3 more sleeps....

Only 3 more sleeps til we make the long flight to China. We will fly from Atlanta to Seoul, have a 2 hour layover, then fly to Beijing. We leave Atlanta at noon on Wednesday and arrive in Beijing at 8 pm on Thursday. We will have Friday and Saturday to tour Beijing, and get acclimated to the 13 hour time difference before we head to Olivia's province. Sunday morning we will take the train to Jinan, Shandong and Sunday afternoon we will meet our little girl!!! Oh how I cannot wait!!!!! We will have a 24 hr temporary custody, before we finalize the adoption on Monday. We will stay in her province until Friday, when we fly south to Guangzhou. This is where the US side of the adoption is finalized. She will have to have a medical exam and TB test there. The first available appointment we could get at the Consulate was Thursday, January 31. This puts us getting home 2 days later than we originally planned, but we'll make do. We have to wait 24 hours after the consulate appointment to get her visa. Once we get her visa we are free to leave! Well unfortunately we will stay overnight in Hong Kong Friday night because of the flight times. We will fly out of HK about noon Saturday 2/2 to Seoul, another 2 hour layover, then to Atlanta. We will get home Saturday night about 7 pm!!! In which I will rejoice to be at home with my FOUR kiddos!
It has hit me HARD over the past 2 days that we are leaving our kids for 2 1/2 weeks......2 1/2 weeks......:-/ Christmas was 2 1/2 weeks ago, that was forever ago! I know once we're there it will be fine, but up until then, I may be somewhat of a basket case....:-(. I am worried about the kids. I pray that God will give them peace and ease any fears they have of us leaving. I know they will have many hard moments but I'm sure it will soon be forgotten once we're home with their new little sister, aka Taylor's China baby (that's how he refers to Olivia, "my China baby")

Today we had a GREAT family day! I finally got to go to church and feel normal, wasn't up all night working. Then we had lunch at Buffalo's, their favorite, and then later we went bowling. I got this great groupon deal of an hour bowling, laser tag for 6, and $20 at the arcade for only $45!!!! That's a steal!!! We had so much fun!! I must say laser tag was the best, maybe cause I kicked some booty....hehehe.;-)
It was exactly what I needed, to have a carefree day, just the 5 of us. With all the preparation, cleaning, planning, spending, worrying, writing wills (yes, it was a must....) I needed today to hear my God, pray with my amazing church family, and relax with my amazing hubby and kiddos.



God, please give me the strength to get through the next few days. Please God, remind the kids that you are living through us, we are following your will to bring this precious baby home, and that you will guide us all and love us all and take care of us all while we are apart (as well as every other day of our lives) and God please bring us back together soon. Through Jesus Christ we pray, Amen!