LOA

LOA is the LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE; This is it! China has officially requested we decide.
We have officially accepted our two children today.
Here is a little boy, wanting his BROTHER!

but.....wait..... not so fast.....

We are a Hague Family, this in adoption terms means; painful waiting, long decision processes, and tons more paperwork, a few more fees, but mostly TIME. and we don't have time... we have to make it to China in Early Sept. to receive Athena Niuniu before she ages out and is no longer eligible for adoption.

Our agency wants to believe we can do it, & so do I. James, 'bout had a heart attack after hearing the doom & gloom of what lies ahead from Lily in our meeting at her office yesterday. The control of the situation now, is of no ones avail. It's Government, Political and a Hurdle, all to protect families and children from being victims in adoption processes, and it takes massive time to honor and protect those laws... TIME, which we don't have... oh, I mentioned that already. :o(

but.....wait.....not so fast.....

Our timeline requests that 9 weeks of US Government work be done in 3 weeks. We may have to call a Senator, a House District Member... a Politician... which I know of none... I don't even know where to begin to do this... I guess I will learn!!!, and rather quickly.

I will keep you posted, if we make progress. It looks like we have 5 more steps of the US Government paperwork that needs to be granted, before China can invite us to come adopt our children and bring them home.

Our new son, Scott Yu which we are blessed by God's gift, will be able to come home;~our daughter will have to beat the clock. This is a sad and harsh reality to us and her, but we are doing everything we can to accomplish our dream of having Niuniu as our daughter, God's gift... Forever.
~
(please do not cross post our news, I would love to just keep it here: amongst us in the "family".)

PA{PreApproval} and ... PA today!

Hi all,

This has been an incredible journey thus far to our two newest children. We are blessed to announce we received PA {Pre-Approval from China} for our son and PA for our daughter. Both are older child adoptions and are from HENAN, China. We want to take a moment and make sure our recognition of this amazing miracle is to CCAI~The HENAN Project, and the "Dedicated Staff" in the Waiting Child Dept.!

~

Oh My Gosh, we were blessed to find our son, Guo Yu (referred to us as a healthy 10.5 year old boy, in October 2008, through a camp for older children. (this camp happens at a few different agencies & provinces around China.) The video we received, was icing on the cake for our family...after reviewing a file,... but wait; Guo Yu's file was incomplete for an older child adoption. It was not completely ready for IA (International Adoption), it had not made it fully to Beijing yet... so we waited, as we prepared our Dossier {A large pile of official legal documents about us.} to adopt again from The China Special Needs Program.
~

One month, Two month...EIGHT months. Our Dossier finally left for China in June 2009. (the USCIS/United States Customs and Immigration Service, was really lagging {using kind words ;o\} for us; and we are a Hague Family {A Treaty in place to fight child trafficking, FYI: China has been a Hague Country for at least a decade or maybe two, now our US government conformed and sign the Treaty as well, in April 2008.), but we made it. ~ We were LID {LOG IN DATE} 07/08/09 after nearly 9 months. ;o)
~

Along this journey, we had been approved by our Social Worker and USCIS to adopt two older children... (first USCIS lost our Original HS {Home Study} and then the second time around they forgot to word our I-797 C {the last document needed for our Dossier} for two older children, so we needed an addendum to our Home Study to fix this (at a fee of course) LOL!! The third time was a charm :o). Then as we are sending our Dossier to China, a wonderful older girl, took our breathe away. She was from the CCAI web-site of waiting children. She was ageing out of the China Adoption Program and her bio listed Post Surgery for major congenital heart disease {TOF/Tetralogy of Fallot}. We so wanted to bring her home as our daughter, But her bio said LID ONLY NEED APPLY... that Monday we were disappointed. We knew though, that we were blessed to be with CCAI~Henan Project to bring us a son. So we sat on the sideline waiting each day for Beijing to receive Guo Yu's file :o), all the while gazing at Liu NiuNiu, a child we would be forever blessed, if we could call her daughter...
Later, that same week, "Pat" posted a message on our yahoo group, it said CCAI WC Dept. wanted her to advocate for this wonderful girl, and stated if you were DTC {Dossier To China} you could apply not just LID only... I would tell you what else the email said... but I did not get that far... I clicked on my email,... and emailed Deniece at her desk, and said this is our daughter!! I told her we were DTC, could it be possible? It took a few days of CCAI internal workings, or so I imagine, but we got a call a week later and said they would do everything that was with in their capabilities & possible. But, this was not concrete, nor was it easy, nor it be even totally possibly. The CCAA is the ultimate authority.

