T Minus 2 Days .........

I just wrote a long post and Blogger ate it :(

Suffice it to say that we have a HUGE To-Do List to accomplish before we leave this Thursday!!!!!!!

We're very excited to finally be leaving, but we're sad to leave Luke and Jacinda here.

More later today .....

More Amazing God Stuff!

This past Sunday night, we took all our carseats out of our Mazda5 and put them into hubby's brother's car. They are helping with the kids while we are gone and they have a 3 year old.  So we needed to play musical carseats to get 3 seats in their car.  That turned out to be the easiest part of the plan!!!!

Then we decided to go ahead and shift seats in our car so that Luke could get used to riding in the 3rd row now.  Well, we ran into some problems and we couldn't fit 3 seats in the car.  There is an issue with the 2nd row seats needing to be pushed all the way back if they have carseats in them.  Well, that means you can't fit a carseat in the 3rd row.  I had a mini-freakout.  We weren't really planning on buying a minivan before we left!!!!!  Hubby's brother is a mechanic at a Lexus dealership in town, so he started thinking about what he could do.  He said he'd rather us get a Toyota Sienna so that he could check it out and do all the work on it, plus he can get us a good deal.  But he said they never get those onto their Pre-owned lot.  He said the last minivan they got was about 8 months ago, and it was not a Toyota.  So he was going to ask around the next day and see if he could find something.

He called hubby first thing Monday morning and said we'd never believe what just happened.  He told us that a 2004 Toyota Sienna just came in to his lot and it was in amazing shape.  It has 90,000 miles on it, but they're all highway miles.  He told us that he could get us his price on it.  Well, like I said, we weren't really planning on buying a minivan at this point.  I had figured out how to cram the 3 carseats we needed in our current car.  But, I had to turn myself into a contortionist in order to buckle whoever was in the 3rd row.  It was possible, but definitely not something I could do long-term.  If only I was about 3 inches taller!

Then I called our credit union because we needed to know if there was any way we could get approved for a loan for the minivan.  I got the nicest agent on the phone and she was so excited about our adoption.  I told her we'd had to move money around and all kinds of stuff in order to pay the travel agency and now the minivan situation.  So she ran our application and we were immediately approved, with an interest rate BELOW their published rates.  Again, amazing.

Then, a friend contacted us and asked us how we were doing on finances for the adoption.  We told him that we had it all figured out, but that we were having to finagle things until our tax refund comes in next year.  He told us he wants to meet up before we leave and he is going to help us out with a little money.

We've known from the beginning that this adoption is something we were supposed to do.  We had NO idea how we were going to get the $30,000 we needed.  But God knew.  And here we are.  This journey to Kenzi started just over a year ago.  Now, on Sunday, December 5, there will be one less orphan in the world and Kenzi will be in our arms.  We are so humbled and blessed that God chose us to be her parents and we can't wait to see where God leads us next.

We Have So Much To Tell You .........

We have to tell you how amazing God is. In the past week, here is what we've been personally able to see God doing.

1. Our friend, Stacy, is currently in Mongolia ministering to orphans.  Each year, in October, she collects backpacks filled with school supplies and other stuff, and then takes them all to Mongolia to distribute to kids.  For this trip, they had 3 people traveling and 38 bags.  I'm sure you've all heard the news about baggage fees on airlines these days.  Well, United Airlines waived over $6,000 in fees and told them to have a great trip!  Amazing.  Keep track of their trip here:  http://www.2mongoliawego.blogspot.com/

2.  A good friend of ours found out a few days ago that his aunt had a stroke.  He asked on Facebook for everyone to pray.  The doctors were saying there was no brain activity, so he and his dad were about to make the trip to where she was in order to help make final arrangements.  Then, she moved a finger, so the doctors were doing more tests.  They concluded there was definitely no brain activity.  Then, the next update we heard, was that she was off the ventilator, breathing on her own, and communicating!!!!!!!  The next day, she was sitting up, talking, and eating!  She is having some issues with her fine motor skills and things like that.  But what a miracle!!!!!  The doctors have no explanation for going from zero brain activity for several days to this!  The explanation is God.

3.  For several years, Aaron and I have put together shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child.  For the past 2 years, we've gotten our small group Bible study friends excited about it and we've put boxes together with them.  This year, our church decided to do it as a church-wide event.  We held a family night a few weeks ago where we all learned about the kids and families who receive the shoeboxes.  Our church collected over 100 shoeboxes for kids all around the world!!!!!!  We're so blessed to be able to be a part of that!

Less Than 2 Weeks To Go!

We leave for China in just under 2 weeks.  We've been soooo busy.  Here's what we've been up to lately:

- Last-minute shopping for the trip.
- Gathering everything the kids will need for 2 weeks at Grammy's house.
- Still more adoption paperwork.
- We'll be home by Christmas, but I'm trying to get pretty much everything ready before we leave.
- Packing - Weight limits for flights are really strict these days, so we're trying to pack super-light.

Jacinda has been going to speech therapy 4 times a week and her new speech teacher is just amazing.  Jacinda is becoming more and more understandable every day!!!  It's so exciting to see her improving SO much!

Luke is having a rough week .... we think it may partly be the upcoming transition.  Both kids are pretty upset about us leaving them for 2 weeks.  We have some special things planned that their grandparents will be able to do with them while we're gone.  Plus, we'll Skype as much as we can.

On the other hand, Luke received an award at school this week.  For the 1st grading period, he "read" the most books in his class and got invited to a special party.  I put read in quotes because for now, we're allowed to read the books to him until he can read by himself.  He's very excited about the party!!!

Sharing "How to be the Village"

I just read an amazing blog post about how people can support adoptive families both before and after the airport.  The post is somewhat long, but there is just so much good information in it.

http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2011/11/02/how-to-be-the-village

Read it, digest it, and think of some practical ways you can support adoptive families that are in your life.

Confirmed Travel Dates!!!!!

We have travel dates and our plane tickets have been booked!  Here's our basic Itinerary.

Thursday, Dec. 1 - Leave for Beijing
Friday, Dec. 2 - Arrive in Beijing late that night
Saturday, Dec. 3 - Adoption Agency's Orientation and sightseeing
Sunday, Dec. 4 - Fly to Kenzi's province
Monday, Dec. 5 - Meet Kenzi!
Tuesday, Dec. 6 - Sign the paperwork to adopt her officially
Wednesday, Dec. 7 - Sightsee in her province
Thursday, Dec. 8 - Sightsee in her province
Friday, Dec. 9 - Fly to Guangzhou (the city where the U.S. paperwork gets done)
Saturday, Dec. 10 - Kenzi's Medical Exam
Sunday - Tuesday - Sightseeing and lots of paperwork
Wednesday, Dec. 14 - U.S. Consulate Appointment
Thursday, Dec. 15 - Get Kenzi's visa to enter the U.S.
Friday, Dec. 16 - travel to Hong Kong and fly home!

I can't believe we leave in just under 3 weeks!  We have a lot to do around here before we go.  We're so thrilled we'll be home for Christmas ..... probably very jetlagged still, but home for Christmas, with our whole family here with us.

Travel Approval!!!!!!!!!!

Of course, a couple of hours after I posted that we didn't have TA yet, we get the email that it came!!!!  We should have confirmed travel dates in the next few days, but our agency expects that we'll be able to leave on December 1st.

Kenzi, hang on!  Mommy and Daddy are coming soon!!!!!