China!

We arrived yesterday, Friday, and today is Saturday, May 1st, I think. The flight on Thursday went well and went relatively quickly. It was 14 hours and we lost 12 hours to the time difference so it felt like a really really long day. Everyone seemed peppy when we got off the plane but all that energy quickly waned as we waited for the bus to take our group to the hotel.

Today we are going after breakfast to Tian'anmen Square, The Forbidden City, the pearl factory, and the Summer Palace.We will update inmore details and pictures later today or tonight hopefully.

Our Itinerary

FRIDAY, April 30th- Arrive in Beijing

SATURDAY, May 1st- Beijing Sightseeing: Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace

SUNDAY, May 2nd- Beijing Sightseeing: Church Service, Great Wall

MONDAY, May 3rd- Flight to Nanjing, Jiangsu Province

TUESDAY, May 4th- GOTCHA DAY!
Meet Jeremy Shao Tang Seacott
Civil Affairs Appointment

WEDNESDAY, May 5th- Sightseeing & Shopping

THURSDAY, May 6th- Sightseeing & Shopping

FRIDAY, May 7th- Flight to Guangzhou

SATURDAY, May 8th- Child’s Medical Exam

SUNDAY, May 9th- Free Day in Guangzhou

MONDAY, May 10th- Consulate Appointment

TUESDAY, May 11th- Consulate Oath-Taking Ceremony

WEDNESDAY, May 12th- Pick-up Child’s visa

THURSDAY, May 13th- Flight from Guangzhou to Shanghai
Depart from Shanghai

Plane Tickets!!

See this plane? Well that's going to be what we are in on Thursday the 29th! Ok.....maybe it won't be the same exact plane, but you get the idea. We got the plane tickets for China this past Thursday. At first the lady from AWAA asked if we would want to travel on Wednesday instead of Thursday, but my sister and I have NYS ELA testing so we can't. A couple of the people we are traveling with are going on Wednesday, but leaving the same day as us. There are at least 20 families traveling with us. We found out that one other couple is traveling with us to the same province as us. They are adopting a girl from the same orphanage as Jeremy. Isn't that cool. What's even cuter is that they are the same age! Isn't that adorable! : ) I am so excited!

We will be leaving on April 29th and coming back on May 13th. We are so excited that we get to finally bring our little Jeremy home! We hope to be updating the blog from China and will try to post all the pictures on it too.

:D

HERE WE COME CHINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday we got word from AWAA that our TA (travel acceptance) should arrive at the adoption agency any day now. So that only means.......................................................................WE'RE GOING TO CHINA! They said we are going April 29th. We are so excited! My mom got a call yesterday morning a little after 10:00. My dad had just put the last nail into wall for the last picture in Jeremy's room and "voila!" the phone rang. Who was it? None other that AWAA (American World Adoption Agency)!

When I got out of school, my mom was late so I went into Ellie, my best friend's, car. We were waiting there and then I see my mom come up to the car. She opens the door, gets in, and says, "We're going to China!!!!!!" We were so excited! Ellie and I were screaming our heads off and I had to close the van door because it was so loud! Then all of a sudden Ellie started crying and then I started crying. I don't know if Camille was crying or not, but my mom started crying again. Happy tears!!!



When we get more info I will blog again. Now that Jeremy's room is done we can put his clothes away and then hopefully start packing really soon so we don't leave it for last minute! (His room is really cute!)

: )

A long overdue update

Since Jenna has been doing most of the posting and I've been super busy, it's been a while since I've posted anything. A lot has gone on since my last post in February - mostly just work on the house. We needed to move our girls upstairs to make room for Jeremy so we did a little remodeling work upstairs. We had started planning a lot more work but decided to scale it down in order to complete before our expected (or should I say "hoped for") travel dates. We had thought (hoped) we'd travel by the end of March. We were told we'd travel by the beginning of April.

Uh, nope. Still waiting. And waiting and waiting.

Anyway, we added some doors upstairs to be able to access some crawl spaces for storage, added insulation, electric outlets, made a new closet, improved an old closet and painted the whole thing. Then Jeremy's room was painted and a border put up. And when I say "we" I really mean a whole crew of friends and family. Wisdom tells me not to name everyone as I will definitely forget someone. Friends and family just simply jumped in and volunteered their time to do all we needed to get done. It was a seemingly simple job but became almost overwhelming in combination with working and helping the kids with all their schoolwork and all the other elements of life as we know it.

We are so deeply appreciative for all of the people who helped and advised us every step of the way. Thank you so much!

We could not have done it without you all. Much more sleep and sanity would have certainly been lost had we tried. Thank you all so much! It really came out beautifully.

More thanks also go out to all those involved with giving a shower to Janet for Jeremy. Several of our friends at church wanted to bless Jeremy and us and did so through the shower. So many people showed up and Janet was totally surprised! The night before the shower there was a tremendous storm that knocked out power to almost 4500 people here on Staten Island. Of course, the hall had no power either! That morning there was some talk of moving the location but to where? We had no idea of a place we could move to on such short notice that could fit all those people and the food. Should we postpone it? Many thanks go out to our friends who stepped in and provided generators for the party to go on as scheduled. It was a huge help after all the planning that had gone into the shower.

It is truly a blessing to see how many people are already loving Jeremy and anxiously waiting for him to come home. There was even one friend who was trying to search over the internet to find a phone number to someone in charge in China to ask what was taking so long! Some of the teenagers and young kids we know are also anxious for him to come home so they could hold him and take care of him and play with him and be his big brother.

Yesterday we went to the airport and welcomed some friends back from China with their newly adopted beautiful daughter Hanna! It was such a joy to see them home again with their third daughter. It was so nice to see Hanna's older sisters, Samantha and Courtnie, totally loving on her and so happy to be home. We went out to dinner with their family and friends at Fuddruckers. It was a good time. We hope to speak to them very soon to get all the details of all of their travels!

So here we are waiting for the call that will let us know that our Travel Approval (TA) has arrived and that travel arrangements can be made. We will hopefully be travelling with Suzette and her family when they travel to get their Lia. Janet and I have said that we feel like we are in limbo as we wait to travel. All of us here are nearly bursting out of our skins waiting for that call. We know God is fully in control and His timing is perfect (no matter what we may think of it) so we are waiting patiently (most of the time) for that call.

Kevin Laue: One-Armed Basketball Player

This kid is awesome!!! He is so determined. This just goes to show that if you set your mind to something you can do it! You have to be determined. Kevin only has one arm, but he is playing basketball and is an awesome player too. This video sends a great message!!!

Itty Bitty Update

Hello everyone, sorry I have not updated anything for a while. I have been loaded with projects and reports and don't have time to have a life, let alone write on the blog! Haha. Anyways we got an email from the adoption agency and they said we should be getting a call any day now. They also said that when we do get a call they will give us a shorter notice for when we are going to travel than they usually would give. (Which is less that 2 weeks). Because of Chinese New Year, all the offices were closed so that slowed things down a lot. On top of that there is a new director of the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) so that slowed things down even more because they had to change some things around. So now we are still just waiting. The agency said that things are picking up and will be moving along faster now so that should be good.

We just got word that the next group of people got there TA and are leaving on April 15! When we heard that we were really disappointed. Doesn't that stink?!? Oh well. Whatever God wants is fine with us. We continue to pray we will go soon and that Jeremy will be safe.

I will continue to keep up the updates. You have my word! Haha