Yard Sale Booty

We had a yard sale today to help get some more funds for the adoption. We got rained out by 11:00AM. We didn’t have much to sell because we don’t buy many things we don’t need and even if we think we would like to have something we have to really watch what we bring into the house because it is small and can become cluttered in a hurry. Well it still gets cluttered but at least we can walk around if we watch what we bring into the house. We still managed to make $100.00 at the yard sale and….


Our friend Cheryl D. and her husband, James, dropped off a donation and a gift bag filled with enough drugs that we may be stopped at the airport. If we get stopped I am going to squeal that Lori is the drug mule, not me. Cheryl and James's daughter Monica is going on a mission trip to China soon, here is her blog address. www.kaijinsbigsis.blogspot.com

Oh yeah, notice the do it yourself Last Will and Testament. Just want to make sure that if something was to happen while we were in China or on the way back Brandon’s and Norah’s Grandparents don’t have to fight the court system for custody of the kids.Kitty gives Norah's carseat two thumbs up (if he had thumbs that is).

We also got a letter from our friends Jeff & Alissa. In the letter they signed off with two words that have stuck with me for the last couple of days, those two simple words were.
"Expect Blessings".

Norah is truly a blessing, not only to us, but she is a blessing to this world. There is no telling how many lives she has touched and will touch in her time on earth.

I LOVE SPIRNG!

3/9/2009

We got our final travel packet last night.
On 3/9/2009 we get to hold Norah for the first time. I can’t even tell you how excited we are to have this child come into our lives. We leave in just 5 days and we will be getting to meet Annie’s Parents in China. Right now Annie’s uncle, dad and I are trying to work out the details but Annie’s parents plan on taking us to some spots in Beijing on Saturday that we didn’t get to see with CCAI on Friday.
Then on Sunday it is off to Zhengzhou to see Norah face to face,.

I can’t wait to hold her and kiss her chubby cheeks.

She may not be as thrilled to see me as I am to see her but with time we can work that out togather.

Glen

It took us 7 days to get CA., we leave on the 4TH!

But at least we got it. The tickets for the 3rd were way out of our price range, so we are flying out on the 4th of March. We will be on the plane with at least 3 other families from our travel group. That is if we make our connecting flight in Newark, NJ. There is only an hour and ten minutes between flights, So there is a chance we may miss our connection. There wasn’t an earlier flight to Newark, NJ or I would have booked it.

I told one of the people flying with us if they don't see us get on the plane to have her husband start stripping off clothes and running up and down the isles of the plane to stall till we can get there. LOL
Glen

My boy is turning into shaggy from Scooby-doo

If he keep’s it up we are going to have to paint the Mystery Machine on the back of his car.

HA, he isn’t doing any harm. If he wants to grow out his hair more power to him. It is actually one of the more tame looks he has had over the years. We sure are going to miss him while we are in China finalizing Norah’s adoption. The longest we have ever been without him is when his grandma would take him for a week on trips to Nebraska to see his great grandma. His Grandma and Grandpa will be staying with him while we are gone, so that noone decides to throw a party while we are 12,000 miles away.
Love you son, keep fighting "the Man" LOL.
Dad

Welcome to the "Gun Show"

Glen went yesterday and got immunized! Nothing like waiting till the last minute. He got started on Hep B, Hep A, MMR, tetanus and typhoid. He also got a flu shot last week. You'd think his body would have somekind of reaction after introducing all that stuff but he seems to be doing fine. He did say his arms were a little sore yesterday but that was it, no fever nothing. Getting the vaccines for an adult was difficult and expensive. Glen ended up having to go to the University medical center here and they do not accept insurance. In the long run though it is better to have them.

Right now we are trying to get everything done. Got a car seat yesterday and some of the over the counter meds needed to take with us. We went over to my Mom and Dads last night, ate dinner and Mom hemmed up a pair of shorts for me and put some darts in some pants. We are VERY fortunate to have my parents so close. They do alot for us and provide much needed moral support.

