Travel Approvals Have Arrived!

We received word from our Adoption Agency that our group's Travel Approvals (TA's) have arrived! This is the important first step in our process to travel. Now that we have these, our agency can apply for an appointment at the U.S. Consulate in China. Once this appointment is finalized, our travel dates will be planned around this date. Thinking this means that we are still on track to travel sometime in mid-July.

With each new step completed, we can feel our trip becoming reality. We are all so excited. Jackson tells everyone we meet (teachers, friends, clerks at the grocery store...) that he has a baby sister in China. It is so beautiful to see his face light up when he talks about her. Every morning he says, with a groggy voice, "Good night, Kylie" and every night at bed time he says "Good morning, Kylie"(we are twelve hours apart from her).

A couple years ago when Jackson was beginning to get into movies, we saw an old preview for "The Little Mermaid". He said that Kylie would love that movie and that he would wait to watch it with her. We've read books about the story and he hears from the little girls at school about it, but still he tells me that he will wait to see it with Kylie.

So, that movie (that he found and asked me to buy for her over a year ago!) will be the first thing we pack. Can't believe we're finally to the point where we can begin to think about packing!

This week we received Kylie's "Finding Photo" and the newspaper it was posted in soon after she was found. In China, baby photos are required to be posted in a local newspaper with the information on where they were found and where they are in case a family is looking for the baby. This photo will be the only photo she has of herself as an infant, so we are so thrilled to have found it. We also have the entire newspaper, so that will be interesting for her to have, too.

This week we also sent some items to Kylie and her orphanage through a woman whose father lives in China and helps people get packages to the various orphanages. We sent Kylie a stuffed animal and a photo pillow with our family picture on it. We sent some candy and cake to the staff. We also sent a camera hoping to have some photos taken of Kylie in her orphanage so that we will have these for her when she is older.