BIG TRAVEL NEWS (maybe)

We got BIG NEWS this week, but I have not posted it because I wanted to wait until it was for sure. I found out today that we will not know until Monday, so I might as well let everyone know what is going on. We got a call on Tuesday asking if we were ready to go to China soon and of course I said yes. Our adoption agency had a cancellation with a group that has known for a couple weeks as to when they will be traveling. Our tentative departure day is Wednesday March 18th, 12 days from today! We were super excited and the whole family was jumping up and down in our living room doing the "travel dance".

Then came the hurdles. The first one was getting our USCIS approval. We didn't get it Tuesday, we didn't get it Wednesday and I was getting really worried. I picked up our mail late Wednesday and there was a letter from USCIS with an additional form that had to be filled out before we could get our approval. I called the USCIS office and left a message, they were closed. To my surprise 30 minutes later I got a call back with with good news. If I would bring our form to the Federal Building downtown at 8am the next morning they would approve our application while I waited. And that is what I did. Jessica offered to come over and watch the kids for me and I went downtown and had a wonderful experience at the USCIS office - thank you Amy! We now have permission to bring Leah into the country. Yeah!

Now we are waiting for a confirmation that we can have the open Consulate Appointment March 30th. We didn't hear anything today. Our agency is very optimistic that it will work out but we cannot schedule our trip until we confirm the Consulate Appointment. So I guess we are still waiting.

Our visas for China came today so that is great news. I am hoping to be able to update our blog on Monday and tell you that we are going to China to get Leah March 18th. Stay tuned...