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!