Baby Girl Here We Come!

"A journey  of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Confucius

And.....we're....off!!!  In a few days anyway.   I have congee made and in the freezer, a lot of  "fast foods" will be waiting when we get home as jet lag is REAL, exhaustingly real.  Emma is excited about it though - hee - she keeps talking about us being up in the middle of the night playing games on the bedroom floor (which is what we did with her).  I have a feeling she might not be so excited  about how tired she will feel when the time comes. 

So much organizing, packing and cleaning of the house, getting everything ready for our return.   Prayers so appreciated and please post here on the blog and let us know you are thinking of us!
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3/21  Leave U.S. for San Francisco/Beijing early morning (after spending the night in a Denver hotel near the airport).

3/22  Arrive in Beijing late afternoon - we are staying at a wonderful-looking hotel!  16 hours in the air from Denver to Beijing approximately.

3/23  Beijing Zoo to see the giant pandas with Emma!! Tour Beijing. We are leaving one day earlier than our agency scheduled, so we can rest up and spend a very leisurely day at the zoo - jet lag is not as severe going to a later time as it will be on return to Colorado.  Beijing is about 13 hours ahead of mountain time.

3/24  Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Hutong Tour, and optional acrobatics show (tours offered by our agency and we will take part in every one of them you can bet - you don't get to China often!)

3/25  Great Wall (tour through our agency)

3/26  Depart Beijing for Zhengzhou (capital city of Henan Province where our sweet girl is!)

3/27 GOTCHA DAY!!!! They will bring the children from many different orphanages to all the waiting parents - in a central location in Zhengzhou. March 27, 2008 is the very day we saw Emma's face for the first time on the computer and we will see Noelle's face for the first time in person!! How special is that? - how humbled I am by God's obvious plan for these girls to be together and to be our daughters. This will be Noelle's first night with her new family.

3/28   Registration office to fill out adoption papers. Once we do, we are legally Noelle's mama and dada!

3/29  Free day. Optional tours will be available but I have a feeling we will want to lay low with Noelle in the hotel room.

3/30  Free time or rest. Optional tours may be available through our agency. We will receive our notarized documents to take to Guangzhou to the U.S. Consulate.

3/31  Receive "Noey's" passport. What I am already calling her - poor child! ;D  Leave Zhengzhou for Guangzhou on China Southern flight.

4/1  Take bus to Shamian Island to get Noelle's visa physical and photo taken. Seems like yesterday we were doing that with Emma!!!

Meet with representatives to prepare paperwork for the Consulate appointment. (I am already nervous about this!!!) I hope we will be prepared and have all the correct paperwork filled out. There is SO much red tape associated with international adoptions you have no idea!

4/2  Today is our Consulate appointment. - Yikes - prayers appreciated!

4/3  We will receive Noelle's visa packet through our in-country representative and will then pack and take the train to Hong Kong in the evening which we are all looking forward to, especially Emma (the train that is, we won't see much of Hong Kong but at this point I know we won't care - we will just want to go home)! Only about 2-3 hour train trip. We will stay in a hotel near the airport - just as we did in Denver!
 
4/4  WE WILL DEPART HONG KONG LATE MORNING FOR A DIRECT FLIGHT BACK TO SAN FRANCISCO (OPEN YOUR GOLDEN GATES!!!) - I am getting teary as I type this. Again, seems like yesterday when we stepped onto U.S. soil in S.F. Airport with Emma in our arms and she became a Vietnamese-American citizen!!! Noelle will instantly become a Chinese-American citizen. :D

IT WILL BE SO GREAT TO BE HOME!!! THERE IS SOMETHING VERY UNNERVING ABOUT BEING HALFWAY AROUND THE GLOBE.