Adoption Ceremony video and first haircut

Tuesday morning...just a couple of quick photos and another video. Jake slept over 11 hours last night. We finally opened the blinds this morning to stir him. He's had a bath and we are going to get breakfast.

Another short video clip.

Meeting Jacob, December 29th

Monday morning, December 29th

It's been a whirlwind here this morning, but I guess this photo captures it. The orphanage workers brought Jacob from his orphanage to Zhengzhou on the train (4 hours) yesterday and met us at the hotel with him at 8:30 this morning. Since then, we've been to four different offices doing paperwork for the adoption. Now we have returned to the hotel for nap time. We are grateful that the day has arrived and that he appears to be happy and healthy.

Arrival

We arrived at the hotel this evening at 11PM after more than 30 hours of continous motion getting here. A lady named Miranda met us at the Zhengzhou airport and brought us here to the hotel. She works for the adoption agency and will be our guide through the process here in Zhengzhou. Loree crashed immediately. I've never seen her go to sleep that fast. She is trying to be at the top of her game for tomorrrow. Miranda told us that Jacob is already here and we will meet him tomorrow morning at the hotel at 8:30 before going to the Civil Affairs Office to begin the paperwork. We will get custody of him tomorrow and he will be here with us in the hotel tomorrow night. They have already set up a crib in the room for him. We got to talk to the kids via Skype on my laptop when we got connected at the hotel tonight. It was great to hear them...

We have not added to this blog since Thanksgiving at the cabin. It is Christmas Eve morning. A lot has happened in the past few days.

A week ago we got an email from Kathy at Small World telling us that many things had fallen into place quickly and that we had to be perpared to leave on Saturday, Dec 27th. Since then we've been in a real scramble trying to get prepared for the trip, leave the kids for two weeks, and come home with a 2 year old.

It's been fun to see God's fingerprints on all of this. We had hoped and prayed both to complete the adoption by Dec 31st and to be able to accomplish all of this within a year of the time we started. In the end, we will complete the adoption in China on Dec 31st AND be home on January 9th, exactly one year to the day that we first saw pictures of ChaoChao and agreed to adopt him.

We leave Richmond at 6AM Saturday and connect in Atlanta to a direct flight to Shanghai. In Shanghai, we have to transfer to another airport (2 hours by cab) to fly to Zhengzhou the same evening (Sunday) that we arrive. We will get the hotel late Sunday. On Monday morning, someone is meeting us to give us instructions. We believe that we will get Jacob sometime on Monday. We will stay in Zhengzhou until Friday completing the paperwork needed and waiting on his Chinese passport.

Friday, January 2nd we will fly to Guangzhou where we will file the paperwork at the US consulate to apply for Jacob's US visa. This will be complete by Thursday and will we return home on Friday the 9th, arriving back in Richmond at almost midnight.

As Christmas is all about The Child, we are grateful in this season for our new child who will be with us soon.

This is a picture taken in July 2008 when Maddie and Jason visited the orphanage in Xinyang. ChaoChao took to Maddie quickly.

It is Thanksgiving evening 2008. We have spent the day with Loree's family at "The Cabin." Robbie is teaching us how these blogs work so that we can have a place to record and share details and progress of ChaoChao's adoption.

We tracked ChaoChao's Letter of Acceptance and see that it was received in Beijing today. We expect to receive our authorization to travel within the next three weeks. Once that is received our agency (Small World) will schedule appointments for us in the required places. We will first spend about a week in Zhengzhou (capital of Henan Province) to complete the adoption with the Chinese. When that is complete, we will go to the US consulate in Guangzhou to apply for a US visa for ChaoChao so that he can travel home with us. This will take another few days. If all goes well, we will have to be gone a total of 12-14 days.

We are hopeful that some of this travel will take place over Christmas break and that we will return home the first week of January. It could all have to wait until sometime in January, depending on how quickly the Chinese government responds to our LOA.