CA????

There is one more step between us and a definite departure date, and that is an appointment with the Consulate in China. We've received word that our appointment has tentatively been scheduled for August 26th, but we are still waiting for this to be official... (sigh) Please pray that tomorrow brings us some answers!

Where is Emma-Chu?

Emma lives in the city of Zhanjiang, located in southeast China near the Vietnam border.
Can you see it???

TA is here!!!

Our TA is here! We will (tentatively) be leaving for China on August 14th and we should be meeting with our little girl on August 18th! To say we are excited is a complete understatement. For now, we are busy putting the finishing touches on her room and getting everything ready for Emma's arrival.

Clothes & More Clothes

Now that we have new measurements, the shopping has begun!

Brooke cannot stop getting clothes for her little sister! Emma's suitcase has carefully coordiated outfits with matching shoes inside of it. We learned in a recent update that Emma's favorite color is pink. Brooke decided to make up for the fact that we painted Emma's room green by "balancing it out" with pink outfits!

Next it was my friend Angel's turn. Living up to her name, Angel went a little clothes crazy too! Beyond furnishing Emma with her entire 2008 & 2009 school wardrobes, Angel also made sure that Emma will have a dress for every possible occasion between now and 2010!

Can you tell that everyone here is excited about this little girl?!

Care Package Number Four

Our last Care Package made it to Emma's SWI this last week and it looks like it was well received! As always, we are so thankful that the staff at the SWI sends us such wonderful pictures and updates. She's holding a photo album with lots of pictures of us in it - and she's still smiling! We're taking that as a good sign! It's hard to explain what pictures of this little girl do to our heart. We are SO ready to hop on a plane for China. Hopefully in less than a month, we will get to meet Emma in person for the first time! Until then, our adoption agency staff reports that, after working with her sign language tutor, Emma knows the sign for each of us - brother, sister, mom, and dad! She's also learned about a hundred other signs too! This little girl is obviously very smart and was just waiting for someone to help her communicate!