The Adventure Begins!

It is officially midnight and we are packed up and ready to roll out of here at 7 am tomm morning! It has been interesting trying to cram 2 weeks worth of things into duffles-you never know what they may or may not have in the areas we are traveling too. We are packing light but must bring all that our new baby Belle will need for 2 weeks. From what we understand-when they hand her over to us on Sunday, July 3-our Gotcha Day (very ironic with our independence Day!)-all she comes with is what she has on. We are bringing clothes, small toys, pediasure, baby food, cheerios in hopes that she will take to something! We know this will all be foreign to her. We do not have any recent measurements on her so we do not know if she is in 6 month clothes are 12 month clothes. We think she is still rather small-maybe 16 pounds at 16 months. We are anxious to see if she can sit up or crawl and if she has any teeth or hair. We have no recent photos so we are so excited to hold her and get to know her little features. We will meet our friend Belle at the airport tomm am and travel together from Nashville to Chicago to Beijing. The flight is about 14 hours! We hope the Ambien will kick in! We arrive in Beijing Friday at 3:15 pm and head to the hotel for one night. I am hoping if we are not too exhausted from the trip over that we can take a short visit to the Great Wall. We depart out Sat. morning for her province in Gansu. We take China Air and then a 3-4 hour van ride. We sure hope our guides will find us! It is fascinating to google Gansu. It is close to Mongolia. From what we understand-she is in a rural area. We get the rare opportunity to see her orphanage on Saturday-that was a huge answer to prayer for me. Then-on Sunday is our official day that we actually get to take her with us. We are hopeful that we can ask the nanny some questions about her through a translator. We are working on a list of questions because we know we will forget in the middle of all the emotions. We have NO IDEA what this holds as it is unique for each family. There are 4 other families traveling from America World but none are going to this area of China. My sweet friend Belle will hopefully catch some of those moments on film and we hope we can download and share. Many places you are not allowed to photo within the country but we hope we are allowed to take some photos at the orphanage that day. Two things about the day were highlights for me..One-I got a letter in the mail today from each of our sons at camp and they seem great! Two-both sets of our parents prayed with us tonight and we feel so thankful that we have 4 grandparents on board and praying-such a gift! We are grateful also that Tim's company has been very understanding and allowing him to go for the full time. If only one parent travels-it makes it much more difficult to get all the documentation legal when you return home. Tim is such a great traveling companion and helpful.
Our main prayer request for tomm. are safe travels for us and that God will be preparing our child's heart to embrace us and attach to us. We are really hoping for a smooth transition but need to be prepared for either way. She will be leaving the Qingyang Social Institute and that is the only she has ever known since her abandonement at 2 months old. We want you to know we feel your support! Night! Hoping for a few hours of shut eye tonight! Carissa