Thanksgiving

Our family has so much to be thankful for this year ~ good health, stable jobs, life in beautiful Coeur d'Alene, wonderful family and friends, and the opportunity to invite another child to share in our lives!  The wait and preparation for this event are a mixure of fear and hope, anxiety and joy, curiosity and wonder.  The 5 of us have no idea how this little girl will alter our lives, but we are eager to get her home and start the journey.  Winter really kicked off with this week's snow storm, and as a "snow loving family", my wish is to get her here before the peaceful white returns to miserable gray.  Lets hope the forecasters are correct this year!  Best wishes to our friends the Thompsons who are leaving in two weeks to bring their daughter home on Christmas Eve!  Welcome Sheng Lian!

Here She Is!

Introducing our daughter ~ Min Yu Ping.  Age 7 1/2.

Confirmation from China

This week we finally met China's full approval to adopt Yu Ping!  It is called the "Confirmation"  letter or LSC/LOA.  We immediately sent out another huge pile of paperwork to US immigration to request to bring her into the country.  This will take about 8 weeks, and then we will be set to travel one month after that. So, barring any further complications, Don and I will head for China in late February to meet and bring our daughter home!  We will be gone for almost 2 weeks.  The boys will stay home with family.  It will be tough to be away from them for so long, but the trip will be long, expensive, and in many ways too stressful to take all 3 of them with us.  I've got a new wardrobe waiting (SO FUN to shop for girls clothes!) and her room is nearly complete with new paint and wallpaper.  I wish she was here enjoying the "first snow" with us!

Halloween 2010

We've got the boys outfitted with their Halloween costumes (army soldier, "gangsta", banana) ~ but no princess, witch, or ballerina costumes.  Next year!  Hopefully Yu Ping won't be too concerned about this very weird American holiday!  We have been waiting and working so hard to bring Yu Ping into our family since we first saw her photo 8 months ago.  We are currently waiting for our LSC (confirmation letter) and then it will be about 3 months until Don and I will travel to China to bring her home.  This is my first blog post.  I'm not a big fan of on-line social networking but if I can manage to "broadcast" from China, it will be a great way to keep everyone in touch with this big part of our lives.