First Day of Winter Break

Today was an interesting for the first day of winter break. Zane had a chain attached to a canine tooth today. The tooth was still in the bone of his jaw so a chain was attached to pull it up into place. He also had the baby tooth pulled out that was taking up the space. He had an IV and everything so now he is spending the evening laying on the couch watching Monty Python.

Quade had his first eye appointment and is now getting reading glasses. He has very healthy eyes that angle out just a little so he has to spend a little extra energy holding them together when reading. He is also a little far sighted.  Quade had a great time picking out his glasses. He had been wanting a pair of Oakley's, although I think he was thinking sunglasses, but now he has his Oakley's in reading form.

I had the eye doctor look at Na Hui's picture and she is ready to see NaHui when she gets to town. The doctor didn't think that there was really any major worry about getting Nahui to the eye doctor before she comes home, but was encouraging that there maybe something that can be done to help her vision. I guess things really  do work out because come to find out the doctor that Quade saw today was the closest thing we have to a pediatric opthamologist in town. I had know idea when we went to see her today.

Fred and I got a Christmas tree yesterday after we dropped Quade off at Eaglecrest to go skiing. It is a cute little Charlie Brown tree. Those are Fred's favorite. I think we will be decorating tomorrow. The boys and I are thinking about making Gingerbread people sometime this week as well. I think we are going to try to make Grandma Sherry's Almond Roca too and always Cardamon Muffins Christmas morning.
Hope everyone is enjoying the Holiday Season!
Merry Christmas to All!

Our First Weiler Sponsor

Last week we had our first Weiler sponsor. We would like to thank our sponsor very much. This sponsor will be receiving a Weiler Family photo as well as a post card from China. Thanks again for your support in helping make this happen for Na Hui and for our family.

Good Friday

Today we received the news that our dossier was sent to China.  For those of you who are up to speed on the adoption lingo, this is know as our DTC (Dossier to China).   Our next milestone will be our LID (Log in Date).  This should be in about 1 week.   Then the wait will begin as the next step will be our LOA(Letter of Approval). We should here back from China in 2-5 months for this.  Stay tuned for more updates.

Pictures

We have pictures to share!

Name Change

If you have been to our blog before you may have noticed that the Journey name has changed, that is because it is official we have a daughter (as official as can be at this step but that's pretty official). Her name is Na Hui (Na Hwee) and she turned 6 on November 26, which is Fred's grandfather's birthday. As soon as our dossier is logged-in in China, the orphanage will tell her that she now has a forever family. We now can start writing letters, sending pictures and movies to Na Hui so that she can get to know her family while we all wait to be together. Fred is writing her a book about our family with pictures of Juneau and family and friends. I hope it is not to overwhelming for her, but how could it not.  The feelings she will go through when she is told she has a family, the excitement of a family but the fear of the unknown.I just can't imagine being 6 years old and going to live in a new family in a new country. She has been in a foster family sponsored by Half the Sky since January of 2009 and what she has known for the last 3 years.  It is such a strange feeling to know that our daughter is in China right now and we have about 6 month to wait until we can meet her.

December Announcement

  We have wonderful news to announce, we have a match!! We are so excited. We just sent our ” Letter of Intent”(LOI) today, which means that if everything works out we should receive a Pre-approval Letter (PA) within 5 to 7 days. Then we wait for our official approval from the Chinese government which is the “Letter of Approval” (LOA). These are taking between 40 to 140 days, with no rhyme nor reason on who gets them in 40 day or 140 days.  We are still thinking that we will be traveling in early June, but it all depends on how quickly the paper work goes through. We will post a picture after we get our PA, but until then we can tell you that she just turn six on November 26^th and she is in Hefei, China and she is adorable.
 

October Up-date

Well it has been a long time since we updated the blog, so I will try to fill you in on the events that have taken place. We did get our finger prints taken by Homeland Security which as pretty cool. It is all on the computer and is then immediately in DC.  On September 27, 2011 we received our I-797 which is the pre-approval to making Scottie a US citizen. The next step is to send our dossier to China, so we have been working on the final papers that need to be included in the dossier.  At the beginning of October, we received an email informing us that the Chinese Embassy would no longer be authenticating any documents that we older than 6 months. This was scary because we had been collecting documents that needed to be authenticated so that we could send them all off as one big batch. Some of our documents were exactly 6 months old so we gathered them together and headed to the FedEx store (these docs can’t be sent regular mail). I am pleased to say that the first batch did get authenticated and now we are waiting on the next batch to return. I believe that we will have only one more batch of documents that need to be authenticated now and they have resent dates. Anyway what my long store means is that hopefully we will be ready to send our dossier to Holt for approval and translation by the beginning of November. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

We do not have a match yet but believe it will happen shortly after our dossier is logged-in in China. We are still hoping for a little girl between the ages of 4 and 6 and the wait is starting to get to me.  I have been doing some therapy shopping lately, mostly looking because we don’t know what size she will be. I have purchased a few items in size 4, but they could end up begin to small. We figure that anything that we buy that is too small we can donate to the orphanage. I was told that most kids are about one size smaller than their age, so 4 is in the middle. I also crochet her a hat. You can never have too many hats in Alaska.

While this has all been going on behind the scenes, Zane and Quade have finished up the cross country and the football seasons respectively. Quade decided that he is now going to play indoor soccer and had his first day yesterday. His team is the Shelter Island Chickens. They won 6 to 4 and had a great time. I had never been to an indoor soccer game before and learned many interesting rules. There is no out of bounds except for if the ball goes to high in the air or hits the basketball hoop. The bottom rows of the bleachers are pulled out for the audience but the ball can be played off of your legs (we moved ours when the ball was coming). I loved the part where the ball was played of the school binder and jacket that was lying on the floor or got caught under the curtain. Anyway it was a lot of fun and Zane has decided that he wants to play as well. I think Fred is planning on signing him up on Monday. Zane will be in the next age bracket but I bet he will know someone on his team and if not, he will soon. 

Fred has been working on his fish for Public Market and they are really looking great. Hopefully he will post some pictures soon. He has also been working on the chicken coop which is now finished and the chickens moved in yesterday. These are not your ordinary Rhode Island Red chickens, these are babied pet Rhode Island Red chickens, but still lays an egg a day each. You can pet them and hold them and they will follow you around the yard. We even had to interview to get them. Anyway they are very sweet and Fred is already having a ball with them.

Well I believe the next post should be around the end of October / beginning of November and I hope I will be saying that our dossier is on its way. So again keep your fingers crossed, pray, whatever it is you do that everything falls in to place and we can be traveling to China by spring.