You heard right! We have our travel plans to go and get our girl vivi almost all set!
And as an extra special treat we are going for one week early in order to do a homeland tour with my family so that my sisters can visit their birth cities!! It’s going to be such an exciting trip I can hardly wait!
An outline of our trip so that you can follow along is as follows:
March 20th - fly from Ottawa to Toronto
March 21st – March 22nd fly from Toronto to Beijing
March 23rd - fly from Beijing to Nanjing, Jiangsu province
March 24th – March 28th homeland trip going between Nanjing, Jiangsu province to Taizhou, Jiangsu province and Tongling, Anhui province and back to Nanjing.
March 29th – fly from Nanjing, Jiangsu to Guangzhou, Guangdong province
March 30th - free day to get organized for Violet’s arrival
March 31st – gotcha day! Otherwise known as adoption day!!
April 1st – 4th – some paperwork to sign otherwise these are free days. We will spend one day visiting her orphanage and hopefully meeting her foster mom/family. We also plan on shopping!!! And visiting the Chimelong Xiangjiang Safari Park
April 5th – fly from Guangzhou, Guangdong to Beijing
April 6th – 10th paperwork at the Canadian embassy, as well as free time to visit the Great Wall of China, hopefully participate in a traditional tea ceremony, visit the Forbidden City as well as more shopping!
April 11th – receive vivi’s immigration paperwork from the Canadian embassy and fly home! Flights are Beijing – Toronto – Ottawa and we arrive late late on April 11th!
If you wish to welcome us home at the airport I do not promise to look great after 13+ hours on a plane but I would love to see anyone who wishes to give us a quick hug and kiss with as a family of three!
I would love to know that you are or will be praying for us on our trip. I know I have many prayer warriors following along. Trust me when I say we will need all the prayers we can get. Struggles may or may not include some of these issues and more:
*jet lag and/or sleeping issues
*vivi’s grief and attachment and bonding to us
*orphanage visits (all three of the ones we are doing)
*eating when you can’t understand the menu
*learning how to take care of a cleft lip/palate
*culture shock for us when we get there and for vivi when we get home
*flights and travel in general
Where's the signatures?! I've been offline, otherwise would have signed up long ago! I love this prayer sheet. Sign me up for the first part of the trip....March 20th...so that we can be in touch on phone over the same time zone and so I can let you know how much I'm praying for you! BUT, keep in mind, I will be one of the ones praying for you the whole time and looking forward to any updates that you can get to your family and friends while you are away!!!! I am glad you are going so soon, but I am sad that our adoption struck unknown delays and our adoption leaves won't overlap like we hoped. Good luck on the trip and I'll be rooting for you! Hugs!
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