Cabled!

We have been cabled!

What does this mean?  

Not a whole lot...but it puts us one step closer to Nola!

Being cabled basically means that our final approval from U.S. Immigration (I800) has been sent to China.

Next, our agency will send her Visa application, along with a few other papers (these make up Article 5) to their in-China rep.

She will hand carry them all into the Consulate in Guangzhou.  (Article 5 drop-off).

I'm not really sure what they do with them there, but I believe they begin processing Nola's Visa and Passport.

Exactly 2 weeks from the drop-off date, she will go back and pick them up. (Article 5 pick-up).

As soon as it's picked up, we begin the approximate 2-3 week wait for Travel Approval!! (TA)

So at this point, we are looking at getting TA late July or early August!

Not much longer, baby girl!!!!

Another Hurdle Cleared!

Today we received our I800 Approval!!

This is the final approval from U.S. Immigration giving us permission to bring Nola home!

This approval came fairly quickly (normally takes 2 1/2-3 weeks, we got ours in 10 days)

What's next?

Well...we wait, of course.

Because that is what we do in this process.

Hurry up, and wait.

We have a couple more quick steps to complete before we can travel,

but our agency is predicting our Travel Approval is going to come about a month sooner than we expected!

Woo Hoo!!!!

Crazy Kid

When we were are the Cornbelters game, Evan got very bored and started acting silly.

My boy is nothing BUT personality and loves to ham it up for anyone who will watch!

Here are a few videos I made of his silliness! 

What's up, lady?

Would you marry me, because I never had a girlfriend in years.

Sooo......can you be my girl?

Teach me how to do it

teach me, teach me how to do it

teach me how to do it

Typical 5 year old boy....

Oh, ooohhho...Mom needs deo, cuz she has B.O.

She's got deodorant, she's got farty armpits

She always wants to smell mine, but they're stinky.

Creepy, creepy, creepy

Do you wanna hear my beluga whale song?

OK, it goes like this............
Wanna hear my blue whale song?.........
Wanna hear my shark sound?................
(chomp, chomp, chomp)
What's up, lady?
See ya
Mom, I'm saying see ya.  That means good-bye!

The facial expressions CRACK ME UP!

Cornbelters

Last night we went to the Cornbelters game.

Evan's school had a reading program-for every week they read 70 minutes they earned a free ticket.

He met the goal for all 4 weeks, so we had 4 free tickets! 

(OK, so the free ones were for lawn seats, but we upgraded to box seats!)

Before the game they had all the Reading Program Kids parade on the field.

Evan decided he would rather play checkers on my phone than watch the game

By the middle of the 2nd inning, he was completely bored, so Tyson took him up to the play area.  

There was a bounce house, a rock climbing wall and "tractor pull".

 They found this "statue" guy!

"Corny" put on quite the show!

Tyson made a new friend!

Evan got the biggest kick out of Corny dancing to "Teach Me How To Dougie"

Then all night he kept singing "Teach Me How To Do It"!

  (ok, ignore this second video.  Blogger is having some sort of episode!)

After the game all the kids got to run the bases.  See my boy rounding third base? (maroon hoodie)  He started at the back of the line.  Looks like we may have another runner in the family!

Surprise!!!!

We FINALLY have.....

That's right!  After 93 days of waiting, we finally got our LOA!  

The kids and I were at the library, and as we were leaving I happened to check my email on my phone, and there was an email from our agency saying our LOA had been issued and it would arrive at the agency Friday.  

Let me just say, the library is NOT the place to get news like that!  :)

A few minutes later I got another email that said the LOA had just arrived at the agency, so it would be sent out and we would actually receive it Friday!

AAACCKKKKK!!!!

After stalking the FedEx guy all afternoon, he finally arrived about 3:00. 

The poor guy was just doing his job.

He had no idea I would make him kindly ask him to pose for a picture!

He was such a good sport about it (after he made sure all the bread from lunch was out of his teeth)!

Then I drove to Tyson's office, where we signed it, made copies and high tailed it over to FedEx to send it all back out, along with our I800 application. (With 4 minutes to spare before the last delivery!)

This is all the paperwork that went back to our agency

And this is all the paperwork that went to Immigration

Thankfully, we are finished with paperwork!  

SO thankful for this final approval from China!

90 Days

Today marks 90 days that we have been waiting for our LOA.

90 agonizing days.

2,160 hours.

7,776,000 seconds.

And personally, I am over it.  

I try to be positive and look at it as being 90 days closer to our daughter.

But it's hard to keep my chin up, and it's getting harder every day.

I know that what Nola is experiencing is worse than what we are, 

but that just makes the wait even harder.

Last Friday, a huge amount of LOAs arrived from China-

-around 30 of them to be exact.  

That number is almost unheard of!

But we were not one of them.

What made it so hard was that the majority of the people who got theirs

 have not been waiting as long as we have.

While I am genuinely happy for them, 

it's hard.

As my friend put it--it felt like a party we weren't invited to.

So here's where we stand as of Friday night (when I last spoke to my agency):

We are still "in review".

This part of the process normally takes about 2 weeks--today was 3 weeks for us.

Once we move out of review, our paperwork goes to the "matching room"--

this is where LOAs are issued.  Once we get to the matching room, it should *hopefully* move quickly.

So realistically--it could be anywhere from a few days to a few more weeks before we get it.

Ugh.

My favorite Chinese Proverb says "An invisible red thread connects people who are destined to meet.  The thread may stretch and tangle, but it will never break".

I ordered Red Thread bracelets for all of us, and we are wearing them in honor of Nola until we can bring her HOME!!!