Good Stuff...

I've been down in the dumps for a few weeks and worrying about Tian and the wait, but I want to try and focus on the positive.

Here's some good stuff that happened over the last two weeks:

Tian got her care package! We sent a second one through www.BlessedKids.com Adele who runs it sends the packages from China and is able to track them, so we know it got there on the 18th! So Tian and the orphanage know she has a family coming. We sent a teddy bear, photos of our family, treats for the staff, disposable cameras for them to take photos of Tian's daily life, and a letter including some questions about her life and care which we hope they will respond to and bring when we pick her up.

We got our Brown Envelope from the US Consulate in China. This doesn't really mean anything, except that they have our paperwork and are ready for us to come. It just feels good to get mail from China, even though it has nothing directly to do with Tian personally.

Learned that if we don't travel in Sept. as we'd hoped that we may still be able to go in Oct. It's a tough month for travel due to a week-long national holiday and a big trade fair and usually our agency doesn't send groups. Because we are in the Waiting Child program and not a big group, we MAY have the option of going in Oct. I'm still hoping for Sept. though...

Our friend Marsha finally got her travel approval after waiting 147 days! (Yikes...we are on day 52 and I'm already nuts!) She is going early August and plans to visit the SWI and try to see Tian! Also, another friend Vicki is in China now and hopes to visit the SWI earlier in Aug.

We ordered our travel Visa's. The cost is doubling as of Aug. 1 and they are good for 6 months...so we decided to go ahead and try to get them. We'll see how it goes. We have a friend whose application was turned down without a specific travel itinerary.