Today I have to tag a bunch of yard sale stuff for a sale on Saturday. We are still fund raising up to the last minute and figured the yard sale would give us a small boost and help clear the decks for the new family member. We have a medium sized house so keeping clutter at bay is a must. Wish us luck Saturday.

Lori

Come on CA

They need to hurry-up and give us CA because I have been checking tickets every day and the cheap seats are going fast they started out with about 10 different flights I could close from at the cheapest rate and that is now down to only 2 THE NEXT PRICE UP IS $700.00 MORE SO WE NEED CA TODAY!!!!!
Glen

Back to the garden

Well my onions are doing good. It is time to plant my second wave so that I can get them established before we leave for China. I also started some garlic from bulbs I picked up from the grocery store. If they all take we will have enough garlic to last the year! Our house will definitely be a no vampire zone. We will wait until we get back to plant the rest of the vegetables. It will be the perfect time for being outside when we get back and I hope Norah will enjoy time out in the fresh air. We will even be attempting to grow her very own pumpkins for Halloween. We also saw a thing on a vegetable we have never tried called leek. The person on the show was crying when she was cutting them up so I suspect they are in the onion family.

Glen
Baby Garlic

Guess what?

No it’s not that I need a hair cut I will be getting one on Saturday.
We got TA we are defiantly going to China the first week in March!!!
I had to take this photo my self because Lori is picking up some clear folders on her way home that CCAI said we had to have. We will most likely get CA the first part of next week, because it is already Friday Morning in China.

Oh and I got a flu shot today. Although I am not sure it will do me any good, Last night I started waking up because I keep feeling this whosh-whosh-whosh, on my face.

When I finally came to enough to realize what it was.

It was typhoid marry AKA Lori coughing on my face in her sleep, in her defense she has been up coughing all night and had finally went to sleep but apparently was still coughing. Now I’m starting to feel sick, oh well it was in the vows wasent it.
Glen

Wahoo, We leave March 3rd!!!!

CCAI is 90% sure we will leave on the 4th and we are going to leave one day early to make sure that if we have flight delays, we will still get there by the 4th.

They had to divide us into two groups the second group leaves the week after us. Of coarse we are disappointed they have to wait an0ther week and we won't get to see some of them.
We still may run into one another in GZ.

We should get TA this week or Monday in order to have the dates set in stone. For now them being 90% sure and calling everyone in our travel group is good enough for me to start making plans, I won't buy tickets until we have a U.S. consulate appointment in GZ. By then though we may only be 5 or 6 day away from travel.
The 3rd is just 12 days away from today, its time to start packing...
Dear Daughter we are one step closer to you,

We can't wait to hold you.

Love Dad

We got one new photo and a small update.

Still no word on TA, but we did get this new photo today must have been from about the same time because the as the last photo because the bump on her head is not healed. I thought it might have been a red dot that some of the kids have, but now I think it is a bump. The height, weight, and teeth have gone up in numbers she now has 22 teeth, is three feet tall, and weights 30.8 pounds. To some it may look like the same photo but I love it.
I wonder how many layers she has on looks like her arms are floating. I hope they are using the camera we sent her.
Glen

I’ll take the bugs going around outside, over the ones going around inside the house.

What do suppose he is up to?

Dear Lori has some nasty bug, the kind that makes it so you can’t speak; go throw a box of Puffs plus in a day, and only getup long enough to take some medicine. I haven’t got it yet so I
stayed outside today to work in the garden. It needed some cleanup anyway.

If you can see it the first photo in the top left corner you can see that was not garden until today, we want to grow as much food as we can this summer so I tilled up that part of the
Flower bed and gained about 200 more square feet of garden space.

Tilling away!

Ah job well done, well amost done, now Let me go check if Lori is still alive.
Glen

Happy Valentines Day.

