Well, we made it. Man that is a long flight/travel time. Joel did wonderful on all legs of the trip, asking questions about just about everything.

Upon getting to Beijing we had the always fun experience of getting and riding in a taxi. They always moan and groan about where our hotel is and luggage, but we just push on through. Although this time, I just about didn’t get in the taxi quick enough before he was moving too fast to catch up.

We made it to our hotel in China two minutes prior to the New Year and we are beat. We are going to make a quick call to the girls and the head off to bed. We have a lot of stuff planned while in Beijing; forbidden city, great wall, dance show, etc. before we actually get to Josiah on Sunday.

On our way

I'm sitting at a table in the Seattle airport sipping my Starbucks peppermint mocha, on our 3 1/2 hour layover. We drove to Portland last night, which ended up being a 6 1/2 hour drive (it usually takes about 3 1/4 hours) due to an unexpected snow storm. Even the forecasters were apologizing on the news for goofing up. This morning we got up bright and early (actually it was still dark) to drive to the airport, and were pleasantly surprised that the roads were clear. Now we are gearing up for the long flight to Tokyo and then Beijing.

Joel is doing great so far. He was so cute on the short flight from Portland. We were in a tiny propeller plane, and he said a comment about almost everything. "Woah, we are taking off" "Woah, we are turning" "Woah, we are in turbulence" "Is it always this bumpy when landing?" It is like experiencing flight for the first time, enjoying each and every thing. (Even though Joel has flown on multiple airplanes since he was a baby) Hopefully the next two long flights are fun for him too (and hopefully he sleeps some too!!!)

We are all super excited to meet Josiah in 4 days. We know that many of you are already praying for us, and we really appreciate that!

Hannah and Olivia, we love you so much and hope you are already having a fun time with Nana and Grandpa. On the flight here, Joel said he wished Hannah was with us, cause there were cotton candy clouds, and Hannah really likes cotton candy clouds. He said he would let her sit by the window and look out.

Faithfulness

David here. I just want to share God's faithfulness in our lives during this process. One aspect of adopting is the financial component. With Olivia, God moved in amazing ways to provide the money necessary for us to pay for the adoption without going into debt. During our decision making process for Josiah, for me, money again became the crux of the issue. Seriously, four kids, do you know how much that costs? College? Ouch! Is our house big enough? Nope. Cars? Getting old and small..... Cost of adoption $25k. You get the picture. Eventually God worked in my heart by helping me remember that He has always provided in tough times, as long as we are working in His Will. So started our journey towards bringing Josiah home.



As our blog demonstrates the many milestones, I wanted to provide some financial ones too.
April worked hard to provide some extra money through cutting back on spending (even though we are pretty frugal already), ran a marathon (and raise $175), and did some babysitting (1,900).

Family, friends, and church members provided another 3,100 in donations.

We also applied for a number of grants, which we never really thought we would receive. The Gift of Adoption Fund (see link on sidebar), provided us with a grant which propelled us from the "how in the world can we make this work" to " wow, look how cool God is". This was a big moment for me, as leading up to our notification, I was really really stressing about how we were going to afford it without going into debt or borrowing money (just ask my wife... I was not a happy person). It was in this moment that God put His finger into our lives and made it clear. You and your family are part of my plan. You are doing and in My will. I have provided. I am providing. Much like Joshua, I put a stake (Joshua used a altar of rocks) in the ground in my life to never forget the amazing provision God can and will provide.

We also made the decision to bring our son, Joel, on our trip. This added to our cost and we started to wonder if it was the right decision, even though we had prayed about it.... we started to second guess ourselves, especially as over the last month (Nov/Dec) we had a number of medical bills and procedures which were unexpected and really started adding up. And the car broke.... how easily we forget God's provision sometimes and allow worry and money to so impact our lives. It put me in the position of, okay I know God will provide BUT we only have a few weeks (2) before we leave.... How in the world will this work out? Through prayer and conversations with family and friends we knew it would work out.... but... but...but... yah you get the picture.

Last week we were notified that we received another grant from Show Hope (see sidebar) which covers the cost of bring our son, the extra medical bills, and remaining balance for the adoption.

In all, it demonstrates the provision of God, and a constant reminder that we are in His will as we add to our family.

We are going to China!!!

We got our Travel Approval on Monday! Found out last night that we got the consulate appointment that we wanted, so we leave for China on December 30th! We will tour in Beijing for a few days and fly to Xi'an on Sunday January 3rd. We will finally meet our son, 8 1/2 months after seeing his face for the first time! We are so excited!! We will return home on January 16th. Joel is really excited for the trip too, and is keeping his own blog at joel2china.blogspot.com. I will post our more detailed itinerary once we have it.

