Working on filling photo album #2

The red photo album is mostly full of pictures of Lily. The second album is not just of Lily, but of the teachers and other children at Siping SWI.

Video of Lily Counting in Chinese!

This video was sent to us this morning from Katherine! Thank you so much Katherine! We've been watching it over and over and over again. I've never wished so hard before for time to pass more quickly! We can't wait to hold her in our arms!

Small change in the itinerary

Here is the new itinerary:

May 2nd ~ Atlanta/Seoul/Beijing
May 3rd ~ arrive in Beijing
Tour Beijing
May 7th ~ Beijing to Changchun--arrive at 4:40 p.m.
May 8th ~ We get to meet Lily!!! And, all of our paperwork will be done the same day in Changchun.
May 9th ~ Changchun to Guangzhou
May 10th ~ Consulate Appointment
May 12th ~ Guangzhou/Seoul--over night in Seoul
May 13th ~ Seoul/Atlanta--arrive in Atlanta 10 a.m.

Our agency called us yesterday to say that they had good news~we would be able to get Lily and have the paperwork done and her passport all in the same day in Changchun. If we wanted to we could shorten our trip by a week. We jumped on this opportunity since we are leaving so much behind here at home (the teens & the pets). Although they all will be in good hands with the Airparents ~ 2 1/2 weeks was going to be a long time and we would have missed everyone terribly.

Mark & Angela have always called Eric's parents "AirMom" & "AirDad" and they are together referred to as the "Airparents" :o)

Lily ~ April 14, 2007

I love crackers!

Yum!

Prom 2007

I had to get a picture of Mark in his tux before he left for the evening.

Mark & Liz at Ashley's before their group took a limousine to The Fox Theatre in Atlanta.


Mark with Liz and Ashley - don't they look great! They're ready to hit the town.

Itinerary!!!...finally...whew!

May 2nd -- leave Atlanta for Seoul, Korea to Beijing, China
May 3rd -- arrive in Beijing
tour Beijing
May 7th -- flight from Beijing to Changchun, Jilin Province
May 8th -- GOTCHA DAY
May 14th -- trip to Siping, Jilin Province then back to Changchun
May 16th -- flight to Guangzhou
May 17th -- Consulate Appointment
May 19th -- flight from Guangzhou to Seoul, Korea (over-night layover)
May 20th -- Seoul to Atlanta

We have lots going on in between it all...like getting to know Lily, site seeing, and meeting the team of teachers in Beijing and Changchun!...and more having fun with Lily!!

Happy Easter to us...from Sarah, Kathrine, & Lily!

Sarah and Kathrine went to the orphanage the Saturday before Easter and sent a couple of videos of Lily to us via email. Here is one of the videos...I don't have to tell you how much they made our Easter! Hold on...Lily is the cutest!

Pictures of Lily - taken today.

Hello!

Happy to be held.

We are only waiting for our US consulate appointment in Guangzhou to be confirmed. We are hoping to have that confirmation on Monday--then we can buy our plane tickets and have definite dates of travel. Our agency has Fed-Ex'd our travel packet to us containing our visas, passports, and all of the documents needed to finalize the adoption. It is very likely that we'll leave for China May 1st. We plan to site see for the first couple of days of May that the Chinese government offices are closed for a memorial holiday. Then we'll fly to Jilin to meet Lily! We can't wait!

Mark & Liz Prom 2006

We'll post pictures of Prom 2007 after April 14th.

TA!!!!!!!!!!

This morning I met Debbie and her children for coffee in Woodstock at The Serene Bean. Both Eric and HOPE for Children were trying to get ahold of me to say our travel approval was here! I never heard my phone ring! Can you believe it?? The day we've been waiting for a year and I don't hear my cell! I was caught off guard...thought the earliest we'd receive the letter would be next week since it didn't come earlier this week. We are so HAPPY!!! Lily!!! Here we come!!!

This morning before coffee with Deb I tried to take 6 teens (including Mark & Angela) to Six Flags. It's Spring Break week here and they are itching to do something fun. A local radio station was having a promotion where they were letting everyone in for free between 5:30 a.m. and 9 a.m. We were on our way when the radio station announced at 6:30 a.m. that there were already 15,000 people there and they weren't letting anymore in the park. The 2 exits to get off the highway to the park were blocked and there were police around because of all of the traffic....so we turned around and headed home. They were very disappointed to say the least. Now I needed to get them back home and try to make my doctors appointment by 8:30 a.m. I had been fasting since last night to have blood work done (routine stuff). At this point...I'm grumpy myself...with a car full of obnoxious and disappointed teens.

Tonight I have to give a speech on Eisenhower's Farewell Address...I've been working on it for a couple of days. I think that I'm going to have to warn the class that I'm really on cloud 9 right now...hope the speech makes sense at this point...BECAUSE we found out a few hours ago that we're going to China in few weeks to meet our daughter!!! I can't think of anything else!