You may think I am a day late, but I am not, I married a sensible woman, and if I get her flowers she wants me to wait until, the day after valentine day when everything is on sale! She also prefers flowers that can be planted in the yard, so we can get cuttings off of them all summer. It makes sense to me, you can either have a expensive flower arrangement that last a couple of weeks at best or you can give a living plant that will give you the joy of butterflies, and multiple flower arrangements all year. Oh yeah I got so lucky when I found my wife.
Glen

Our pet catfish?

When Brandon was about 10 or 11 we caught this catfish on one of our fishing trips. He was small so Brandon wanted to put him in the Koi pond 8'x16'x3' that I built in the backyard in 2001. The catfish is now about a foot and a half long and is still going strong 6 or 7 years later. We have one Koi, so the Koi and him are buddies, they both get Koi food and I give them worms from the garden to keep them happy. This spring we will have tons of male frogs in the pond calling the ladies in from what sounds like miles away on a quiet night.

I don’t put frogs in it they just show up,

kind of along the lines of if you build it they will come.

Glen

Still waiting for TA.

Our travel group still hasn’t heard any thing back on TA, I am still hoping to here something by tonight.
We have a big travel group so we will defiantly be traveling with other families.

Brandon got sick with a nasty bug and decided to share with Lori what a good son, I am hoping to avoid it.

Glen

We got our Visa's back form P.R.C in Washington

One of the most stressful parts of International adoption is have to repeatedly send all your personal information through the mail. The last thing we had to send off was our passports for our Visa to inter the Peoples Republic of China.
To do this you have to mail your passports to a currier service and they hand carry them into the P.R.C. counselet office in the state where you sent them, unless you live close buy and can hand deliver and pick-up them your self.
We used Carol Fredericks of www.dependable-acs.com (301)297-9531 and didn’t have any problems, for our visas it was $260.00 to P.R.C. and $50.00 for Carol’s services. So $310.00 plus FedEx shipping that we paid for boulth ways. I am so glad to have our passport back safe and sound with the Chinese Visa stamp on them to enter China for Norah!!!!!

Come on travel approval.

Glen

Translated questions for the Orphanage Director, Nannies, and Foster Families.

Our Dear Annie, and friend Sam helped us by translating three letters that I wrote. One to Norah, one to the Orphanage she lived at and one for her foster family.

We can’t thank them enough for this special gift. I also included some questions for the orphanage and foster family, which they translated for me. I asked Annie if she minded if I shared the questions on my blog and she said that I could and if I wanted I could post the letters too. I think the letters are too personal because they have Norah’s Chinese name all through them so

I am only posting the questions for two reasons.

#1. To help parents adopting from China that want to send care packages or take the question with them to China but can‘t afford the high cost of getting them translated.

#2. Because we are still short of funds needed for the trip. If you plan on using the questions and can make a small $5 donation please do it, it will help us out a lot.

You know if your family is able to make a donation or not so it will be up to you.

Please tell everyone you think might be interested in the translated questions about this post and where to find it. Please don’t post these translated questions on your site. I had to get permission to use them here myself. The translated questions will always be here on this site. If you don’t know how to cut and paste them so you can print them out to send to your Childs Orphanage or take with you on your trip, email me and let me know. I will email them to you my email and mailing address are at the top right.
If we get to $0.00 needed in the red for the adoption in the top right corner of this blog, or we return from China. Please make your donation to

Love without Boundaries.

Happy Travels Glen

Boy! is below keep scrolling down.

QUIESTIONS IF YOU HAVE A Girl!

Dear Director and Nannies,
敬爱的院长，看护们：

Enclosed is a list of questions. Answers to these questions will help us to make the transition easier for her.
另外，有些问题附上。回答这些问题将会帮助我们让更快地适应她的新家。

Thank you for taking time to answer these questions.
感谢您花时间来回答以下问题。

What name(s) do you call her?
都有哪些小名 (你们通常都怎么称呼她)?

