like it. We are here to have a wonderful time, and I am going to try and not be negative about anything-including food. :)

Now we are back in our room about to call it a night. After all, we have been awake for over 21 hours straight.

Rylan and Keelan, we love you and miss you very much. We are soooooo sorry that y'all are sick with the flu. Gramzie, we are sorry to leave you with sick kids.

The picture below is the view out of our hotel window.

And We're Off

Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and prayers! They are needed and felt. We are very fortunate to have the support of our friends and family.

The day started off early in Denver City and we ended up in San Francisco with stops along the way in Lubbock, Albuquerque, and Phoenix. After we got settled into our hotel, we looked for a restaurant on yelp. We found a seafood restaurant that we wanted to try in San Mateo. We took the 7 mile taxi ride to the restaurant, Kingfish. Their motto: "Eat like a king, Drink like a fish." Well, we did the first, and not the last. It was a great dinner. We followed the meal with a movie, "Taken" at the theatre behind the restaurant. The movie was pretty good too-a great way to celebrate Kala's birthday! Now we are back at the hotel to settle in for a good nights rest. (Yeah, right)

Please continue to pray for us and Maelin. We are just beside ourselves--this is really happening!!! :) When we get to Beijing, we will update ASAP. Until then, God bless.

Our Itinerary Is Set

Our life for the next two weeks:

March 11--Drive to Lubbock and get on a plane to San Francisco (a few connections along the way) Stay the night in San Francisco

March 12--Leave San Francisco on a 12 hour flight to Beijing

March 13--Arrive in Beijing, check-in to our hotel, do a little sight seeing

March 14--Tour The Great Wall, Forbidden City, and Tian An Men Square

March 15--Leave Beijing on a 2 hour flight to Hangzhou, check-in to our hotel, check out Maelin's hometown

March 16--Gotcha' Day!!! We get Maelin at about 10am, do some paperwork, and get to know her

March 17--Morning-shopping for Maelin Afternoon-Visit the Hangzhou Child Welfare Institute(orphanage)

March 18--Sightseeing tour to Xihu

March 19--Sightseeing tour to a local museum

March 20--Do INS form and get Maelin's passport

March 21--Fly to Guangzhou and check-in to our hotel

March 22--Sightseeing tour to Chen Family's Temple

March 23--Go take Maelin to get her official photo and get a medical exam

March 24--Give our documents to the American Consulate

March 25--Go to American Consulate for interview and get Maelin's visa later in the afternoon. Fly to Beijing in the evening. Stay the night in Beijing

March 26--Leave Beijing for San Francisco, arrive in San Francisco and change carriers to fly to Lubbock. Arrive in Lubbock at 9:40pm. Drive home from Lubbock!

March 27--Sleep in!!! Yeah right! Introduce Maelin to her new brother and sister!

Please keep up with us on our journey by visiting this blog daily. I will update with stories and pictures. We look forward to reading your comments. Please also remember us in your prayers!

Happy Birthday Kala!

Kala's birthday is March 12th. We leave for China to go get Maelin Brooke Parker on March 12th-happy birthday Kala!!! That's right, we finally have a date for travel. After over 2 years of waiting for our family to be completed, we will get to see it come to pass next month. We actually will fly out of Lubbock on March 11th to San Francisco. We will stay the night in San Francisco then get up the next morning and board a plane to Beijing. The flight will be just under 12 hours.

Temporary Itinerary

March 11--Lubbock to San Francisco
March 12--Leave San Francisco
March 13--Arrive in Beijing
March 14--Tour Beijing
March 15--Beijing to Hangzhou
March 16--GOTCHA DAY!!! (get Maelin)
March 17-20--Paperwork and touring Hangzhou
March 21--Hangzhou to Guangzhou
March 22-23--Tour Guangzhou
March 24--American Consulate Appointment
March 25--Back to the American Consulate to pick up passport with visa and to take oath
March 26--BRING MAELIN HOME TO HER FOREVER FAMILY!!!

Okay, now imagine packing for this trip and only getting to bring one bag each. ONE BAG-MAX 40LBS.!!! Maybe that wouldn't be a problem for most of you, but we are the type that travel with everything and the kitchen sink. One piece of advice we have gotten is get out everything you want to pack and only pack half of it. Pray for us!

Is there such a thing as good stress? I say yes! All of this preparation for travel is stressful to say the least; but in the end, we get Maelin.

In all seriousness, please start to (or continue to) pray. Here is the list of things I would like you to pray for:

1. Pray that Maelin will have a smooth transition from foster family to us
2. Pray that we will be able to take care of her diet while in China
3. Pray that the trip can be more about bonding-sightseeing than paperwork
4. Pray for safe travel
5. Pray that I stay awake driving home from Lubbock on the 26th!(our flight arrives in Lubbock at 9:40pm

Thank you in advance for your prayers. They are greatly appreciated! The next month and a half are going to be exhausting, emotional, fun, slow, fast, and most of all a blessing from God! Happy Birthday Kala!

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.