Please pray for Josiah's heart that it is ready to meet his forever family, and that we will enjoy being a family of 5 for these last two weeks. And a-packing we will go...

Testing email posting

This is just a test to see if posting from email is going to work, because blogspot is blocked in China.

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Nutcracker

Joel and Hannah were in the Nutcracker ballet last weekend. Joel was a soldier and Hannah was a mouse. They both did great!!! It was an amazing performance. They performed three times over the weekend. Here's a picture of the two of them after a performance. Aren't they so cute?!!

On the adoption front, we are still waiting on TA. Could be here any day or as long as a few weeks from now. We can't make any travel arrangements til we have TA and are able to request a consulate appointment.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We just wanted to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. We have so much to be thankful for this year. God has provided for all our needs and then some! We went to cut down a Christmas tree this morning, and had a great time tromping through the snow to find the "perfect" tree.

Last night, we found out that our Article 5 has been signed by the US consulate in Guangzhou, China. Now all our paperwork is in the Chinese adoption authority's hands and we are officially waiting for our Travel Approval. All the steps since our LOA have gone way faster than expected. TA's usually take around 2 or so weeks to process. If all goes quickly, we could even have the option to travel near the end of December! Things are feeling a little more real, and I have a big list in my head of all the things we need to do before traveling.

And to top it off, we got an update on Josiah last night too!

Here is the current measurement of Shi Qing:

height: 82cm
weight: 11kg
head size: 48 cm
chest size: 49 cm
number of teeth: 16
length of his feet: 13cm

We also found out that he is still sleeping in a crib, is
not potty trained, and still uses a bottle.

And they said he is a bright and cute boy who likes to
help his nannies.

We didn't get a picture of him, apparently the
orphanage's computers are not working.

Here's some pictures of our day getting our tree:
Searching for the perfect tree

found it!
The kids carried it back to the car


Daddy showing off

baby steps

This whole adoption is a bunch of baby steps. Steps closer to Josiah. I'd have to go back and count just how many steps there have been, but we just took yet another step. I found out today that we got our I-800 approval (immigration) on the 10th. It hasn't come in the mail yet, but I called our immigration officer and she told me that it was already approved. Every step is a huge relief. Now our paperwork will be shipped off to some other office in the US government and then to the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China. Then we will wait for something called an Article 5, basically the US's final stamp off approval. Then more paperwork goes to the Chinese government and we wait for our Travel Approval. Once we have travel approval, we will make our consulate appointment and set up a gotcha day. PHEW! This adoption process sure is not for the faint hearted! We are going to try to travel as soon as we can after getting TA, hopefully within 2 weeks after TA we will be going to China. The next few steps have some variability as far as timing, but we are hoping to travel in January.

LOA!!!!!!!!!

Our agency informed us yesterday to let us know that we have our LOA (letter of approval), also known as LSC (letter seeking confirmation). We got it from Fed Ex today, and of course checked off the box that of course we still want to adopt Josiah!!! So after signing the form, making some copies, gathering all the documents that I have been filling out this past weeks, I went to Fed Ex and sent more paperwork back to our agency and to immigration. Now we wait for another round of immigration approval (which involves many steps that I don't understand yet) and then we wait for travel approval from China. All that should take around 2 months. So travel in January is looking highly likely! We are so excited, and can't believe that Josiah could be home playing with his brother and sisters in around 3 months.

We are also seriously considering bring Joel with us for this adoption trip. So please pray for God's wisdom in this decision.

Here's some pictures from October of the kids:

Olivia's first pony ride - she loved it, of course!


It's so hard to choose!


And even after choosing, none of these pumpkins in this picture are actually the ones that we went home with! I think they changed their mind at least twice after this picture.


Enjoying the last warm days of Fall

No news, but a new picture!

No LOA yet. We are on day 68 of our wait. Some people have been getting their LOA after 60 days, but some have waited over 100 days. We are hoping it will come really soon, but have no idea how long it will be. We were pleasantly surprised to get this new picture of Josiah from a friend. I think it was taken in September, so it is the most recent picture of him that we have.

We did hear back from Gift of Adoption, and we were awarded a grant to go towards adoption expenses. This is a huge praise. Thank you, God, for providing!!!

Happy Birthday, Josiah!

Today is Josiah's 2nd birthday. We are sad that we can't be with him on his birthday, but looking forward to celebrating his 3rd birthday and all years after that. He got a cake today and a little care package from us.

Also, I want to thank all of you who supported my fundraising effort. I finished the Portland Marathon yesterday. It was lots of fun. I'm super sore today, but still able to SLOWLY keep up with the kids.

Here's a picture of the care package we had sent to Josiah for his birthday.

Birthday, first day of school, elephants, and update, OH MY!