Has she had any allergies?
对什么东西过敏?

What kind of food is she eating now?
现在每天都吃什么食物? 请举例?

How much food does she eat?
她每次都能吃多少？

What is her favorite food?
喜欢吃什么？

What is her least favorite food?
不喜欢吃什么？

What kind of vegetables and fruits does she like?
她喜欢吃什么蔬菜？什么水果？
　
What are her sleeping habits?
她有什么睡觉的习惯么？

How would you describe her personality?
的性格怎么样？

Does she like animals?
她喜欢动物么？

Does she have any likes/dislikes/sensitivities?
她有什么特别喜欢的的事物么？特别不喜欢的？特别敏感的？

What makes her happy?
什么能让她高兴起来？

What makes her angry or upset?
什么会让她生气、心烦？

Is she frightened of anything?
她害怕什么吗？

What do you do that soothes her?
做什么她很快平静下来？

What are her favorite activities?
她最喜欢做什么？

Does she have a special friend at the orphanage?
她在孤儿院有很要好的朋友们吗？

What date did she come to live with you?
她什么时候（日期）开始和你们住在一起的？

What does she call you?
她怎么称呼你们？

What else would you like to tell us about her?
你们还有什么其他关于她的事情要特意嘱咐我们么？

Does she have a special friend or a crib mate in the orphanage?
她在孤儿院有没有个特殊的朋友或闺中密友？

Was a note or any other memento found with her?
她的亲生父母有没有给她留下一封短信,或者任何纪念物？

Do you have her finding ad? Can we have a copy of her finding ad?
你们是否还保留了当时在报纸上的寻父母启示? 可以复制一份给我们么?

Please tell us about how and where she was found.
请告诉我们她是在哪以及如何被发现的?

What do you do that soothes her?
在她情绪波动厉害的时候, 你们是怎样使她平静下来的？

Does the orphanage need anything in particular?
孤儿院需要什么具体的东西吗？

QUIESTIONS IF YOU HAVE A BOY!

Dear Director and Nannies,
敬爱的院长，看护们：

Enclosed is a list of questions. Answers to these questions will help us to make the transition easier for his.另外，有些问题附上。回答这些问题将会帮助我们让更快地适应他的新家。

Thank you for taking time to answer these questions.
感谢您花时间来回答以下问题。

What name(s) do you call him?
都有哪些小名 (你们通常都怎么称呼他)?

Has he had any allergies?
对什么东西过敏?

What kind of food is he eating now?
现在每天都吃什么食物? 请举例?

How much food does he eat?

他每次都能吃多少？

What is his favorite food?

他喜欢吃什么？

What is his least favorite food?

他不喜欢吃什么？

What kind of vegetables and fruits does he like?

他喜欢吃什么蔬菜？什么水果？　

What are his sleeping habits?

他有什么睡觉的习惯么？

How would you describe his personality?
的性格怎么样？

Does he like animals?

他喜欢动物么？

Does he have any likes/dislikes/sensitivities?

他有什么特别喜欢的的事物么？特别不喜欢的？特别敏感的？

What makes him happy?
什么能让他高兴起来？

What makes him angry or upset?
什么会让他生气、心烦？

Is he frightened of anything?

他害怕什么吗？

What do you do that soothes him?
做什么他很快平静下来？

What are his favorite activities?

他最喜欢做什么？

Does he have a special friend at the orphanage?

他在孤儿院有很要好的朋友们吗？

What date did he come to live with you?

他什么时候（日期）开始和你们住在一起的？

What does he call you?

他怎么称呼你们？

What else would you like to tell us about him?
你们还有什么其他关于他的事情要特意嘱咐我们么？

Does he have a special friend or a crib mate in the orphanage?

他在孤儿院有没有个特殊的朋友或闺中密友？

Was a note or any other memento found with him?

