We Have L.I.D. !!!

We were notified this morning that our Log in Date is November 23 2007!

It seems as good of a day as any. Now we can only sit back and wait and imagine holding our little girl for the first time.
We were told about the other families and couples who are also in our group who will all be receiving referrals at the same time and will travel to China together with us when the time comes! It will be nice to have the support of others in our situation and I'm sure that we will be forming some new friendships along the way. Some of the others in our group are from other parts of Canada and some are from right here in Calgary, so I can imagine that we'll be getting to know each other quite well in the next few years while we wait for our special referrals!
We are both happy and excited that we have reached yet another high point in this process!
Although we are only standing at the base of this mountain, we're prepared for a long climb, and we know our little daughter will be waiting for us at the peak, so we can't wait to get there!!!!

A Double Celebration!

Well, I know I said I wouldn't post anything until we heard of our logged in Date.....I lied.

Today was such a special day for us!

We sent our Dossier on it's way! It is now out of our hands and gone to Ottawa to be Authenticated and Translated. I went to the post office today and got my friend Clay to take a picture of me sending the whole package on it's way. It was hard to let go of something we've worked so hard over the Past 7 months to put together! I found out that today is actually a very special day in Chinese Culture. It is the Mid-Autumn Moon festival today. It is traditional to reunite with family and celebrate by eating, drinking, looking at the moon and enjoying little moon cakes. I thought it would be a great way for us to celebrate our big step into the adoption of our little girl by getting some moon cakes and having a little moon festival party, so John went to the T&T supermarket and after a little bit of "moon cake education" from the baker at the store, he arrived home with a beautiful little box containing 4 moon cakes for our party. Cadence was VERY excited to try one! Avery was already in bed by the time the moon cakes showed up, but we'll let her see them tomorrow. Well, we definitely liked the way the moon cakes looked! The taste on the other hand...well, lets just say that for next year's moon festival, we are going to put our own spin on moon cakes!!

So we had a great day, sending off our Dossier and experiencing our own little moon festival celebration. We are looking forward to many more celebrations ahead!

I've posted a few pictures of the high lites of our day!

So Much Has Happened!!

Well, once again our life has been so busy that I haven't had a second to update our blog...sorry.
So much has happened in the past month and a half! The last time I wrote that John's pardon was on the way in the mail. We received it in our hot little hands on August 6 and went the very next day to apply for John's clean record check from the municipal Police service. Our Agency was able to process everything for our home study and send it to the Director for adoptions for Alberta by August 29. In the meantime, John and I went to renew our passports which we received only 2 weeks later in the mail!! I love it when things happen quicker than we expect!
Then, 2 days after our passports came in, we received our provincial approval letter from the Director of Adoptions for Alberta!!! Needless to say we have been frantically gathering all of the required documents for our Dossier which we have been collecting since February. We now have everything together except for one last letter of request to China to adopt a child, as well as some "family life" photos with descriptions on each. We can get those tasks done in the next day or so.

I took a few pictures of all of the paperwork that we have been anxiously waiting for, creating, collecting and completing over the past 7 months. They will be something we can always look back on as a reminder of how hard we worked to become the lucky parents of one very special little girl!
It will be such different feeling once the dossier has been sent and logged into China....knowing that there's nothing that has to be filled out, acquired, picked up, sent in the mail, etc...until aprox. 3 years from now, when we receive our referral
it's a good thing because I don't know how much more info I can retain before I start forgetting my own name! ...Actually that has happened recently. Oh well, I'll be clearing up some room soon I hope!

We will be sooo excited to announce that we have sent our Dossier to China! That will be my next post, so until then....Cheers!!

I'm adding our little LADYBUG again so that she/he will continue to bring us Good Luck!

Pardon Granted!!!!!

We are happy to announce that John is now a free bird!! (he's been singing the song free bird all day!)
I called the Pardons and Clemency division in Ottawa this morning to find out the status of Johns pardon application. The officer there told me that the letter had been sent out just this morning, so we should see it in our mailbox next week sometime! Meaning that John's pardon is on it's way to us right now!
I'm so glad that the pardons officers took our plee seriously and processed John's application so quickly! This helps me to regain a little bit more faith in the system.
We are getting so close!!

Also today, I read that in Shanghai right now there are over 100,000 orphaned babies and toddlers under the age of 3. That's in Shanghai alone...which is basically the smallest province in all of china!! Wow. Knowing that makes it so much more frustrating to have to wait over a year to be placed with a child when there are so many little souls over there that need mommies and daddies and families right now. :(
But again, there is nothing we can do but wait for the little soul that was meant to be with us all along. Did I mention before that Cadence thinks she is growing our China baby in her belly button?? Too cute!
The truth is that our whole family is growing our China baby in our hearts!

I'll post again when we have word that our home study has been sent to the government of Alberta for approval. We're hoping for that to happen within a couple of weeks from now!
Bye! Hope every one's summer is going well!

Bon Voyage Pardon Application!

We have finally received all of the required paperwork for John's pardon application!
The girls and I ran down to the post office as soon as it opened up this morning so that we could mail it off!
If all goes well (the gov't actually processes John's pardon quickly as we requested) We should be able to send our homestudy to the gov't of Alberta in 5-8 weeks from now. I will be calling the pardon's division everyday until I am told that they have his application and are expediting his file. No point in backing off now...LETS GET THINGS GOING!!!
We are happy and excited that soon our dossier will be sent to China! by soon I mean a couple months, but in the grand scheme of things 2 months isn't much time to wait!

We just got back from our holidays. We had such a great time! It was a tiring trek, but well worth it! Cadence and Avery had so much fun!
The lake was beautiful this year and we can't wait to get back there next summer! A couple people asked me if we'd have our new baby by next summer so we can bring her to the lake too. Sorry people, but a couple more summers might pass before our little one can finally join us there. It will be so fun to watch her play in the sand with her sisters! Can't wait!!!

We'll keep you posted as to when John's pardon comes through!

Take care!

WOO HOO!!!!!!!!

O.M.G. O.M.G...........! We are SOOOOOOO excited!!!

The RCMP paperwork we thought we wouldn't get until September came in the mail today!!!!!!

The squeaky wheel worked after all!! (patting myself on the back)

We were feeling quite discouraged thinking we'd have to wait an extra 3-4 months before proceeding with the adoption process....now we can move along with John's pardon and get our application moving again!!!!

Geez...if we're this excited about getting RCMP papers I can't imagine what it will feel like when we get the adoption referral!!!

Anyways...we'll keep you posted as to what's going to happen next! For now I think we'll just take a deep breath and maybe do a little celebrating this weekend!! WooHoo!