It's been a couple weeks since I've given an update, and a lot has happened. First of all, Olivia turned 3!! And she has to tell everyone she meets that she is 3. Very proud girl!

We also had three days in a row of first day of school. Joel was first one up, going to second grade. Oh, and he lost another tooth last week too!

Then Hannah had her first day of Kindergarten. And she scored two goals last Saturday in soccer!

Olivia started "preschool" as well. It is a one day a week speech group at the developmental preschool. She is also getting two individual sessions of speech a week.

We have been super super super busy with our new schedule, between school, therapy, ballet, soccer, and now starting AWANAs. But at least I always have one or more kid at home with me at all times, so I don't get too lonely!

We are sending Josiah a care package for his second birthday, on October 5th. I'll post pictures of the package once we get them. We decided to use a service this time, and got updated measurements. He is about 22 pounds and a little over 32 inches tall. That puts him way below the American charts for weight (he is the weight of an average 11 month old) and around the 10'th percentile for height (about the height of a 18 month old). So he must be super skinny! We will have to have all adjustable waist bands for this little guy or his pants will for sure fall off.

Still waiting for our LOA. We are on day 39 of our wait since our log in date. Probably the very earliest it will come would be in 3 weeks, but more likely 5 or more weeks.

Joel and Hannah (along with their cousins Leah and Brady) rode on an elephant yesterday at the circus!

Also yesterday, they ran in their first real race!

One last trip (boys only!)

Joel and I had a chance to head back into the mountains one more time before the summer ended. Joel decided he wanted to return to the place of our first backpacking trip ever (Betty Lake near Waldo Lake).
View Larger Map There were a few bugs, but not too many (enough though that Daddy got 7 bites on one hand). We walked all the way around Betty Lake, trying to only walk on the beach. But there were many places where we had to head back to the main trail. Joel is an excellent backpacking companion. He knows how to set up a tent, lay out the sleeping bags, and safely store food 30ft up in a tree.

Joel loves to "Rambo" over the trees, stumps, rock, and through the bushes. Don't fall Joel!




He also enjoys taking pictures and videos. The video above is a dried up creek that fills up during Spring thaw. Joel though this was pretty cool.

One more summer almost over...

We are ending summer with a bang. Hannah and I (April) went backpacking last weekend together and enjoyed some great mother/daughter bonding. We went on a nice hike near the three Sister's to a quiet lake. Had some unplanned adventures, like stepping on a yellow jacket nest and Hannah being stung twice. She was so brave, and God really provided. I didn't pack a full first aid kit, since we were only going one night and not a super long hike. But soon after she got stung some ladies came by who happened to have children's Benadryl and children's Motrin. They also suggested using mud on the sting, which worked wonderfully. Next time, I'm going over prepared with a full first aid kit no matter how short the trip is!

Also, our camp stove decided to not work. We brought freeze dried food for our dinner, so needed hot water. With Hannah's cheering and encouraging, I made a fire to boil some water. We are now officially mountain women!

And for what's new with Joel, see the picture below!!

Let's go!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mud for bee stings - who knew???

A Mother/Daughter sunset

The little mermaid goes for a swim

Joel lost both front teeth in the same day!

LID

We found out that our dossier has been logged into China's system! On August 13th!!! That means we are already on day 13 of our wait for LOA (or LSC - letter seeking confirmation). This will be the next step closer to Josiah, and we are hoping for that in about 2-3 months. For those of you in the adoption community, you understand that every acronym is a reason to celebrate. For all the rest of you, just trust me in knowing that this is a big deal and we made brownies to celebrate!

I've been really bad about taking pictures for the past month, keep forgetting our camera! So no new pictures to post, but I'll work on that some time before summer vacation is over - in less than two weeks! I did get a new picture of Josiah from a travelling mommy. She recently travelled to pick up her daughter and the orphanage gave her a CD full of pictures - two of which had Josiah in them! I think it is OK to share these pictures since they are from the orphanage. I think this is from some time last winter, based on his size and clothing.

Fundraiser!

I (April) am now officially signed up to run in the Portland Marathon on October 4th! I ran a half marathon with my two sisters in June, and decided if I have trained that much, might as well keep on training for the full marathon. This will be my first marathon. We decided to use this marathon as a fund raiser to help bring Josiah home. The marathon is the day before Josiah's second birthday, so we thought what better birthday gift, than being that much closer to being able to give him a family. If you would like to support us in being able to bring him home, you can click on the "chip in" button on the right of this blog. All donations are tax deductible (through our church's adoption fund). If you feel more comfortable sending a check, please email me at apriltranby@hotmail.com and I will tell you how to proceed. Thank you in advance for all your support.

DTC!!!!!!!

