Overdue Update!

So much has happened and I have not updated the blog in ages!

We received our LOA's (approval letters) weeks ago. After receiving our LOA, we signed them and they were mailed back to our agency. Prior to our matches we applied to the US government to bring our children to the US, to have them become Americans. Our approvals were for fictional children since we were not matched yet. After we received our approvals we were required to send our LOA's back to the US government to add Ayla and Isaac, by name, to our approvals. We mailed that to the government 3/27, it was delivered 3/28, moved from immigration to the NBC (National Benefits Center) on 4/2 and our approval was issued 4/9! This seemed fast to me and I wasn't expecting this approval until next week! Good surprise. Are you confused about the process yet?? Following this set of approvals issued on 4/9 our files have been transferred again. Now they are at the NVC (National Visa Center). I am very hopeful that this step will be completed Tuesday of this week. The NVC will forward the files, completed, to the Embassy in China! There are a few more steps involved - emails to the NVC, requesting a PDF copy of the NVC approval, etc.

The important part....when will we travel?! The next step, which we hope to be completed Tuesday, will move us into a standard 14 day wait. Some forms are dropped off and then picked up 14 days later. Then we are waiting for our TA (travel approval)!! That is it people! People are receiving TA in 7 to 18 days. After that, we will be getting on a plane to Beijing! OMG! We are currently thinking we will leave at the end of May. As in NEXT month. OMG!

We have been putting things off until "later" for this entire adoption process. Past adoptions prevented us from jumping in, preparing, buying stuff.....well, it is now "later".

And then there was the Yard Sale Miracle! We had a HUGE yard sale and sold a BUNCH of stuff! Our friends and family are absolutely amazing. People donated, sorted, priced, packed, unpacked, arranged, sold and worked super hard on this sale. There is no way we could have done this without your help. We decided that we needed to start bringing items out of the house at 6 am and the shoppers showed up at 6:45 with flashlights. Yep, flashlights. Hard core yard sale people. The people came, they bought and they overwhelmed us. We didn't eat breakfast because there was no time. We were silly and thought there would be time. Skipped right to lunch! It took 3.5 hours to get everything out of the boxes and onto tables. Our neighbors were SO kind to let us use their yards and take over the street. It may take a year for our grass to recover but we are so glad we did it. It really was a huge blessing and we had no idea it would be so successful. Thank you to everyone who donated, helped and encouraged us. Ayla and Isaac are very loved.