Happy New Year!

Dates to Remember

As of Wednesday December 16
-Ethan is 13 months old
-11 weeks (77 days) since RA!
-6 weeks 1 day (43 days) since I-800 Approval
-3 weeks 6 days (27 days) since I800 cable notice
-3 weeks (21 days) since Article 5
-TA!
Wednesday September 30th
-13 weeks 5 days (96 days) since DTC
-12 weeks 1 days (85 days) since Referral
-11weeks 6 days (83 days) since LID
-10 weeks 5 days(75 days) since PA

Merry Christmas!

Travel Confirmed

Our consulate appointment is Jan 25. Gotcha Day will be Jan 18. Our travel dates are Jan 14-28.  We are booking our flights today.

We would LOVE for everyone to meet us at the airport when we get home.  Or if you want to meet at our house that would be great too.  I will be needing to see familiar faces.

Once we know flights I'll post them.

3 more weeks!  It will get here fast!

4 weeks!

In four weeks, we should be on the flight to Beijing. Our agency said that they are calling for our consulate appointment and it looks like we'll be leaving on Jan 14th and coming home Jan 28 or 29. So in 4 weeks we'll be leaving. I had hoped for 3, but 4 is good. We know that in 1 month, Ethan will be placed in our arms, FOREVER! Gotcha Day should be January 18. He will turn 15 months old that day.

When we heard that it will be 4 weeks now instead of 3 when we will travel, we did think about asking if we could leave next week. But then we remembered why we had peace about leaving in January. And we still do have peace. Leaving a week later than planned gives us another week to get ready. We'll have 10 days after school gets back. We will be able to enjoy the holidays without worrying about packing and getting ready to leave. It will all work out perfectly.

I'm praying that we'll be there the same time as Ethan's little buddy Max's family. They are waiting for TA. They should get it in about 2 weeks or so. It's very possible we could be meeting our boys on the same day. That would be awesome. For friends to meet their forever families on the same day.

I'm also praying that another friend, who I've never met personally, will be traveling with us. We "met" through our agency 6 years ago, when we were paperchasing Abby. We've chatted on and off the past 6 years. But reconnected about 6 months ago, when I saw her posting again on our agency's yahoo group. She is also adopting a little boy. And she also received TA yesterday. They are praying about if they should leave next week. I selfishly and praying they leave with us in Jan. :-)

So now that we know tentatively our travel dates, we can start to plan. We are trying to get the girls taken care of. We have plenty of friends who have offered to take care of them. Our dogs will be taken care of by another sweet friend. We just need to make the final arrangements for everyone.

Now I get to enjoy Christmas and not worry about paperwork. I love this feeling.

Soon....we'll be in China! I'm so excited.

TA!

We're going to China! We just got the call. TRAVEL APPROVAL! We are so excited.

Tentative travel dates are Jan 7th OR Jan 14th. Keep checking the blog for the dates. We should know in the next few days.

Be sure to follow us on our travel website. www.ethanwilliam.com

Less than a month and we'll have a son! Praising God!

Love,
Debbie

GREAT NEWS!

Our agency emailed this afternoon. Good news! Our Article 5 was issued TWO WEEKS AGO! They just found out. This means we are 2 weeks into the wait for our travel approval. Average wait for TA is 2-4 weeks.

So Bill & I have been talking (and we need to do more praying). It is possible for TA to come by next Wed. If it does, do we leave on Dec 26th? Or do we just wait and leave on Jan 7th. We don't know what to do. I hope we'll hear an answer from God soon.

So now I'm anxious about travel. We could be leaving in 2 weeks. Oh my!