Tick Tock

It's getting close. Today is our last day at work and then it'll be powering through the next four days, tying up all the loose ends and baby proofing the house.
I had a great lunch with my friend Deb and she set Helen up with that adorable Fisher-Price Little People Farm. I am so excited about it - gotta make sure our girl's gotta little bit of Iowa in her! When we returned to work, my friend Carl had a little bon voyage party going complete with cheesecake. Oof, I think I need a Tums...but in a good way, ya know?
Stew's already done for the day and is currently out/about running errands and enjoying the day. It feels GREAT to be this close to departure! Woo Hoo!

Another Homecoming Queen candidate!

We've heard news that we have another homecoming queen candidate in the family! Awesome niece and daughter of Stew's brother, Bruce, and his lovely wife, Sue - Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Jefferson High School.

CONGRATULATIONS BRITTNY!!

ITINERARY

Wed, Oct. 3
3:05 pm Leave Mpls on NWA for Beijing via Tokyo

Thurs, Oct 4
9:30 pm Arrive in Beijing
Oriental Culture Hotel

Fri/Sat, Oct 5-6
Visit Summer Palace and Great Wall

Sun, Oct 7
Visit Forbidden City
Fly to Guangzhou - leave 3:00 pm, arrive 5:45 pm
White Swan Hotel

Mon, Oct 8
MEET HELEN!!!

Tues, Oct 9
Register, visit notary

Wed, Oct 10
Apply for Helen's passport

Thurs, Oct 11
Freetime (I think this means shopping!)

Fri, Oct 12
Freetime (More shopping?!)

Sat, Oct 13
Sightseeing

Sun, Oct 14
Sightseeing

Mon, Oct 15
Helen's Visa photo and medical check-up

Tues, Oct 16
Pick-up passport, finish lots of paperwork

Wed, Oct 17
Interview at the Consulate

Thurs, Oct 18
Take oath and receive Visa at U.S. Consulate

Fri, Oct 19
8:15 am Leave Guangzhou on NWA for Mpls via Tokyo
12:00 pm Arrive in Mpls

The brilliant student body of West High in Waterloo, Iowa

My sis, Melissa, called to share some awesome news...
my super smart, super cute niece Chelsea is a candidate for Homecoming Queen!

CONGRATULATIONS CHELSEA!!

FIFTEEN days and counting...

Planning to post some pictures of Helen's room early next week. Our rocking chair has been delayed and so the other furniture hasn't been settled into place just yet. I know - what are we waiting for?! I ordered that thing over 9 weeks ago which seemed like plenty of time...at the time. We're hoping to pick it up this weekend and if so, we'll take some photos.

It's looking so good, I told Stew we should quit our jobs and start up our own nursery decorating business. That could work, don't you think, and don't steal my idea. He squinted and reminded me how painful it is to paint baseboards when you're 40 (or 40+, in his case - ouch!). He's right, besides I totally ripped off a Martha Stewart Baby back-issue for the design in the first place. I guess I just got a little carried away because it really looks so darned cute.

Special thanks to Mike Sahr for his chair rail/crown molding/toolmaster mastery, and Lisa Sahr and Cheryl Simon for the stencil expertise, if I haven't already given them their props. Anticipatory thanks, also, to Fred Ohlerking who has promised to help Stew hang the light fixture sometime this week. I think I just have one more thing to do in there and that is to figure out how to attach a new lamp shade to a new lamp base because they don't seem to fit as is.

Last weekend, we bought toys and books. That was super fun!

Next weekend, it's pick up the rocker. Hopefully, right? And it's also finalizing our packing list and begin trying to figure out how to get everything we need for 3 people for 3 weeks packed into two bags that can't weigh over 44 lbs. I may end up having to leave my very comfy but oh, so heavy Keens at home. Anyone gotta pair of those hideous Crocs I can borrow to save a pound in my luggage? ISH.

Consulate Appointment

Our consulate appointment in October was confirmed this morning - woo hoo! Stewart's making our Beijing sightseeing plans and I'm busy making the flight arrangements. We're so excited to know that we're leaving on October 3rd, will most likely be meeting Helen October 8th and returning on October 19th.

Additionally, I met a very nice woman online about 2 weeks ago. She and her husband were preparing to go to China to get their daughter who is staying at the same orphanage as Helen. She told me that she and her husband were hoping to visit the orphanage and if it was possible, she would take a brand new photo of Helen. The referral photos we have of her are a couple of months old already and you know how babies change so quickly. Well, she emailed me with some photos - taken earlier TODAY!

She is squirmy...

and she likes her thumb!

And so the rollercoaster ride continues

Just got a call from our coordinator breaking the news that we did NOT get the U.S. consulate appointment we'd requested.

That means we can NOT leave for China next weekend.

No dates just yet but it will be a date in October. As soon as I know, I'll post it. Hopefully later today.

