Anna's Finding Ad

Today we received a glimpse into our daughter's past life. Today we received her finding ad and picture. The ad describes the location, date and time she was found as well as gives a brief physical description of her. The most exciting part is the mention of a "birth note" found with her! I have heard of other families getting copies of notes or the original note found with the child, and we hope to receive something similar.

Anna's Care Package

We are sending Anna a care package. I don't know if the children actually get their care packages, but we thought we'd try anyway.

We sent two care packages to Amy. In each one, we included a camera , clothing, toys, books and candies. The day that we became a family, the director gave us back one of the cameras we sent. When we had it developed, there were pictures of Amy walking around the SWI, holding one of the lollipops we had sent. You could also see Popo's feet and hands as she followed her baby around.

So, we thought we'd try again. Amy and I got the package together tonight and we realized that we had enough to create two packages, so we'll send another next month. In this one we put a dress, one of Amy's favourite books when she was a baby, stacking cups (another favourite of Amy's), two other stimulating toys, a photo album with pictures of us in it, a camera, and candies for her foster mother and the other little girl in the house.

We are hopeful that she will get her package in the next week or so . . . fingers crossed.

A Morning Conversation

Amy often talks about Anna as if she was here already. Tonight for instance, were role playing and Amy suggested that Robin should be the Big Bad Wolf and Anna, Amy and I should be the little pigs.

This morning was a little different. When Amy woke up, I went into her room to open the curtains and this was the conversation we had.

"Is it fall today?"

"No." I knew why she was asking. We've told her that we'll be going to China in the fall.

"Is Anna with Popo in China?" Popo is Amy's foster Mother.

"No. I think she is living with her own Foster Mommy."

"What if someone else takes Anna home?"

"That's not going to happen Pal. Anna belongs in our family now."

When?

"When are we going to get Anna?" That's the question that seems to be asked most around here, and not just by Amy. The answer given most often is, "Who knows!".

Going by some very general guidelines, here's how it might play out. We received Anna's referral on July 20th and sent in the Letter of Intent (LOI) the next day. On July 30th, we were pre-approved. From that point on, it takes approximately 100 days to get the next document, which is the Letter of Approval (LOA). This would take us to November 8th. When we were waiting for Amy, we received LOA at the 50 day mark, so we do know that it could be less. It could also be more.

Once the LOA is signed and returned to China, Travel Approval (TA) should arrive in 2 or 3 weeks. We would then travel approximately 2 weeks after that. This takes us up to the 13th of December and have us returning around the beginning of January.

I have all my fingers and toes crossed that it doesn't turn out that way. It seems like such a long time from now and I would hate to miss Christmas at home. Ugh.

Come on China! Send us some paperwork.

The Weekend

We've had a tremendous weekend starting with a dinner invitation to Greg, Margaret, Megan (who was away at camp) and Gillian's for dinner. Dress was casual, but a few in our party decided to be a little more formal. So did Greg, although, I'm not certain the tiara goes with his checkered shirt.

Saturday, Daddy and Amy spent some quality time together going to a birthday party and checking out some new play structures while I spent some quality time painting Anna's room. When we were preparing for Amy's arrival, I didn't want to do anything too soon, just in case something went wrong and it ended up being a huge rush during the final month, and I was left assembling her room just days before we left.

This time, I'd like to have Anna's room ready before I go back to work in September, so I've been painting and getting ready for the muralist who should be in to work her magic in a couple of weeks.

It has taken a number of coats on the walls because we have paintable wallpaper all over the second floor. Whoever coined the phrase "paintable wallpaper" clearly never actually painted any - it takes many coats to get into all the little divots and is not what I would call very user friendly, let alone paintable.

I'm now on to Amy's room to paint the ceiling that never got painted last summer. The previous owners of the house had a gold ceiling in Anna's room, a blue ceiling in Amy's room and a pepto bismol pink ceiling in our room! Unfortunately, the stipple ceiling also requires many coats of paint to get into all the divots. This whole painting thing could take quite a while. I will post pictures of both girls' rooms once they are completed.

Today, has full of entertaining friends around the pool. The first to join us were Gillian and her parents for a few hours of swimming and enjoying the sun. Then, Adrian, Izzy and baby Madelyn came over for more swimming. Amy was very facinated with Madelyn and spent quite a while tending to her every need.We tried to tell her that "her" baby will be a little older and will be walking and want to play with toys. Amy didn't seem phased and just wanted to practice a little at being a good big "stister".

Madelyn eventually was able to escape Amy's clutches and relax on the pool deck.

This gave Amy and Izzy an opportunity to practice their sychronized jumping; they may have a little work ahead of them.

Needless to say, Amy was actually in bed and fell asleep at a decent time tonight after six hours in the pool, giving Mommy and Daddy lots of time to catch up on Coronation Street.

Where's Anna?

Anna is currently living in Guangdong Province which is the province directly south of Jiangxi, Amy's province of birth. Wikipedia reports that the province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province. It become the most populous province in China in January 2005, registering 79 million permanent residents and 31 million migrants who lived in the province for at least six months of the year. Anna lives in Shenzhen City, right behind Hong Kong. The weather will not be as humid there as it was last May as the average temperatures in October are 25 C and 22 C in November.

Shenzhen's novel and modern cityscape is the result of the vibrant economy made possible by rapidforeign investment since the late 1970s, when it was a small fishing village. Since then, foreign nationals have invested more than US$30 billion for building factories and forming joint ventures. It is now reputedly one of the fastest growing cities in the world.
According to Maps of China, Guangdong is situated in the southern part of China on the Nanhai Sea (South China Sea), the province borders on Jiangxi, Hunan, Fujian and Guangxi, and is separated fromHainan by the Qiongzhou Strait. The total area of the province is about 180,00 square kilometres.

Guangdong is comprised of plains, tablelands, hills and mountainous areas. Smooth, low hills cover about 70% of the total land. It has the longest coastline and a great number of islands.

The province enjoys a tropic and subtropic climate,with abundant rainfall. The annual mean temperature is over 19c and the annual rainfall is approximately 1500-2000 mm.

Guangdong is the hometown of tropical and subtropical fruits and teas, such as bananas in Dongguan, oranges in Chaozhou, lychees in Zengcheng and black tea in Yingde. The handicraft articles, such as embroidery, drawnings, artistic porcelain, and ivory carving are famous in China.