Gobble Gobble!!

Given tomorrow is Turkey Day...I wanted to comment on a few things we are thankful for this year:

We are thankful for Emma.  

• So many ppl have said to us lately how lucky Emma is. Without getting on a soapbox here...Emma is not the lucky one, we are. We are SO SO SO lucky to be Emma's parents. I am not saying this to b/c I think its the right thing to say. It is true. We have wanted to be parents to a second child for years...and now we are able to. Each child is unique and is given gifts. I hope one day Emma reads this blog and realizes the truth in how lucky Lexie, Matt, and I are to have her in our family.

We are also thankful for our wonderful families.

• We were able to spend the last few days seeing Matt's family at a sad occasion, his grandmothers funeral. His grandmother, Joy Lillie, was an amazing women. Raised 10 kiddos and was one of the first nurses to land on Normandy beach during WWII.  Anyway, it was great to see everyone, even on such a sad occasion. Matt's family is huge, loving, & anxiously waiting to meet Emma!
• My family is all in town for turkey day tomorrow. My older sister/husband/3 kiddos are in town from MN & my sister/brother in law/dog are in from DC. .My brother/sister in law/kids and my parents live in town already so it has really a full house!! Everyone has been able to spend a lot of time together and it has been amazing to see the kids play with each other and teach each other stuff.  I just love it!

We are thankful for our gifts from God. 

• Some of us are good with numbers, some are good with people, some are athletic, others are good with languages, well..... you get the point.  Matt and I realize we have both been given unique gifts (come on, you all know it, right?!) and we hope to use them over the next year in a way that would make God proud as our father. :-)
• We are thankful for our health. We are constantly reminded that being healthy is not an absolute, but it is a Gift.  :-)

Ok...now for an update on the adoption....

As you can see - we were 'cabled' last week!  This means that Emma's US Adoption approval was emailed to US Consulate in China. Emma's Visa Application then met up with that US approval yesterday when the application was dropped off at the US consulate. It will be processed, approved, and picked up by our agency on December 6th.

From there, the visa approval will be sent to Beijing and we will wait for travel approval (averaging about 18 days) before we book our flights.

Here are the few glitches though...

• Travel Approval can be as quick as 7 days (not bad for us!) or as long as 50 days. :-(  These are really the outliers though, most ppl are somewhere b/w 12 and 25.
• We would like to get TA by Christmas in order to leave the first week in January.  This is important b/c we want to be returning home from China before the Chinese New year (1/23 - 1/30). That week is basically a vacation week in China so we won't be able to do any of the necessary paperwork required to finalize the adoption in country. 
• That said, if we can't depart the US that first week in January, we probably won't be able to leave for China until 1/25.  Not the end of the world but 3 weeks later then we would like.

All we want for Christmas is TA and a Consulate appt before the Chinese New Year!! :-)