P.S. In case I haven't mentioned this before, I want ya'll to know that Stewart and I will blog and post photos from China during our trip. We hope you'll follow along!

WE GOT OUR TA!!

Woo Hoo!

Our travel approval arrived today!!! Our agency is requesting a Consulate Appointment for September 26. We should hear back about that within the next 24 hours or so.

We're going to China to get Helen NEXT WEEKEND!

I should have bought a lottery ticket that day

Last week I had a dentist appointment out in the boons of St. Paul and I also needed to get our care package to Helen popped in the mail. I knew there was a post office not too far off my route so took the package along, figuring I'd stop and mail it on my way back to the office. This package included some very important items like a disposable camera the orphanage staff will use to take pictures of Helen there and return to us; a soft photo album with photos of us, our families, our house, and her room all labeled in Chinese; a security blanket I slept with so it smells like me (pew); and a book of questions the orphanage staff will fill out about Helen and return to us. Very important items, very important package, very.

So I drive around this weird, totally industrial area of St. Paul - a little strip of land sandwiched between the river (Mississippi - it flows through both Minneapolis AND St. Paul because it sort of snakes around there quite a bit, did you know that? All you geography buffs out there?). Where was I? Ok, so I'm driving around this warehousey bit between the river and the huge bluffs and finally, I happen upon it after much craning of my neck and turning around of my car, etc. Walk in, very quiet for noonish, one clerk - grouchy, two others in line. As I stand there waiting for my turn, I begin to feel a little edgy. I'm not exactly asking for a book of 20 stamps, I need to send this stuff International Express Mail. I realize OTHER people do this kind of thing all the time but I'd never done it before and the list of instructions my agency had provided me, wadded in my hand, was beginning to get soggy with my unease. It's just that the package was so important to me and I didn't want to screw this up, right? So I'm standing there with the box in an unsealed padded envelope, in case they have some sort of special, fancy envelope I need to use, my list of instructions, and the orphanage's address my agency gave me with both the English version and the Chinese characters version of the address.
Wait, wait, wait, I'm waiting doot, doo-doo. "Man, this guy is grouchy," I say to myself as he rudely "assists" each patron in front of me.
Next! I tell him what I want to do and he replies that the envelope I have provided is fine. Then I lay on him that I need to afix this address label to the envelope. I hold it up, showing it to him.
"You can't do that. We have to use the airbill as the mailing label," he says.
I say, "Well then, I want to tape this to the airbill."
"You can't do that, no. It's too big and it has to go through all four copies of the airbill. You'll have to copy it. Just use the English address."
I frantically search my pages of instructions.
"Ok, so it says here that if I can't use both addresses - I should use the CHINESE address. So I'll need to tape that part to the airbill." I hold it up again.
"No way. You'll have to copy it..."
Whaaaa? Copy the Chinese characters? Ok this this what it looks like:

You can see what I'm up against, right? He hands me the Customs form, the airbill and barks out "Next!"

I wander over to the counter to start filling out the paperwork as much as I can, muttering to myself the whole time. "I'm not done with you yet, Mister. Don't mess with me. You will bend to my will if it kills me, " etc. Thankfully, while I stood at the counter filling out my paperwork, Mr. Grouchy "helped" the three or four others in line and went on lunch break. Enter Mr. Just Had Lunch, Feeling Fine. It's just him and me now, so I approach his station with my best "I know you can help little ol' me" smile. I tell him what I'd like to do and that the OTHER gentleman told me I had to copy the Chinese characters MYSELF onto the airbill (!!!), can you believe that, and where it's going they mostly don't speak any English so I must show the Chinese characters and I just can't copy the characters myself because I will no doubt make a mistake (see above) and then this very important package that I'm sending to my beloved DAUGHTER will not reach her and so on. To which he replies with a friendly smile, "Well, you're just going to have to do the best you can." No, he really said that. I kept thinking, "Why don't they just make 4 photocopies of this address and tape it to all four copies of the airbill?" Then I realized that there's this annoying gov't thing about not using office equipment and supplies in a way that would actually HELP someone. (Apologies to anyone from my office who might be reading this...)

All the while we're having this conversation, I had the vague sense another person had entered the post office and was messing with some boxes behind me, bringing the total of those present up to exactly three. Him, me and new person. "I can help you," the other person offered. Huh? I turned around to see a young Asian woman standing next to a large stack of boxes she'd schlepped in from her car. "I'm Japanese but I can write Chinese characters. If you show me the address, I can copy it to the airbill for you."

Now what are the chances of THAT?

I'm so glad I remembered, in that most beautiful of moments, my camera phone. The above photo will go in Helen's memory book. Further evidence that some things are just meant to be.

(Huge apologies to the brilliant woman pictured above, who will remain nameless, in case that when you said it was ok to take your photo, you meant that I could take your photo but NOT ok to post it on my blog.)