Our Forever Family Addition

Well we had some new family pictures made on Friday. They turned out great. Just thought we would share them with everyone. All are doing well, Lanie seems to be adjusting to becoming an Alabama girl. She is outgoing and takes to everyone very well. Bryant likes his sister most of the time. They get along just like a brother and sister should do.

Well we finally made it back from our trip. We had a safe trip and we got our Lanie home with us. All is going well and we are enjoying family time together. Her and Bryant are still feeling each other out, but are doing great. We would like to thank everyone for their prayers and thoughts while we were gone. We could not get on our Blog or Facebook while we were there, but did get to email some pictures while there. We still haven't caught up on sleep, but hopefully this week will do the trick. Our family is now complete.

We are waiting at the Huntsville airport for our first flight. Leaving Bryant was hard but we made it through it. We fly from here to Houston and then to LA before boarding our final plane to Guangzhou. Should arrive in Guangzhou about 5:30 PM on Saturday local time. It will be 6:30 AM Sunday morning in Guangzhou. Will try to post at other airports as time permits. Everyone wish us luck. We know God will be with us the whole way.

Well it is the night before we leave for China. Anxious and nervous about trip. Long flight from LA to Guangzhou. Almost packed, waiting for morning to finalize bags. Trying not to think about having to leave Bryant. Hopefully it will be a short two weeks. It will be a blessing to finally get our hands on our Lanie. I am sure she knows that mommy and daddy are coming to get her. She will be nervous at first but hopefully she will warm up to us soon. Got to get some sleep tonight if we can. Morning will be here soon.

Momma has been busy cleaning up Lanie's room in preparation of her coming home with us. We had to adjust her bed because she is 3 and does not need a crib. The room has been waiting on her for over 2 years now. We got it ready the same time as Bryant's room. Bryant likes to go in there from time to time to see sissy's room. He is excited as we are to hurry up and get his sissy back home to us. Only 6 more days until we leave for China. We hope we don't forget anything. We have all the necessary paperwork that we should need. We are almost to Lanie.

Well we started packing for our trip today. We got most of Lanie's stuff packed. We haven't gotten to our stuff yet. We hope we have enough medical supplies to take with us. Their is a list a mile long that we need to take. We have 12 days to finish our packing and get everything in order for the trip. It is almost here.

Well we have some things locked in. First we got our Embassy appointment set up for the 20th of August. Then we were able to lock in our flights. We depart Huntsville airport at 12:17 August 7th and arrive back in Huntsville on the 22nd of August. We had to push back our leaving date from the 31st of July because of scheduling flights and Embassy appointments. But that is okay, we leave 3 weeks from today. We were told Lanie will join us on Monday, August 10th. That will be her gotcha date.

We got word from our adoption agency yesterday that we were approved for travel. Michelle has to set up our embassy appointment and then we will know when we can return. It is usually the second week we are there. We have to get a passport and visa for Lanie. It won't be long now.

We got our visas back today from Washington. We are now ready to travel to China. All we need is our travel approval and we are off. We are still shooting for the end of the month. Hope it works out in our favor. Lanie will be in our arms soon. She looks like a happy healthy child. She just needs some spoiling. We can handle that.

We received some updated photos and information on Lanie today. They sent some pictures of her birthday and her updated measurements so we could buy her some clothes and shoes. She has really grown and is a beautiful girl, as you can see from her pictures. She does not seem to show any signs of ever having heart surgery. She is 36" tall and weighs about 28 1/2 pounds. She is just a normal little girl.

Well we sent our passports to a lady who specializes in getting visas for people. We sent them last Saturday, June 27th. We hope to get them back this week some time. We are still waiting for permission to travel. Hopefully we will get permission this week or next. We should still be on track to leave for China July 31st. More later.

Today we met Michelle at the Villa Hope office in Birmingham to sign the Letter of Confirmation. She will send it back to China on Monday. We also went over some final paperwork we needed before we travel. The way Michelle figured it, we hopefully will travel by July 31st. All we need now is permission from China to travel. We should get it in 2 or 3 weeks. We are almost there.

Finally we have our Letter of Confirmation. Michelle called today and told us the good news. We are travelling to Birmingham tomorrow to meet her and sign the letter. She will get it sent to China on Monday. Hopefully in a couple of weeks we will get our permission to travel. We are so excited that the end to our journey is near and we will soon have Lanie with us.

Well, today we had a company from China put together a care package for Lanie. This company specializes in this sort of thing. They are owned by a lady here in America and a lady in China, Kelly and Angela. They are called Ladybugs N Love. They do a wonderful service. It helps a far away family feel a little closer to their child. They do all the shopping and leg work and see that Lanie gets the package. They also offer cameras so they can take pictures of Lanie for us. Can't wait to get those. We will post those as soon as we get them. Still waiting on Letter of Confirmation. Hopefully it will be here soon.

Well we got an email from Michelle at Villa Hope that states we are PRE-APPROVED for our Lanie. They have moved our paper work to another room. The process continues. Our next step is waiting on a letter of Confirmation. When we receive it, we are to sign it and Michelle sends it back to China. Hopefully we will get the LOC in a week or so. After they receive our signed LOC the next step is waiting for approval to travel. So the process is moving along and we are one more step closer. We still feel we should travel around the August time frame. Hopefully!

Just wanted to post a few pictures of Lanie's room. It has been ready for her since March of 2007. So it has been waiting on her for some time now. We got her room ready at the same time as we did Bryant's room. We need to adjust the crib to a toddler's bed for her because she will be 3 years old when we finally get her. We hope she will like her room and be comfortable in it.

Well we finally completed our online courses from UAB. Another piece of the puzzle in place. They were very informative about what we should expect when we get our Lanie. She will be confused and not know who to trust. We just have to be patient, because the transition will take some time. We just have to be reassuring and support her in every way possible. It will be a long process, but we believe with God's help we will be able to help our Lanie see that she can trust us and that we love her. We will also have the help of our family and friends. Hopefully in a couple of weeks we will get our PRE-APPROVAL from China. Then maybe we will have a better idea of when we will travel. We are shooting for August. No matter when, it will be here before we know it. It has been a long journey but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.