snow!

I have to say I am an absolute wreck today.  We are scheduled to leave on Saturday at about 6am.  As scheduled, that puts us into Elsie's province at about 11pm on the 3rd.  We are supposed to have her the following morning.  I just heard the weather forecast.  It is supposed to snow Friday through Sunday.  I don't know what will happen if our flight is delayed.  I have bee trying to reach our agency for about a week about last minute questions, and they haven't gotten back to me yet. I would appreciate all the prayers we can get right now!
On the plus side, we did get all our new money.  Credit union called last night as it came in a day early, yay!  We are almost all packed...Brad and I do have a few differences of opinion on what we should and should not take, but maybe it is just because of the high level of stress right now.  I will be so glad when this is over and she is home with us.

5 days until we leave!!

We leave in 5 days.  Since worrying is what I do best, I have quite a list.  At the top, is that our new money that we need is not in yet.  Our credit union ordered it special and they said they are "pretty sure" it will be new......but I can't get it until Wednesday afternoon!  Thursday is New Year's Eve so they close early, Friday is New Year's day so they are closed and we leave way before the sun comes up on Saturday!  Then, am I packing the appropriate clothes for the weather?  Enough clothes and the right size for Elsie?  Will it be snowing when we leave? The list goes on.  Plus I have to train my boss to do my job while I am away.  Think I should color my hair too, because it is getting grayer by the minute!

Testing remote access

Ok, so I have heard that I can't post directly to the blog, so I am trying to do this remotely. I guess I will know in a couple of minutes if it works. This has been a trying week. It started when Brad noticed he had a flat tire just before leaving for work. He went to have it checked/repaired...again. Had to get a new tire. A couple of days later, he was going to take his parents Christmas shopping and his brake light came on. He figured he should get it checked and get an oil change so the car would be in good shape before we left. You probably guessed it, he needed new brakes and rotors. Two days later, we decided we needed a diversion from all the trip planning and decided to go to a co-worker's Christmas party. Just before we left, we noticed it sounded like it was raining in our basement. Yep, burst pipe. Next we get an email from our agency saying that they made in error when telling us our when we could leave China and that we had to stay an extra day, so we had to have our plane tickets changed. Not cheap. Called the bank about the new money we needed to take with us. They had previously told us it would take about a week, but guess what. Maybe not. They did order it, but she says no way to know until the day it is supposed to come in. December 30th, just before we leave. So after the worst heartburn I have ever had, today I feel much calmer. We are leaving in 10 days to get our little girl and everything else doesn't really matter. God will see us through!
Oh, and I am posting a picture just to see if I can do that remotely too.

Consulate Appointment

Ok, today has been bad and good.  Bad because we know that we are not going to meet Elsie this year. But good, because we finally know when we will.  We will travel the beginning of January and will meet her on the 4th!  I guess I have to confess that most of my reasons for wanting to go this month were pretty selfish.  First, I just really want her, plain and simple.  Other than that, it would have been really cool to get the tax deduction this year.
Now we have a little more time to prepare.  We will be home for Christmas and will have that time to spend with the rest of our family.  The stress of being taken away from everything she knows will be hard enough on Elsie without having to deal with the added excitement of a holiday.  I guess God knows what He is doing!  I have learned to be patient over the past 4 years, but I am really getting a little tired of it.

Up to this point.....

We have been in the process of this adoption for 4 years.  We have talked about a blog for awhile now, but neither of us really knows what we are doing.  Hopefully you will be able to read everything.
Our dossier was logged in at the China Center for Adoption Affairs on 3/27/06.  On October 26th of this year (2009), we received a referral for a beautiful 18 month old little girl.  Her Chinese name is  Fu Xiao Nuo, but her new name will be Elsie Xiao-Nuo Bowden.  She will our eighth child.  She will also have 3 neices aging from 7-14 years old!