Steven Curtis Chapman "Heaven Is The Face"

This song was released on Chelsea's birthday this year. It is a great song and my friend Rhonda sent the link to me. I posted the you tube above Chelsea's video but can't get is small enough. You can click on it to see it better, or click the link below. It is a great song for so many!

Provisional Approval of I800/Alaskan animals!!

We are official now, we have the notice of our i800 "provisional approval". If I understand correctly that means we are waiting on our second LSC? I am not sure but we could be in China in December I am told. In the mean time, I wanted to post so pictures! The outside photos were taken at Big Game Alaska near Portage. We got to see all 3 brown bears that day and they love to pose for photos! The kids carved their pumpkins with dad a couple days ago and Lindsey have a great time with her big brother! Happy Halloween!

NEW PHOTOS!!!

I had a great suprise from a very nice lady in China, NEW PHOTOS! We will be hiring this person to be our guide for a day while in China. I will share more on that later. Here are some photos. I think they are new but then I noticed the same jacket in a photo a taken in the summer, so I dont know. I am glad to have them regardless


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LUCKY 13, October 13, 2009

I received a very urgent package this morning, our original LOA/LSC. It arrived on October 13, 13 days after it was mailed via UPS. Oh, it was overnighted but maybe they lost track of time?

The copies with signatures are in the mail and should be in Washington by Friday!

13 is my new lucky number!!!

Oh, I am hanging onto the original copies "just in case.". :)

Update on our LOA

Our agency contacted whoever they talk to in China and we do not need an original LSC/LOA. They are going to accept the emailed copy with orginal signatures. So we have that done and ready to go. I am waiting for a document to get to me from the agency so I can sign it, then send it to Steve in Kenai with the LSC, he will sign the letter and then send it off to the agency from Kenai. Complicated but it should all we well and done by the end of this coming week. :). I have no other updates to report on the adoption. We wait yet again.

Jesse is in basketball now and likes it. He had is first game today. He has never played before so this is all very new and I am glad he is having fun. I will take photos at the next game.

Processing of our I800/STILL no original LOA!!!

My original documents I sent to the agency got there with no problems. GO FED EX!!! My LOA STILL had not been located. BOO HOO UPS! :). The CCAA is closed and my agency will be requesting a new copy Wednesday night which is Thursday in China. The agency is processing our I800 as of today and I am not really sure what all that means.

We had a fun weekend at the Autumn Moon Festival. I took photos and will add them later. If all the stars align and there are no hold ups we could be in China in December. I am told tickets are hard to get then. We will see what happens. Someone mentioned to me going in 2009 because of the changes coming with the adoption tax credit. Everywhere I look says the tax credit is expiring December 2010 and I even called the IRS and asked. Guess what? They have no idea!!! Oh well, no turning back now!! :) I just thought it was kind of funny the the IRS does not even know about the tax credit changes that are pending.

What a week...finally a REAL picture of our son.

We have had a very exciting week! Jesse and I attended Disney's the Lion King together and that production was wonderful. We met a wonderful man who is in the show and he took us back stage after the show. We got to see ALL the costumes and how the show is set up. It was very cool! We could not take any photos though as the show is copyrighted.

We also got our LOA/LSC this week! The downside to that is that we never received the original copy via UPS, it is "lost". We received a copy via email and were able to sign and email that back to the agency. After that I found out I did not send the orginal copies of the I800 forms to them. The Chinese Consulate is closed for a week now for the Moon Festival.

So, I have some work to do tomorrow. I have to overnight the original signature page of our I800 document to the agency and continue to monitor our status on our lost document. UPS is searching and if it is not received by Wednesday the agency will request a new one from the CCAA. They tell me that not having the original is OK at this point because they really don't need that for a while.

It will all work out but it is frustrating to be so close but yet so far. We hope to be in China by years end!

I am including a photo of James Le Tatakis!