Getting Closer to a Travel Date

Ok - it's starting to get close. We got an e-mail from Emily at Barker Foundation today forwarding the following note from Tina (head of international adoption program at Barker) who is currently on travel in China:

"I have not received an email confirmation from the Consulate yet. I was able to get them to tell me verbally that the families were scheduled for August 13th. This means that the families will need to be in Nanchang on August 5th and they will be receiving their babies that afternoon. With this in mind, they could arrive in Beijing on August 2 or 3 to spend two or three nights in Beijing prior to flying down to Nanchang. On their way out, they can leave from Guangzhou on August 15.

Please tell the families not to purchase their tickets yet. I will let you know as soon as I receive a written confirmation from the consulate. Before they send out the email, they could still move people around."

On Monday of this week, we had received "travel approval" from China -- which enabled Barker to go ahead and request an appointment with the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China. Confused yet? So just to review the bidding, we first got our travel visas approved. Then we got travel approval. Now we've gotten verbal but not written approval from the US Consulate in China. Once we get written approval, Barker will finalize our itinerary and we will be able to book our airline tickets.

Assuming the US Consulate date holds, we'll likely depart Washington Dulles on Monday, July 30th and arrive in China the evening of Tuesday, July 31st. After a few days in Beijing getting adjusted to the 12 hour time difference and seeing a few sights, we'll likely depart for Nanchang on Saturday or Sunday, August 4th or 5th. We are scheduled to have Jennifer Rose in our arms on Sunday, August 5th. We were so psyched to get this news today. August 5th is so close!

We had several exciting phone calls once we got the news -- first I called Etu from work and R and I spoke with her via conference call; then Rachel spoke with Elaine and Scott; then we both spoke with Jim and Debbie. We're all looking at taking an ANA flight via Tokyo but will wait to confirm once we get our dates confirmed by Barker. Things are really starting to fall into place. We just want to go to the airport now!

Speaking of going to the airport, when we got home, there were 3 suitcases in front of our door. R had ordered them online and they just arrived. They seem big. But I'm sure we'll fill them up. Name a time we ever left for a trip and didn't have enough stuff to bring there or take home?! So we're going to just start packing -- in part because it gives us something constructive to do and also so we can be smart about packing rather than pulling one of those "I have no idea what I packed" situations.

More later....
J.