他的亲生父母有没有给她留下一封短信,或者任何纪念物？

Do you have his finding ad? Can we have a copy of her finding ad?
你们是否还保留了当时在报纸上的寻父母启示? 可以复制一份给我们么?

Please tell us about how and where he was found.
请告诉我们他是在哪以及如何被发现的?

What do you do that soothes him?
在他情绪波动厉害的时候, 你们是怎样使他平静下来的？

Does the orphanage need anything in particular?
孤儿院需要什么具体的东西吗？

Referal photo with snack.

Look at her flag, do you think she is watching the 2008 Olympics on TV?

When we had the Chinese New Year celebration I was showing off the referral photo get got of Norah. One of the ladies that works for a big adoption agency told me she has seen thousands of referral photos in her years of working in adoption and this was the first time she has ever seen a referral photo that had the Child eating a bag of Chips. We feel so lucky to have this photo of our Daughter and all the ones we will get of her From Love Without Boundaries when we get home.

Now I am off to my first meeting with the Arkansas Hands & Voices a Non-biased support for families of children who are deaf and hard-of-hearing.

They will have three topics the one I am going to go to covers.

Lingo, Lifelines & Language: Learn the "lingo" from A to Z that is relative to audiology and language development, as well as learn from other parents about the "lifelines" they used to "survive" the early years!

Sounds good to me!

Glen

Conference call, update.

We got some good information from the travel conference call there were about 20 people on the call. We all asked some good questions, so we covered a lot of what we needed for the trip, what the trip will be like and what we still needed for travel. It comes down to this we all are waiting on TA which is travel approval from China; it could come the end of next week or four more weeks from now. When it comes we have to get CA which is a consolet appointment from the U.S. home land security in Guangzhou, China. That will take one to five days. Then we will leave for China seven to fourteen days after that. CCAI still hopes we will travel in the beginning of march to the middle of march, that really depends on how fast we get our TA if we get our TA in the next two weeks we will be there in that time frame.

It could happen like this on the good side, February 14th TA from China, February 18th CA from U.S., March 1st travel to China.

Or

On the very, very bad side, March 6th TA from China, march 11th CA from the U.S. March 22nd travel to China.

So I am with CCAI in guessing we will leave for Norah anywhere from march 1st to 15th.
We hope it is around the 1st, we want to meet & hold our Daughter as soon as possible.

Glen

We are finally done with all the paperwork until we get to China.

We just sent off our passports to the Chinese consulate to have the visa stamp put on them. It was the last piece of paperwork we needed to fill out until we get to China. Yeah!!!

FCC Chinese New Year and The Connected Child.

I helped set up for the Chinese New Year celebration yesterday and it went off without a hitch. Although when we were setting up we noticed that our FCC-CA’s biggest fund raiser of the year was missing a lot of guest. There were, I think 276 people that attended in 2008, this year there were only 118 people that attended. I don’t know if the celebration this year was just another victim of the recession or attendance was low because adoptions from China have slowed so much that it is just a reminder to people that it will be one to three more years till they see their child. Possibly a combination of both things but I hope more people will join us again next year.
It was fun to see all the kids that are in our local FCC group there are a bunch of the kids that are Norah's age, last night alone I would say there were 15-20 3.5 to 4 year olds there. Kim that runs Dillon International welled-up with tears when she saw the photos of Norah, that lady sure does love when the kids come home. She is also a social worker that does home studies for Dillon International. She told us that we had to get the book, The Connected Child. She said she believed so much in the book that she had already given away 15-16 copies of it. It just happened to be one that I had already had my eye on when I bought the book, Toddler Adoption, A Weaver’s Craft. I knew The Connected Child would be the next book on attachment I would read. After we got done helping clean-up from the celebration we went to Barns & Noble to get it, it will probly be the last book I have time to read before we go to China. I will read it at night in bed during the next couple of weeks before we go and Lori the book worm said she wanted to read it on the plane. I will let you know what I think of it when I finish. Hope we hear something soon on our travel approval from China.

Glen