Travel Schedule

Okay the schedule is set. The tickets have been purchased and the reservation made. We are ready to go. Now we just have to wait.
Townsend's room is finished and now we are just waiting on a lamp for the side table,  a picture to be hung, and for my mother to finish his duvet for the bed. The packing has begun and is slowly coming together. Every time we think of something we should take we put it in our suitcase. This means we will need to repack but that is okay. All of Townsend's stuff is packed and we have picked out some toys to take for him. We have a beach ball, a coloring book,  bubbles, a couple of books, stuffed monkey (Scottie is taking her pink stuffed monkey we brought for her in China) and a Captain America action figure to play with Scottie's mermaids, Cinderella, and Elsa.

January 4th - leaving for Portland

January 8th - leave for China

January 9th - arrive in Beijing

January 10th - touring  Mutianyu portion of the Great Wall

January 12th - morning fly to Jinan

                     - afternoon Townsend will arrive at our hotel

January 13th - finalizing the adoption on the china side

January 17th - fly to Guangzhou

January 18th - medical

January 21st - consulate appointment (oath  ceremony)

January 23rd - leaving Guangzhou for Seattle via Seoul

January 24th- arriving in Juneau

We have Travel Approval!

TA!!!!!!!
After 20 days of waiting our Travel Approval finally came. Our agency has submitted our requests for consulate appointments so we should know by tomorrow or Wednesday. At that point we will be able to purchase our plane tickets. We are still hoping that we will be arriving to China on the 10th of January, but we will have to waiting to see.  The plan is that Fred, Scottie and I will be traveling to China to get Townsend and Zane and Quade are staying home with Grandma Sherry. She is so sweet to be flying up to hang with the big boys. Being in high school, it makes it very difficult for them to miss school and we will be gone for 2 weeks. They got to go last time so they have had the opportunity to go to China at least once. Someday we will go back to China for a heritage tour and we will all go. It is going to be hard to be away from them for so long and I know there are going to be things I am going to want to share with them, but we will take lots of pictures and Skype with them regularly.  Okay come on consulate appointments!

Scottie's 8th Birthday

Yesterday was Scottie's 8th birthday. We had an action packed day filled with a small birthday celebration at school, that Dayna and I were able to participate in and then we went to Scottie's favorite restaurant, the dragon inn. When we made it back home we had cake and presents. It was a good day, although somewhat taxing on Scottie as she was asked a lot of questions about China at her celebration at school. Talk about China more often than not makes her uncomfortable. She is getting much better dealing with her emotions and thoughts of China.  

It was fitting that we recived our Article 5 yesterday.  Icing on the cake.  

Waiting for our Article 5

We are now on the last step of the pre-immigration process which means we are waiting on our Article 5. These generally take about 2 weeks so we are hoping ours will be picked up next week some time. Once we have Article 5 China will issue our TA (travel approval). With Scottie, TA took only 7 days so maybe we will be that lucky this time. We are still hoping to travel with the January 3rd group but we wouldn't mind getting our travel approval as soon as possible so that we can buy plain tickets. Our China visas arrived back to us yesterday. We had to send Scottie's China passport in with her US passport so that the Chinese Embassy could cancel her China passport and put the visa into her US passport. We moved Zane down stairs this weekend so that we can get started on Townsend's room, formerly Zane's room. Now Zane and Quade both live down stairs with the boy cave. The boy cave now has a fresh coat of paint and hopefully a more functional layout. By Thanksgiving weekend we hope to be painting Townsend's room. So other than Townsend's room not being ready yet, we are ready to go.

LOA

We are very excited to announce that our Letter of Acceptance (LOA) came today, day 35. What does this mean you might ask. This means that China has given their approval for Townsend to be our son. We now need to finish the US immigration side and then China will give us travel approval (TA).  We are hoping to travel in December or January if everything goes smoothly from here.

Update

We received updated pictures this week and new measurements. He is a little guy, but I'm sure there is a growth spirt in his future. He is wearing about a 4T and just turned 6 yrs old. We are still waiting on our LOA from China and then we can finish the US side of things before we can go get him. Our agency is hoping we can travel before the new year but we will see. Townsend is going to school this year at a neighborhood school and knows he is going to be adopted. I am not sure if they have given him our letter yet or not. Sometimes they wait so that the child doesn't have o wait to long but since he knows tht he is being adopted maybe they did. 

