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Our dossier is on the way to CHINA!

We are happy to announce that our dossier passed inspection from our agency and left for China today! WOO HOO! And the wait begins.

This time around we are in the special medical needs line, which is very different than the non-special needs line that we were in for Nadia. The SN list comes out about once a month with new children available. The list currently has about 1,000 kids on it and the vast majority are boys. This is also very different from when we adopted Nadia and 90-95% of the adoptions were for girls. We want Nadia to stay the oldest, and most of the girls currently on the list are older than her.

With Nadia’s adoption our paperwork was put in line and then we were matched by a person in China with all the other people who had our log-in date. This time around the matcher for our adoption agency will find a child on the SN list that she thinks would be a good fit for our family and contact on us. From there we would send our Letter of Intent (LOI) to China. If they accept that then they will give us Pre-Approval (PA). That generally takes about a week. Once we have that we would be able to make an announcement and show the child’s photo.

The next step after that is is to wait, wait, wait for our Letter of Acceptance (LOA). The LOA can take up to 80 days to arrive. Once we get that from China we will be jumping for joy and waiting on one more hurdle – our Travel Approval (TA).

Once the TA arrives we all apply for Visas and get ready to travel. From the way the timeline is moving today we would be looking at 4 months from Pre-Approval to Travel Approval. When we got Nadia’s referral it was about 7 weeks total from the day we saw her photo until we were on a plane to China. And I thought that 7 weeks was the longest of my life. 4 months is going to feel like an eternity, but God is good and we know that it will all work out as it should. And just to make sure no one misunderstands, that four months doesn’t start until we are matched with a child. A girl who is a fit for our family could be available for us as soon as next month or not until next year; we really don’t know.

I really hope that helped those of you who have asked about the differences in Nadia’s adoption and this one.

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Disney World – Day 4 (Part I)

Buzz Lightyear, Woody, Green Army Men and a bucket full of Little Green Men. Need I say more about this day?

WDW Day 4 - 7.28.2010
Click the photo above to see the entire album. Once again I had a hard time choosing so I uploaded a lot 🙂

Nadia could have been totally content with our Disney experience after this day. She met the Toy Story gang and we bought her a bucket full of Little Green Men. Look at this happy girl right before her nap.

WDW Day 4 - 7.28.2010

We started our day at Hollywood Studios (formally MGM) and headed back to the Toy Story area “thinking” we could ride the Toy Story Midway Mania and take some photos. Ummmm, we didn’t have a clue. I had read that it was the most popular ride in all 4 parks right now, but that clearly did not compute with me. It wasn’t working when we arrived at 10 am and when I looked over at the Fast Pass Machine, the next available return time was 5:30 pm. So we decided to get in the line to meet Buzz Lightyear and Woody instead. We could still see the Fast Pass sign and wait time through the windows while waiting to see Buzz and Woody, and not long after being in that line the fast passes were gone. By the time we were done with Buzz and Woody the wait time was for the ride was at 90 minutes because it had just opened. So no Toy Story ride for us.

They had the cutest waiting/staging area to keep you busy while in the long line to see Buzz and Woody.

WDW Day 4 - 7.28.2010

WDW Day 4 - 7.28.2010

WDW Day 4 - 7.28.2010

I love how serious she seems in the photo below. Maybe she is wondering why Buzz is holding my hand.

WDW Day 4 - 7.28.2010

WDW Day 4 - 7.28.2010

When we came out of the photo area there were two Green Army Men out in the middle of all the people. Nadia immediately wanted to see and talk to them and Mike got some great photos. What amazed me was that people didn’t really seem to notice them – either because they were in a rush or they just didn’t think about them being in the movies. They were one of my favorite parts of the first movie. The second soldier Nadia interacted with seemed to be having so much fun with her that it was adorable.

WDW Day 4 - 7.28.2010

WDW Day 4 - 7.28.2010

WDW Day 4 - 7.28.2010

WDW Day 4 - 7.28.2010

Nadia was so excited through all of this and I was just enjoying her being so excited that I totally failed in my mom job to get out the autograph book for Buzz and Woody! So we went back to the exit door right by them and I snuck in when another family was coming out and asked if they would please sign her book so we didn’t have to wait in line again. Whew!

