Jillian's 1st Birthday

Today is Jillian's first birthday, we were a little sad not to be able to share it with her today, but we have discovered some more pictures of her with her caregivers and other children in a Fuling group photo exchange site, and can be assured that she is getting excellent care by the Fuling Social Welfare Institute. The Fuling SWI has a program called First Hugs, sponsored by Fuling Kids International, which is a non-profit U.S. organization. Its probably best to visit the web site, than have me explain it. http://helping.fulingkids.org/FirstHugs/ , It is comforting to know this SWI has such a great program for the kids. Jillian is on the right, in picture of three.

Travel Dates

We received an email yesterday giving our travel dates. We will be leaving London, Ontario on Jan. 12th, going to Toronto, then direct to Beijing. We will be returning on Jan. 26th, Beijing to Vancouver, then to Toronto, then finally London. Our travel schedule & times are unknown at this point, and will post them when we know.
We did finally find the missing immigration papers, camouflaged with a 3 yr.old's practice writing on them. They are still legible and should be ok. Tomorrow we have to get some more passport photos taken for our visa's to China, then send those forms with our passports into Children's Bridge, who will handle getting our visas. Our socialworker came very promptly on Sunday to sign our referral, and send the Letter of Seeking Confirmation, Consent Acknowlegement form, Notice to a Director, & Adoptive Family Background to Childrens' Bridge on Monday.

Courier Arrived Today.

We received the actual referral paperwork today, and other documents that need to be signed by our socialworker, and returned to Children's Bridge. The Puralotor Deliveryperson had the fortunate(?) experience of having his picture taken as he delivered the package. We have just discovered that we may be missing some immigration paper work, and currently searching for our immigration client #, which would have been issued, if our application was processed. I know we had sent the documents into the Canadian government, but can not recall receiving anything back. Its easy to overlook, due to the fact we had sent it in April - May. I think we might be making some more phone calls on Monday.

Hurray ! Our Referral has Arrived!

Wow some ultrasound, Jillian currently resides in Fuling Social Welfare Insituite, Chongquing. What we know is that on July 20/05 she weighed 6.7kg, 64cm in length, was crawling, has 4 teeth, tears paper, is very active & restless (just like her new big sister), likes to listen to music, quick in reaction, and ready to smile. I know we are sure are smiling now! We were not expecting the call to next week, what a awesome surprise! We will be receiving the actual documents next week, with more information. Her birthdate is Nov. 30/04.

Not Yet!

Still waaaiiittting.....no referral yet, (ultrasound), maybe tomorrow.

Passport finally arrived-Still Waiting

Kerri's passport finally arrived Friday after some delay. I had received
mine about a month ago, even though we had sent them together. Apparently we
had missed a question on the form for Kerri's passport, thus the delay. We
were beginning to wonder what had happened to it.

Speaking of wondering what had happened to it, back in Sept. China Centre
for Adoption Affairs had lost our passport type pictures that we had sent
them, so they requested that we send them new ones, along with more
additional family pictures, plus more documentation on our file. Well we had
to hurry and get things together, translated, notarized, and sent back
through our agency, Children's Bridge, in order to stay in our group, and
not get pushed back further. To make a long story short, Purlator lost our
package while sending it to Ottawa (Children's Bridge), causing it to miss
the "boat" to China, with other files that were being sent. It did arrive in
Ottawa a day late. We are keeping our fingers crossed that this has not
pushed us out of our group. We are hoping for a referral NEXT week, Kerri's
prediction is Tuesday, Nov.8th, Mine is Thursday Nov.10th.