Travel Approval!!

It's official- we received our approval to travel today! Our agency called at about 1pm, Jim and I both got on, Jenny our CCAI rep said she had emailed the US consulate in China requesting a consulate appointment the week of Thanksgiving- and would we be ready to go by November 9th or 10th- gulp. Of course we said YES! We are still waiting to hear on the consulate appointment which sometimes takes a couple of days. Our entire trip will be structured around this appointment- our agency is pretty good at estimating, so we should be leaving sometime the end of next week, spend a week in Shanghai, travel to Guangzhou where the American consulate is, spend about 5 days there. We should leave for Beijing on Thanksgiving, or the day after, we will spend three nights in Beijing, then head for home!
Our heads are spinning right now with all that needs to be done, but what has to get done will get done, the rest can wait- we're going to China!

For all our family and friends- Kellan started his own blog for the trip, I added it to the links at the right! He is incredibly excited!

Travel news- and a room ready and waiting!

The room is finally done- well, almost. The closet doors need to go on and get painted, but other than that it is done!
Got word yesterday that our Travel Approval will soon be on its way! What does this mean? Means that as soon as we receive travel approval our agency will start planning our trip. Looks like we will be traveling around mid November- maybe Thanksgiving in China???

The gift of a name-

This week we gave our new daughter something that many of us take for granted- a name given in love by a parent to a child. The name Su Xue Wei was given to our daughter by the orphanage that has overseen her care since she was found as an infant. Her birth name was never known. "Su" being the sur name that is given to all of the children at this particular orphanage, "Xue Wei" being the name someone gave her when she entered their care. It is a beautiful name, and will always be hers. We will call her by this name forever if that is what she wishes, but we, as her soon to be new parents, wanted to give her an American name that would be hers as well- to use as much or as little as she likes, but would be hers. After much deliberation we came up with a few we liked, with one in particular that we really wanted for her- but at the age of 12, we wanted to be sure that she would like and accept this name as much as we wanted it for her.
Through our dear contact person, who we now consider to be a wonderful friend to our family, we were able to present her with this name, as well as a few alternatives. After one week we heard back that she and the foster family liked this name- So her legal name when she joins our family will be
Megan Su Xue Wei Houle
Megan means "strong and capable" which fits her so well. She has been through so much in her life and is so brave to be willing to leave her foster family and all that is familiar to join a new family that she is yet to meet.
We are on day 41 of our wait for travel approval- we just cannot wait to meet her!