The whole area called Pixar Place was so well done that I enjoyed just looking at the decorations.

WDW Day 4 - 7.28.2010

WDW Day 4 - 7.28.2010

After a little shopping for Toy Story goodies we headed over to see the “Muppet 3D” show. Mike and I saw it years ago and it’s just really cute. We had shown Nadia some muppet videos on YouTube a while back so at least she was familiar with them before we went in. We came out of there and started walking when Nadia saw “Frosty” in front of the Christmas store and she had to stop and asked Mike to please take some photos. She was on a kick a while back where she wanted to dress up as Frosty all the time so this was extra fun for her.

WDW Day 4 - 7.28.2010

We were very hungry at that point and were able to walk in to Mama Melrose and it was fantastic!!! Wonderful Italian food tucked away in the back corner of Hollywood studios. Their Caesar salad was amazing! On our way out of the park we got some more pressed pennies and saw the “Beauty and the Beast” show. It was wonderful and the costumes were fantastic! Mike had so many good shots that I uploaded them as their own album.

WDW Day 4 - Beauty & The Beast

And I made one little video.

After all of that we headed back to the hotel for a nap. I will continue this day in the next post.

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Disney World – Day 3

WDW Day 3 - 7.27.2010
Click the photo above to see all the photos from the day.

Tuesday we woke up early to catch the bus to the Animal Kingdom, quite possibly the hottest and most humid place on the face of the earth that day. We had breakfast reservations for “Donald’s Safari Breakfast”. The food was very good and I enjoyed the Mickey Shaped waffles because they were so cute! Love this group shot of us!

WDW Day 3 - 7.27.2010

During breakfast Mickey, Goofy and Daisy Duck came by to pose for photos and sign autographs. This place was MANIA!! It was a lot of fun to see the characters dressed up in the safari gear and we had the most fun with Goofy because he played around with the kids more.

WDW Day 3 - 7.27.2010

WDW Day 3 - 7.27.2010

WDW Day 3 - 7.27.2010

After breakfast we headed out to get in line for the safari ride which has a pretty silly story, but the animals are neat. Nadia wore her “fari” hat for the ride.

WDW Day 3 - 7.27.2010

WDW Day 3 - 7.27.2010

We headed over to see the “Festival of the Lion King” show while the others went to ride the coasters. We ended up with really good seats because Nadia was on the end where the actors went in and out and they were saying hi to her and giving her high 5’s, which was really cute! The show itself was very well done and Nadia got a big kick out of it.

WDW Day 3 - 7.27.2010

After that, Mike saw that the line to see Goofy was short so we headed over there. Nadia loves Goofy and really had fun with him.

WDW Day 3 - 7.27.2010

WDW Day 3 - 7.27.2010

Then a man with a guitar and microphone came up and asked Nadia some questions and then made up a song about her and her Silly Bandz. It was adorable!

After that we found some penny press machine for Nadia’s collection and then went to see the 4D show, “It’s Tough Being a Bug.” It was very cute, and the end was really funny for the adults and had quite a few kids screaming (or maybe that was some adult women). At that point we were done with the oppressive heat and humidity so we got on a bus to head back to our room for lunch and a nap. After our nap we met the rest of our group at the Polynesian resort for the “Spirit of Aloha Dinner”. The food was very good, especially the pineapple coconut bread and the chicken. YUM! The dinner and show takes about 2 hours and I went ahead and brought stuff for Nadia to do because I wasn’t sure what she would think. I was right and she didn’t really get interested until the end with a lot of the dancing and the fire dancer.

WDW Day 3 - 7.27.2010

WDW Day 3 - 7.27.2010

We headed back to the room for fireworks and Mike got some cool photos.

WDW Day 3 - 7.27.2010

WDW Day 3 - 7.27.2010

I asked Nadia what she liked best about the day and she said, “Goofy.”