Hopefully this will be our new son

It has been a long run with many turns that we did not expect but we are hoping that this will be our new son. XiuXiu was not our daughter after all but we like to think that maybe we were the cog that helped her return to her bio-family. We were then matched with another boy with albinism but in reality he already had a family for his foster grandparents want to keep him and he wants to be with them. I guess we have been helping clean up the shared list. So now we are matched with a six year old boy,for now we will call Townsend.  I think he is really our son, we will have to wait and see but I think he is. He is beautiful and seems to be full of life. We submitted our letter of intent on August 19th and received PA on August 27th. Now we just wait for LOA. 

Pictures from today

Tuesday on the road to and in Valdez

Musk ox farm

In the afternoon on Monday we stopped at a Musk Ox farm just outside of Palmer. It was great for Scottie as there were hands on exhibits and she was able to feed one of the babies.  We are about 40 miles from  Glenallen at the Grandview RVPark. I think it is one of our best camp sites.  

The young couple in the tent next to us are on there honeymoon.  They are from Israel. The Guys name is Alone. It was like an Abbot and Costelo routine trying to explain that to Scottie.   

Fred:  "The man is Alone"

Scottie: "No he's not the lady is with him."

This went on several minutes.  

We are not sure where we will travel to today. So many options.  

The Wedding

We had a great time in Girdwood. The wedding was beautiful and it was great to have the families together. Girdwood is an interesting town. People are very friendly and the resort is spectacular.  We have decided that instead of heading north from here we are going to head back toward Haines.  The troops are getting tired of the driving and by heading  back we take a few days to get there. Sorry Aunt Bot! Here are a few pictures from the wedding taken by Scottie. Also our lunch at the Golden Corral and Scottie's first cotton Candy.

  

IHOP Friday morning

Catch up not to be confused with catsup

Time to try and play catch up on the blog. I will try to be brief and only give the highlights on the adventures of getting the new tire.  

A man named Shawn who owns a construction company in Whitehorse stopped in our pull out to use his radio. I walked over and struck up a conversation wih him and he offered me a ride to Dawson.  I put the tire on the back of his flatbed and we drove the 25 miles to town.  He dropped me off at the Napa/ tire shop.  They told me they would have my tire by he following Thursday. I carried my tire a couple of blocks across the street to a full service campground conviniance store tire shop etc.   it was a mini version of Fred Meyers. The old German man who owns the place said he could have the tire to us by late morning the following day. I gave him a deposit of $100.00 and armed only with a bottle of 100% Deet headed out the road on foot. It took me a couple of hours and 4 rides to get back to our pull out. Shortly after I made it back to our camp Shawn came back to check on Dayna and the family and see if I had made I back. What a nice guy I can't say enough about how nice he was and how he went out of his way to help us. To take it one step further he said he would drive us to town in the afternoon if we wanted to camp there.  We took him up on it and a couple of hours latter he drove us to the campground the tire was at.  He would not take anything for the help so we gave him what smoked salmon we had n our cooler. 

We set up camp and then walked a mile to town and ate at Klondike Kate's the food was worth the drive alone.  We went back to our camp and had a pleasant nights sleep vin the morning Dayna met a couple from New Zeland  who were traveling with a friend. I walked over and joined in the conversation. While we were talking the tire guy rode his bike to us and said the tire was ready to go. Van ( one of the kiwis) offered us a ride to our vehicle, which we took.  Zane and I fixed the tire and we were on the road again. 

The drive to Chicken was slow and took nearly 4 hours to travel the 108 miles.  With the construction and just  plain torn up roads it was a slow crawl.  

Our plans were to stay in Glenallen. We had talked to the hotel In the morning and they said they had around 16 rooms and should have plenty when we arrived. We arrived around midnight and saw they were full. Dayna talked to the front desk and was told the town was full. We drove until 3 am and then pulled off to the side of the road near Gleen Allen. We took a cat nap and Dayna then drove us to anchorage for a wonderful breakfast at IHOP.   

The morning was spent finding me a pair of pants for the wedding and then off to the hotel for a catnap. After the nap we went to a laundrymat did what little we had and then hit Taco Bell and Dairy Queen.  For hotel review see the loft in Anchorage at tripadvisor.com. 

It is Saturday and we are getting ready to leave for  Girdwood. 

Tok is a junction

Did you know that Tok is a junction? 

