Our Travel Blog

We are using a different site for our travel journal, so this is my last post here for the next couple weeks.

Our travel journal can be found here.

Happy reading, and please pray for this beautiful girl, our Lin Guo Chu, as her new life begins.

Last Day

Today is the last day we are a family of three. Our goal was to be mostly ready to go to China by today, so that we could just spend today enjoying Ruby. We went to the zoo...

As you can see, a great time was had by all. I think Ruby's favorite part of the day was seeing the baby giraffes, and then getting her own baby giraffe to take home. She named it "Ruby The Giraffe."

You can't see it in any of the pictures, unfortunately, but Ruby's T-shirt reads "Little Sis." I think Ruby's as ready as she can be. We've been talking every day about how she's going to stay with her grandparents while we're gone, all the things she's going to do. She's got a paper chain to mark the days we'll be gone and I know she'll be super-busy all the time, to keep her distracted. She told me she's excited to play with Grandma and Grandpa Dickerson's doll house and toy train, and she's excited to go to her cousin Brandon's baseball games. She also told me she thinks Grandma Linda is going to take her and her cousin to a water park. Hmmm, is that a hint?

Anyway, it will be awfully tough saying goodbye to her tomorrow but I'm going to try really hard to keep it together. I don't want her to see my tears because I want her to stay excited about these upcoming weeks, and not anxious. I know she'll be just fine.

Wish us luck!

Stress (and a Pic Fix)

The stress has begun. We intended to have so much more done around the house. I was supposed to have finished painting a small area of our basement that we're turning into a pantry. I haven't finished. The last step of the pantry project is to paint the floor. My parents are coming over today, with the intention that my dad will help paint said floor. But I haven't finished painting the walls or ceiling yet. And I needed to do a load of laundry before the floor gets painted, because this particular patch of floor, once wet with paint, will block the entrance to the laundry room.

The memory on our video camera is full and Dave needs to move all our videos onto our computer to clear space for our upcoming trip. My husband can do just about anything involving computers, but he is having trouble accomplishing this. He greeted me this morning with that gutteral throat-sound you make when you're frustrated. How do you spell that? You know the one, it's usually accompanied by throwing your hands in the air... It's not really a Grrrrr. It's not a Blech. It's more like... Gchoah! ... Hmmm, did I get it? Anyone else have any ideas on how to spell that sound?

Anyway, here's a pic fix of our dear Ruby, aka Sweet Pea, Daddy's Spicy Pickle, and Baby Godzilla. In the following shots she's doing what she does best -- looking for, and spotting, Fresca's "deposits" in the back yard:

Triumph.

And then there's this picture. She is wearing a leotard, her play-ballet slippers, socks on her hands, and she's sweeping the patio.

Don't ask me, I just live here...

1 Week Away!

We got our official itinerary on Monday! Here are the details:

June 3 -- Arive in Shanghai 7:20 pm; stay at the Yue Shanghai Hotel

June 4 -- Free day

June 5 -- Visit People's Square, Nanjing Walking Street and Shanghai Museum

June 6 -- Visit Xin Tian Di and Pudong Riverside

June 7 -- GOTCHA DAY at the Shanghai CWI!!!!

June 8 -- Adoption registration and notarization

June 9 -- Visit Oriental Pearl Tower and Huangpu River Cruise

June 10 -- Visit Old Shanghai and the Bund

June 11 -- Fly to Guangzhou; stay at White Swan Hotel

June 12 -- Medical exam

June 13 -- Visit Guangzhou Folk Art Museum and Yuexiu Park

June 14 -- Visa appointment

June 15 -- Consulate appointment

June 16 -- Fly back to Shanghai; stay at airport hotel

June 17 -- Fly to Tokyo, then Detroit, where a welcoming party of family will greet us and drive us home to Kalamazoo!!

We are officially ready to go now. We have our Travel Invitation from China, plane tickets, and the cash we need for the various fees and travel expenses in China. We are set!

I'd appreciate some prayers and positive thoughts sent my way, as I am still dealing with pneumonia. I need to get HEALTHY!!!

Ah, Ruby's up from her nap... Gotta go...

My Husband is a Shop-A-Holic!

In the last few days since my last post, in which I was wondering what kinds of "fun stuff" we should have here in the house for Lin, my husband has spent a small fortune. We are now the proud owners of so much fun stuff! Puzzles, games, a bracelet-making kit, more games... The list goes on. And it's amazing how Ruby always manages to come home from the store with something new for herself, too! The other day she was demonstrating how to use her new Dora The Explorer boogie-board on the living room carpet...

I wish I could have snapped a picture of that, but my girl tends to be camera-shy. That will have to improve rapidly if I'm going to keep you all interested in this blog!

Unfortunately I've had to skip the shopping trips this week. I've come down with pneumonia! The timing of this could certainly be better, as we have so much to do to get ready, but every time I start to feel self-pity I remind myself that the timing could also be considerably worse! Imagine if I'd gotten sick the day before we were to leave?! Now that would be truly awful.

So, I'm following doctor's orders and not doing much of anything. I'm really sad because I will miss taking Ruby to her gymnastics class tonight, and I will also miss my Book Club night. But the fact that I can do little more than smile without coughing is a good indication that my body needs rest. The Doc says I should be feeling better in a couple days, so I'm NOT canceling any of my weekend plans yet!

Getting Ready

Only 10 more work days left until we're off to China! As it happens, a co-worker of mine has a baby due later in June, so he's planning on taking some time off while I'm also gone. We were talking today about how to go about scheduling the fill-ins and I was thinking and thinking... Finally I realized, hey, I'll be out of the country when that happens... That's YOUR problem!!

Ah, giving responsiblilty to others with no guilt. Priceless.

In the meantime, we're getting things ready around here. This weekend I washed all the windows inside and out, we repaired and installed our screen doors for the summer season, and I did some yard work that I've been putting off. You may be asking, what do any of those things have to do with adopting a child? Well, I guess we're fully into what you would call Nesting. I mean, I don't want Lin coming home to an unkempt house now, do I? Let her see how we REALLY live later...

We also realized to our horror last night that we have nothing fun here for Lin when she gets home. All this time we've been stuck on the fact that she's at an in-between age and we don't really know what kinds of things she's going to be into. So we haven't really bought her many things with the idea that it will be fun to shop with her. But for goodness sake, we've got to have something fun for her to come home to! She's got to have some toys in the corner of her room to get excited about!

Any ideas for what to buy a 12-year-old girl? So far on our list are some games and Legos. Maybe Barbie stuff? I look at other American 12-year-olds and all I see are cell phones and iPods, and I don't want to go down that road yet... No way! Seriously, if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to leave me a comment!

I'm off to take a nap. My blessed afternoon naps are coming to an end, I fear, so I've got to take full advantage of this time for the next two weeks!

ONLY TWO WEEKS AWAY!!!

I'm Leaving ... On A Jet Plane...

TA!!!!!!!!!!

More details tomorrow, but we are hoping to leave June 2nd -- just 3 weeks away!!!!

We're coming for you Lin!!!!!