To pack or not to pack, that is the question

I can't believe that we will be leaving in 8 days! These past 2 days have been filled with lists and more lists! We are trying to figure out what medicines to bring. We have bought cough medicine, cold medicine, sleep medicine, itch medicine.... the list goes on. The problem is that we are going for 16 days and are limited to 44 pounds in each suitcase. I think we have 40 pounds of medicine so far!! So much for clothing or warm coats. And now we have been told to bring plenty of snacks because "who knows what else the melamine is in". Oh my, there is so much to think about!

One of my many great blessings is Mike. He has been taking care of 99% (maybe more!) of the paperwork. I think that if I were doing it I wouldn't be sleeping at night. He surprised me the other day with some more paperwork "glitches" that had arisen, but wise man that he is, he waited until morning to tell me. However, we are determined to get through this part of it with a sense of humor, after all in 13 days we are going to be presented with our beautiful Amy and we can hardly wait. The payoff soooo outways any of these minor stresses and that has to be our focus right now, fortunately that is pretty easy.

Tomorrow we are off to CCAI to give them another cashiers check and to have conference call with the 6 other families that are going in our group. I am looking forward to the new friends and traveling companions that we are to share this journey with. I wonder what they'll be like. Will they be like Mike and I? Will they be bringing their kids? Will they even have kids? Maybe they will all have done this before. That could be good - they would be able to show us the ropes. Will any of them be from Colorado? Hmmmm. We'll see tomorrow.

Well, bedtime for me. I'll check in with you all later.

Bringing Home Amy Meng

In November of '05 we began our paperwork to adopt another child from China. Little did we know then that we were to be blessed with our 12 year old Amy Meng. We originally thought that we would be adopting a baby and that the process would take about a year and a half, but, as it turns out, those were our plans--not God's. He had bigger and better plans....literally!!!! When we spotted Amy Meng on the Waiting Child's website this summer, we knew that she belonged with us. And so our journey began...

We will be leaving for China on November 5th to expand our family, to become a family with 4 daughters and 1 son and we can hardly wait. There are many unknowns but there is also a lot that we do know. We know that God believes in adoption and we know how great that plan is because we know that he adopted us. As our friend Dani says, "if the Lord leads you to it, he'll be faithful to lead you through it." (thank you Dani)