~

We still wanted to proceed, no matter the outcome. How could we not try, our diligent best to bring our son and our daughter home.
BUT...... Guo Yu's file still had not come to IA.... it was now 8.5 months since we saw his video. Deniece proceeded to tell us how we should proceed, and it was not going to be easy, nor very possible. Plausible,...well YES; but not very likely, a long shot, it is rare, she "insisted" that we know this. But this was it, we just had to proceed; broken hearted or not, we had to. We just had to ask for NiuNiu too.
Well, it took a few more weeks for the CCAA to release our son's file from Henan to CCAI. That happened this Monday, & well... we already had our LOI prepared & translated for him and our LOI prepared & translated for her (located at CCAI), just waiting for this day, to proceed. We held our breathe, cried, & Prayed and CCAI sent our LOI's on Monday 07/13/09 for both children.
AND...

~
Today 07/16/09 we received news from the WC Dept. that China has granted us a PA for a boy and a PA for a girl!
We are Humbled to announce we have a son... and a daughter!
~
Please welcome Scott Yu and Athena NiuNiu.
Love, ash and family ;o)
wife to Jim
mom to Jacob 9,
our "Angel" Kira 1,
Hannah (A. 7/1/08 Guangdong)
Scott and Athena... waiting in Henan.
~
(please do not cross post our news, I would love to just keep it here: amongst us in the "family".)

Scott Yu

and

Athena NiuNiu

Outta' Here!

We leave China on Friday at 5:50 AM ... We will travel about 27 hours and we will be home Friday afternoon!

{Just have your kids do the math! ;o)}

The Delta Pearl at night

The kids took these pictures. They really enjoyed photography on this journey. We walked to the river outside our hotel on our last evening to see the Pearl River at night. The pictures do not do the light show justice through the mist and humidity. It was very nice. We enjoyed all the lights as they played Chinese music.

The Red Couch Photos

This is all the Kids in our group of 5 families.

The 5 families.

Sister and Brother.
The funny bunch!
Our Family.

Two days left!!!!

Ahhh, the waiting game. Some of us handle it better then others...

Hannah wakes up everyday counting on her fingers how many days till we leave, then she pretends to be a plane... wrrrruummm.

Some of us after walking around are ready for the next day.
Some of us take their kids toys and never give it back.
In the wild, the strong survive, so if they want the toys back...
Ok, the kids have taken over the Bigger toys. So the bottom feeder parents, are left with the scraps.

Walking around the Island

Today we walked around the Island,

Jacob and Hannah took all the photos.
Enjoy!

Photoless day...(James blog)

Ok, I forgot to put the chip back in the camera after downloading the last batch of pictures. So the camera could only take 9 pictures without the chip. I also forgot to bring the cord to transfer the photos from the camera to the computer. :( (who knew we would need it, for a measly 9 pictures.)
Soooo, I'll just have to explain our day to you, without the living color. Let me start by saying we only have 3 major highlights to the day; taking a shower, eating breakfast and getting e-mails from people. Of course family time is a highlight, but we are getting bored. We've really slowed down on the paperwork end, so not much to do until Wednesday! It's like being in prison with a bag of plain potato chips... boring!
The only exciting thing to happen yesterday was at a downtown KFC. The staff had someone move from their table so we could sit at it instead. The restaurant was very busy & the lobby was full. We got a few mean looks from everyone like "oh, rich americans" made us lose our seats. I was hoping for a riot to break up our day... but no such luck. The restaurant has a guard and a lobby attendant patroling. It is their custom to have patrons move over & sit at a table that is only big enough for their party. So if you are a family of two at a four seater, then you must move.
Hannah has been fitting in like she was born to us, like she was always a "Hunsucker"! She is quiet, polite, shy "around strangers";(wait to till you get to know her, she is a real ham)LOL, she is respectful and a good listener... and of course crazy~wild with no shame of making a fool out of herself, LOL. Everyday she wakes with a smile, and says "Good Morning!". She understands a lot of English and speaks about 25 English words. Her main language is Cantonese, but she does understand Mandarin as well. She is very smart and attentive. She also loves to eat, hopefully that will slow down as we get her home and she has a more wide open place to play and explore.

Let's do lunch?

We meet Hannah's friends and their mamas for lunch.

Hannah's friend, Maddie MeiKe.

Hannah eating Schlotzsky's hot sauce...MMMmmm!!

Maddie MeiKe and Robyn(her mama)!

HannahMeiRu and MeiFeng (her friend), looking at a cell phone! Maddie and Hannah.

Robyn and Ashley! We finally got a chance to really meet!

Robyn & Maddie live near Grandma and Grandpa...

so we will be able to see them for a reunion in the summer!

Sharon (MeiFeng's mama!) and family.