: junc·tion 

Pronunciation: \ˈjəŋ(k)-shən\

Function: noun

Etymology: Latin junction-, junctio,from jungere to join — more at yoke

Date: 1711

1 : an act of joining : the state of being joined 2 a : a place or point of meeting b : an intersection of roads especially where one terminates 

So there we are driving through Tok, enjoying the sites,and continuing down the road. There is smoke in the distance from what we believe is a forest fire. Fred is still distracted by the purple mountain (hills sides covered in fireweed). I'm excited to see my email . Did I mention that Tok is junction? Well it took us 40 mile to realize that we should not be heading toward Delta Junction, granted it was the first sign. So now here we are heading back to Tok to make the turn to Anchorage. "Should of made a left at Albuquerque "   Just checking out the road for when we come back on it from Fairbanks after the wedding. Oh the place you will go. At least we aren't in the waiting place anymore. 

Day 5 photos

I

We have made it to Tok. We are on our way to Glenallen or farther possibly.  We have cell service for the first time in awhile but it will be gone soon, so here are some pics to get you through until we can have time for more tales. Pics are from Dawson to Chicken. 

Pictures from Tuesday and Wednesday

Oh the places we'll go

It's 10 pm in the Yukon and we are settled in for the night at kilometer marker 668 of the Klondyde highway.  After the day we have had I think it is a good omen that we were able to make the extra 2 kilometers.   We had been having smooth sailing until about 20 miles north of Pelly crossing. We came up on a pothole on the edge of the road that was 18" around and at least 6" deep. A car was approaching us and it was hugging the center line. I was able to swerve just enough to miss it with the front right tire, but had to steer back away from the center line to avoid theoncomming vehicle and hit the pothole dead center with the right read tire. We instantly felt the car swing from side to side.  As soon as was safe we came to a stop at the side of the road. We had a 3" x 2" rip on the sidewall. 

We now had a decision to make go back to Pelly or on to Stewart crossing. We decided to continue north to Stewart. Let me back up a little our new van has special tires that will allow you to drive on a flat for 100 miles at speeds under 50 MPH. Since they give you a jack but not a spare and Whitehorse was further south than Dawson was north we decided to trudge on at 30 MPH and check things out every 15-20 miles.

We were doing fairly well the hole did not appear to be getting to much larger so we thought heck the 

tire is dust lets just go until we can't go any farther.   We reached that point when we hit a patch of washboarded gravel. The tire split out in several more places and gave up the gohst. So here we are at K668 parked along the Klondike river.  

When we first stopped we decided to walk to a campground we saw listed in the Milepost. It was only 8 kilometers away it had full services including a tire shop. We were starting to feel encouraged until we got to a sign that was overgrown with trees and brush stating our service center was closed.  Not just for the night but for good and by the looks of the sign it had been for several years.  We turned around and walked back to the car. It was a nice 5 mile hike.  

Dayna and the boys are in the van while Scottie and I are in the  pop up screen tent. We wait until morning to find a ride to Dawson to get a new tire put on our rim. We are at least hoping they have a tire that will work.  It's 11 pm and the sun has just gone over the northern horizon. It is starting to get a chill in the air.  The Mosquitos are are covering the outside of the tent in the hundreds and it is time to get some rest. 

11:42 I was sleeping sound and had been for about 30 minutes. Dayna and Quade came to join us as it was to hot in the van. 

1:46 a semi truck just blasted by and woke me up.  It has clouded over and feels like rain.  

3:08 I am waken by Scottie itching frantically at her bug bites from the day before

3:40 Scottie had to go to the bathroom we are all awake in the tent. 

4:17 mosquito buzzing in my ear woke me up

5:32  truck went by and woke me up

7:09. Cars are starting to come from the north. Dayna and I are awake. Let the adventure continue. 

I have ventured from the safe confines of the tent. The tent did well for us it only allowed the smallest of the noseeums to enter.  Now I am sitting in a lawn chair just waiting.  It makes me think of Dr. Seusse in oh the places youll go. And now we are in the waiting place. We have a sign on another chair that simply states need ride. It is funny how the people going south wave more than the people going north. I think the folks going north are trying to hide and not show there guilt for just passing   

 We had a young guy from Sweden stop and make camp in our pull out. He offered to help , but only has I seat.  We have decided its all or none if we get a ride.  I have 13% battery. I will continue latter. 

So much for one for all and all for one.  

Now in Dawson with the whole family. We have a tent site and no vehicle for now. We are off to explore on foot I will update latter and tell the whole story. 

On the pass between Skagway and Whitehorse