Our Journey - Fundraising and Travel Update

I can't believe I'm writing this but it's official, WE ARE GOING TO CHINA!!!  

On Thursday we got our Travel Approval AND our Consulate appointment.  After spending 4 hours on the phone with Delta, our flights were booked.  We leave the day after Thanksgiving and will officially hold our son for the first time on Monday, November 27th!!!  I can't even put into words the nerves, excitement and butterflies that go along with that statement.  

We will be in China until December 8th and the idea of being away from John David and Madison for 2 weeks is terrifying.  Anybody who knows me, knows that I have a super hard time leaving my kids and we almost never travel without them. (We have only gone on two weekend getaways since John David was born over 8 years ago!)  We know they will be in great hands with family and friends but please pray for all of us while we are apart during this time.

Your support during this journey has been amazing!   We've cherished all the words of encouragement you've sent us and have saved the notes for Thatcher to read when he is older. 

You guys have raised $4495 to support our family!!!  We are shocked and humbled by your generosity and will be forever grateful for all of your prayers and financial support. 

That being said, we are only about $500 away from reaching our fundraising goal!

SO if you have been praying and God has laid it on your heart to financial contribute to help us bring Thatcher home...NOW is the time to donate.

There are two ways to donate.  One is through the Paypal link located on the right side of our blog (kristen7@gmail.com).  You can also mail your donation to us at 12525 Silver Fox Court, Roswell, Georgia 30075.  

No donation is too small!  Whether 50 people donate $10 or 1 person donates $500, it all gets us closer to achieving our goal.

We are truly blessed to call all of you our friends!  Please continue to pray for us over the next 2 weeks while we finalize all our plans to travel and finally bring Thatcher home!  We will continue to update you guys and plan to share pictures of our journey while in China.  We cannot wait to share pictures of Thatcher in our arms in just a couple of weeks! 

Our Journey - Traveling to Bring Thatcher Home

WOW, the last 2 months have been a whirlwind of excitement, nerves and no surprise...LOTS of paperwork.  I pride myself on being an organized person but ALL of this paperwork is definitely testing my abilities.  A lot of people have asked where we are in the process and when we will actually be traveling to China so we thought we should post an update on the steps we have completed and what we have left to do.  Here it goes...

This is the last update picture they will send us.
The next picture will be of him in our arms!!!

September 7 - Received Thatcher's File (spent the weekend reviewing all of the information)

September 11 - Officially said "YES" to becoming a Family of 5!!!

September 12 - Submitted our LOI (Letter of Intent) to China

September 13 - China granted us PA (Pre-Approval) for our adoption of Thatcher

September 19 - China granted our official LOA (Letter of Acceptance)

September 22 - Submitted our I800A application to USCIS

October 5th -  Dave and I applied for our visas (needed for us to travel to China)

October 6th - I800A was approved and sent to NVC (National Visa Center)

October 16th - Submitted our DS260 to US Dept of State

October 17th -  NVC letter sent to US Consulate in China

October 18th -  Dave and I received our visas from Houston Consulate

October 19th - Article 5 dropped off at US Consulate

November 2 - Article 5 picked up and will be sent overnight to CCCWA


NOW....we are waiting on the CCCWA (China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption) to grant us TA (travel approval).  We expect this to take 1-2 weeks but we are praying for a quick turnaround!

Once we get TA we will apply for the earliest possible Consulate Appointment and will travel about 2 weeks later!!!  We are guessing we will leave the week after Thanksgiving but unfortunately we can't book any of our travel (flights, hotels, etc) until we receive our official Travel Approval.

PLEASE continue to pray for quick turnaround times for our last few steps...we desperately want to be in China with Thatcher for his birthday at the beginning of December!  Also pray for Madison and John David's little hearts (and ours)...we have never been away from them for more than a couple of nights so being separated for 14 days is going to be HARD on all of us.


Also, I will do a FULL fundraising update this weekend but you guys have been AMAZING!!!  We are seriously blown away by your generosity to our family!  I posted a thermometer on the side of our blog so you can see the progress...we are already half way to our goal!