I just realized that I have been updating everyone on my travel plans by means of Facebook, but haven’t posted anything here for those of you who are not Facebook friends. We got our TA, we got our consulate appointment, and everything is completely set for us to leave. We have booked plane tickets, made hotel reservations, and have our whole schedule set.

We leave Cincinnati at 4:00 on Friday afternoon, and fly to L.A. From there, we will fly to Guangzhou, and then on to Jinan. Our plane is set to land in Jinan at 10:15 Sunday morning, which will be 10:15 Saturday night here in Cincinnati. We should get custody of Hallie on Monday morning, and sign the papers to complete her adoption on Tuesday. Then we have a few days of peace and quite while our contact, John works on getting Hallie’s birth certificate and passport. We should have those by Friday evening, so on Saturday the 17th, we will fly down to Guiyang. Then we should get Isabelle on Monday the 19th. Our last week will be in Guangzhou, working with the U.S. Consulate. We fly out of Guangzhou on Friday Aug. 30, and land home in the afternoon of Saturday the 31st.

We are so excited to be just over a week away from meeting Hallie for the first time, but we are also feeling nervous about being away from our other children for three weeks. We expect this to be particularly hard on Mikaela and Matthias.

Today was a big day for Mikaela, since it was her fourth birthday. She has been looking forward to this for weeks, and has insisted that she wanted cupcakes instead of cake. By yesterday afternoon, she was so excited about the cupcakes, that whenever anyone asked her a question about her birthday, she yelled, “CUPCAKES” without bothering to listen to the actual question. “Mikaela, how old will you be tomorrow?” “CUPCAKES!” Silly girl. 🙂 Most of the time, I don’t even think about the fact that she is adopted, but on days like her birthday, I always stop and think about what our life would be like without her. She is such a blessing and a treasure, and I can’t imagine how empty life would be if she weren’t a part of our family. I am so thankful that she is!