When Love Takes You In - Steven Curtis Chapman

7 more days and we are on our way! We have to go over our accordian file of paperwork with our social worker one more time in the morning and then we can sit back and repack our luggage as many times as we want until Wednesday night. Even though we have done all of this to get Julia, it still has been kind of surreal to me until this afternoon on the way home from work. It really hit me that we will be a family of SIX here soon.
I have spent some time tonight looking back at the many letters that we have received from people over the past few months giving us encouragement. I'll always remember one in particular that I received at a time when we first started being "delayed" on our travel from Angela Williams. Angela sign languaged "In My Daughters Eyes" at our adoption auction. Her letter stated that during her bible study that morning she was reminded of Tim and I when reading Phil. 2:5 "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus." That really put me back in place when needed.

We are leaving!!!!! We got the call this morning saying that or Consulate appointment will be 07-31-06. We will get Julia on the 23rd or 24th of July. I cannot believe that I will be holding her in my arms a week from Monday. She will be ours. Matthew has been walking around the house screaming today and cannot sit still. He is so excited and nervous at the same time. I will post our agenda in the next few days. We will be busy getting ready to leave.

I cannot thank everyone enough for their prayers, financial donations and for just listening whenever I wanted to pull my hair out during this stressful process. It is so worth it.

Okay, it's official, there is going to be a little girl in the household that will be in need of cute clothing. I picked up Julia's monogrammed outfits today from Barbara Devine who owns Devine Design (www.devinedesign4kids.com) (334-265-5247). She is awesome. Her work is great and her prices are unbeatable.

We hope that Julia will be wearing these clothes soon. We got all of our final price lists today and are just sitting still waiting for the word that we will travel next Thursday. If we do not hear anything by Friday, then we have to postpone the trip. That will be heartbreaking. 1) Picture of Julia's ladybug outfit, matching bow and panty cover with her initial on it. 2) Julia's Alabama outfit with matching bow (look for the elephant on the bow) and monogrammed pany cover; Carson has matching boy's outfit 3) Julia's parade observation Frosty outfit with matching Frosty bow and her diaper bag with name on it. (I love the fonts that Barbara chooses for her items)

Annual Zoo passes are great! We decided to spend the entire day together doing "kid stuff". As you can see, Tim and I have yet to get our TA but are still being told that we should be leaving on the 20th of this month. One week from this Thursday. It's hard to believe it and get excited when it's really not for certain at this point. We both look like we are going on a TA hunt in our pic. We decided to go back to the Zoo and figured it was a good opportunity for Matthew to practice one more time with the digital camera. He did pretty good.

We left the Zoo and went school shopping since we will get back one week before school starts. I'm not sure if Julia is going to want to put that at the top of her list of things to do when she arrives. I know it will not be at the top of mine. We went ahead and booked our tickets Friday and that felt great even though we may have to change them. The price of airline tickets to China purchased a week before you leave can be extremely costly. We were fortunate enough to get some great rates through the NorthWest Airlines adoption program. We are going to get to fly into Japan and then straight to China.

I spent some time tonight looking at Julia's pictures that we have and cannot get over how beautiful she is and how desparate I am becoming to get my "Mommy" hands on her. I continue to pray that she will have a smooth transition into our family and that her bonding time with Tim goes just as smooth when we return with her. Our current flights have us coming back into Montgomery at 9:00 p.m. I'm sure Julia's sleeping pattern will be thrown for a loop. We may be up all night when we get home. Tim can have that shift to bond with her.:)

Cross your fingers that we hear something definitive tomorrow. My SW is supposed to let me know it they will not send her back to the orphanage before we get her. I do not want her to go back, if at all possible. It is almost 11:00 a.m. on Monday morning in China right now. I am ready to get my daughter.