Monday, June 8, 2009

Ei Yi Yi!!!!

I know I've been gone and trust me, I've been hearing about it! With Jacen and Jory both playing baseball, our evenings are quite busy and I just haven't had time to get on here.
We are leaving! We go our final confirmation of travel dates last Monday evening. So Tuesday I spoke with our travel agent and got an itinerary nailed down. We were set to leave on June 19th. About 9 PM on Tuesday night, our travel coordinator with our agency called to okay our travel plans. So first thing on Wednesday AM, I emailed our Travel Agent and told him to book the flights! Wow!
About 10 minutes later, our travel Coodinator called to say that he had run the dates past our agency rep in China and apparently Guangdong Pr. has implemented new rules that adoptive parents must be in China 5 days prior. So now we're leaving on the 17th! Can you believe it? After 3 years we're finally leaving... in 9 days!
The reality is starting to hit home and I can go from calm/normal to hysterical/freaking out in about 1.5 seconds. Mostly I'm worried about saying good bye to my 3 boys and what this is going to do to their life. The other thing I worry most about is if we're doing the right thing for Jia. She's just going to be devastated when her world is turned up side down.
Then there's the travel! You must know that we don't travel. We have been the to Bahama's a couple of times, but with a large group. Never alone. Our itinerary has us leaving KCI Wednesday, that's okay. Then we change planes in Minneapolis... still doing okay. After that we must switch again in Tokyo. Yes, that's Japan. Now I'm freaking out a bit. From Tokyo we travel on to Hong Kong and since we have to get there early now, we're spending the extra time in Hong Kong. That sort of blows my mind. Next week I'll be in Hong Kong hanging out until I go onto mainland China. We'll be in HK the night of the 18th, all day 19th and 20th and on the 21st we'll travel on to Guangzhou.
The 22nd is the day we'll get Jia! By the time you get up on Monday, we'll have already had her for a few hours and hopefully you'll be able to wake up to new photo's! Then we just sort of hang out in China until our Consulate appt. on June 30th. We'll have some paperwork to do and medical exams and such, but mostly just spending time with her and bonding. We'll be able to pick up her Visa on July 1st. Leave GZ for HK on July 2nd and fly home on July 3rd!
So that's your update! I haven't even began to pack and we have 4 ballgames this week! Jacen's 2 games are each over an hour away! Tuesday night Jadeth gets introduced to the school board as a National participant in FCCLA Star Events. He leaves for Nashville for a week in July.
Crazy stuff at our home! I still can't let myself think about it or I'm unable to hold it together. Prayers would be very much appreciated! We're also going to miss some great things with our church, but it's only temporary. Please begin to pray for God to prepare Miss Jia's heart. She's going to be so afraid, it breaks my heart.
I'll try to update again soon!
JMS

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey, I can feel the excitement as well as tension in your writings, Joy. Just can't believe you're leaving in a week. I'm very happy for you and will keep you in my thought :) Stay healthy and in good spirit. -Sarah W.