More Papers Completed -- New Travel Information

We have completed the latest round of travel documents we received from our adoption agency. It would appear many trees have given their lives for us, as the stack of paper from the adoption continues to grow.

We’ve also sent off the paper work for our Chinese visas. There are courier services you can use that will hand deliver all of your paper work to the Chinese Embassy. We decided to use one to handle the task for us – The Assistant Stork. It will save us a day of vacation and the drive down to D.C. They are pros at this, and as such, better equipped to handle any bumps in the road that might arise.

Yesterday, we were on an hour-long conference call with all of the families from our agency who received referrals this month. Not a whole lot of new information, but there was one important nugget.

Usually, when traveling to China for the purposes of adoption, you enter the country through Beijing or Hong Kong. Now, because of the Olympics, those two cities will be out of the mix. (Both cities are hosting some Olympics events.)

It is now very likely that we will enter through the city of Guangzhou. That’s fine with us. We would have to visit there anyhow, because that’s where the US Consulate is located. And, it’s also the home of the renowned White Swan Hotel...

The White Swan is usually overflowing with new adoptive parents and their children. Check it out HERE. Chances are pretty good that we’ll be spending part of our trip at the White Swan.

We had another chat today with Anne, our social worker, who did our home study for us. She’s a terrific lady, and we chatted a bit about the challenges of accepting a child raised in a foster home versus the orphanage. Anne has been a great source of support for us through this entire process.