Nancy, Reese & Elizabeth

In the adoption world, we make many "virtual" friends through e-lists and agency contacts that we never meet. Some of us are lucky enough to meet our on-line friends in person when we travel to China. Of course, this raises the challenge of figuring out what each other look like! So here is a photo that we included in our dossier to China to help our virtual friends recognize us.

While Reese & I have not changed much in the year since this photo was taken, Elizabeth has grown quite a bit, so here is her first day of school photo from September.

China -- Here we come!

We just made our travel arrangements which will have us in Guangzhou on Monday, November 19th to get Sarah!!!!

Here is another photo of her I found on the Chinese version of Sarah's

report.

Tonight, Elizabeth & I made a paper link chain for the 20 days until we go to China.

Nesting...

A week after 5 little monkeys (AKA Elizabeth and 4 of her 6 year old friends!) jumped on our waterbed, it sprung a leak and ended our discussions about keeping the king size waterbed as a good family bed versus going to twin beds for our girls.

Okay, so it is an odd blend of Barbie ballerina and Disney princesses, but the results have delighted Elizabeth and will allow either separate twin beds or pushing both beds together, as the girls decide if they want to sleep together or not.

The first call...

On August 15th, just as we were rushing out the door to Elizabeth's 6 year old check up, the phone rang. It was our adoption agency wanting to know if we would be interested in a 3 1/2 year old from China. From the very first descriptions, we felt that this was our child. Reese scribbled the information on the the only paper close at hand--in the margins of that day's newspaper! We chattered exicitedly all the way to the doctor's office until Elizabeth complained from the backseat that no one was talking to her!

By the time we returned home, we had two photos and 20 pages of report. Yi Hua (Sarah Rose's Chinese name) is from the same province as Elizabeth, in fact the two girls are from within a hundred miles of each other. Their cousin, Olivia, is also from the same area of Guangdong Province. The paperwork indicates that Sarah is a social, talkative and active little girl. As you can see from the two pictures, she seems to be interacting with the photographer and seems like quite a happy child.

We had her file reviewed by a doctor at the adoption clinic which confirmed our interpretation of her records and our resolve to make her part of our family. So on August 22, Elizabeth's 6th birthday, we sent in our letter of intent to adopt Sarah.