Itinerary

We are so excited to meet Clara in just a little over a week! Here is the breakdown of our trip. It will be so great to be able to spend time in China with Clara. We are trying to get Liah excited about spending time with her grandparents and she does get excited sometimes but mostly she is worried. We have started to count down the days until we are all home as a completed family. There are only 22 days left!

The trip there and back are the parts that I am LEAST looking forward to but we will be just fine. Yesterday, I called Jeff at 3:40 p.m. (when we leave from Detroit) and called him on the way to work this morning at 7:45 a.m. (when we will land in Hong Kong) to give a start and finish time to our trip. Sixteen hours is a long time. Hopefully, we will be able to sleep for some of it. The return trip with Clara will be interesting and I am happy that Jeff will be there to help out. I brought Liah home from Kazakhstan by myself and that was a trip that I still have nightmares about...

Here is our schedule:

11/4      Leave the U.S. for Hong Kong- just a 16 hour flight!

11/6      Hong Kong tour.

11/7      Leave Hong Kong for Nanchang

            *This is the day that we meet Clara!

11/8      Adoption Registration, Notarization and apply for Clara’s passport this afternoon.

11/9-     Rest or optional city tours- we will see how Clara is doing…

11/10    Waiting for child’s adoption paperwork to be completed/free day

11/11    Receive notarized adoption documents this afternoon.

11/12    Receive your child’s Registration Certificate and passport and today.

           

11/13    Leave Nanchang for Guangzhou

11/14    Free day in Guangzhou

11/15    Have Clara’s visa physical and visa photo taken this morning.

11/16    More appointments

11/17    Consulate appointment. 

11/18    Free day in Guangzhou.

11/19    Go to the U.S. Consulate to receive your Clara's visa packed and get ready to come home!

           

11/20    Arrive at airport to be reunited with LIAH and the rest of the family.

           

11/5      Arrive in Hong Kong.    

Travel Dates

I am really surprised how quickly our Travel Approvals came and how easy it was getting out Consulate appointments in China... We are leaving on November 4th and will return with Clara on November 20th! I didn't even think about being home before Thanksgiving because it just seemed a given to me that we would not but I am very thankful and happy that we will be home. Liah is very excited but scared. She was going on an on last night about how happy she is that Clara is coming home. She even made up a little song about it and at the end, she fell to pieces crying. She is just worried. Her life will change and she said that we will not pay attention to her. Anyone who knows Liah knows that she is a child who WILL NOT be ignored. She lets us know exactly how she feels and I don’t see this changing. If she thinks that we are not giving her the attention we should, she will tell us, I have not doubt about that. We continue to reassure her that she will get attention but her role will change some. She will be the big sister and will be a role model for Clara. She won’t be the baby anymore… but I think that she will get through this. I am happy that she is talking about it.

It looks like we will be traveling from Detroit to Hong Kong with several families in our travel group. We are all very excited. I am not sure when we will meet Clara but we are so looking forward about that day. Our understanding is that we will meet her when we get to her province, a few days into the trip. We will update more later…

Choosing a name...

Through the years of waiting, we have gone through several names. Our first name was Reese and this was around for almost 4 years. We referred to 'when baby Reese comes home... this will happen, when baby Reese comes home, that will happen'. Well after 4 years of saying that and getting closer and closer to a match, we talked about if Reese was still the name of our daughter. We decided to explore other names and came  up with many that we liked but none felt like the one for our daughter. The Saturday before we received our match, we were all sitting in the family room and someone said 'Clara' and that was it. We all agreed that we would name our daughter Clara and we would wait to see what her given name was in China to decide on a middle name. In China, her name is Feng Xiu Xiu and we wanted to keep part of this. Feng is the name that the orphanage gave the children as their last name. She is in a foster home through the Fengcheng Social Welfare Institute. Xiu Xiu was given to her by the orphanage. We decided that her name will be changed to Clara Mei Xiu. Mei meaning 'the littlest sister, beautiful and plum'. . Xiu meaning beautiful. We love it and can't wait to meet Clara!

New pictures

We received two more pictures of Clara today. She is so petite and it looks like to pink chair is going to eat her up. I am exhausted after a long couple of days but very thankful and thrilled that the wait is finally over. I don't know what I will do next month when I don't have to see how many days China matched and recaculate and recalcuate again about when we may receive news on our daughter... Yay!