We just found out today that our dossier was sent off to China on Friday! This is a huge milestone, and such a relief to have all that paperwork done. It took us about 3 1/2 months to gather all that paperwork, and it was almost lost by Fed Ex. It was sent to the wrong city and delivered a day late, but now it is on the way to China! Now we wait to hear our log in date (the day our dossier is officially logged into China's system). Everything is in China's hands, and the timeline becomes even more unpredictable.

Here's some pictures of our camping trip this weekend. It was really cold on Friday but we still had a great time. Fortunately it warmed up a bit on Saturday and Sunday so we could venture away from the fire a little more.

Are we having fun yet? YES WE ARE!!!

Joel LOVES stoking the fire

Can I play with the fire too?? NOOOOO!

I'll make my own pretend fire.

Enjoying summer

Not much new here on the adoption front. We are still waiting to hear when our fingerprinting appointment is. We've gotten two letters in the mail from the USCIS, and each time, my heart beat goes a little faster to see if it is our fingerprint appt. Each time, it was just a confirmation that they got our application and paperwork. They are pretty efficient, huh, telling us twice that they got our paperwork? At least we know we sent it to the right address, though. We're going to a wedding this weekend, so on the way we are stopping by the secretary of state to get most of our paperwork authenticated. It will feel good to have that step of the paperchase almost done.

Here's a picture of the kids (with cousins and friend) at the pet parade on the 4th.

Home study done!

We sent off our homestudy and I-800A application to immigration last Wednesday, finally. It took longer than expected for our homestudy to be reviewed, so we are back on track with our initially expected timeline. Next we wait for our fingerprint appointment, where we get to drive to the Portland immigration office to get our fingerprints taken for a FBI background check (even though we already had an FBI background check for our homestudy). We really aren't criminals!!!

Last Friday, Hannah had her first dance recital. She did great doing a ballet dance as Tinkerbell, a tap dance as Minnie Mouse, and a dance with Joel as Beauty and the Beast. They did great, I was so proud of them! Joel was the only brother dancing. Everyone else was Dads or a boyfriend.



We also went to the beach a couple weeks ago with April's side of the family, so here's some pictures from that weekend.

First care package and good news

First of all, the good news. We are officially not criminals!!! Our homestudy background checks came back yesterday, which was faster than we expected (We had to wait 5 1/2 weeks, instead of the expected 8 to 9 weeks). Now our agency just needs to check the homestudy and then we will file with immigration. One step (out of a million steps) closer to our son!!!

We sent our first care package to Josiah on Monday. We decided to send this one on our own, instead of using a service, so hopefully it will get to him. We have no way of knowing if he gets it. When it is his birthday in October, we will probably use a service to send him a cake, but for this one we thought it would be more fun to pick out the items ourselves. David and I slept with the little dog for a few nights to help get our scent on it, maybe help with attachment???

Last day skiing of the season

We went up to the mountain on Sunday to go skiing for one last time. Had fun watching some "pond skimming," where people ski or board down a hill and skim across a pond of icy cold water, usually sinking into the water. The kids thought this was so fun (to watch!). Now we are on to warmer weather and will have to make the switch to water skiing.

Fun hiking day

We went to Smith Rock today to go for a hike that is normally to difficult to bring Joel and Hannah since Joel and Hannah are at Disneyland this weekend with their Nana and Grandpa. It was fun to do something with just Olivia, since we don't get to do that very often. She ate up all the attention.

Pre-approved!

We found out late last night that we have been pre-approved by China to adopt Josiah. This pre-approval is way faster than we expected (usually they take anywhere from 2 weeks to a month). Now we have to hurry up and get our paperwork finished! Best case scenario, we are hoping to travel at the earliest next January or February.

Here we go again!

We have been discussing the possibility of either having another child naturally or adopting again over the last four months. Last week (Thursday), we decided that we have a clear answer from God that it is part of His desire for us to adopt again. We also agreed that we have the personalities, family structure, exterior resources, and financial resources necessary to provide a loving home for an adopted child. Our Father calls us to care for the widows and orphans (James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.) As our hearts are already for the Chinese people, we have a clear understanding of the process, and there is a huge need we decided on another child from China. A boy this time… you know, to even out the female/male ratio. So over the weekend we reviewed some files of children with special needs. A couple piqued our interest and we requested more information. However last night around 10:30 we received an email file of a boy with cleft lip and palate who buried himself into our hearts. (I found out later that while I was checking my email, April was praying that we would have a clear answer to finding our son) After that, we calmed down and we prayed some more… then started to realize that this child was probably already “locked in” with someone else due to time differences, his minor special needs, and crazy good looks/personality. But we asked her to try and see if he was available anyways. 12:30 last night we got an email reporting that she had locked his file for us (meaning that he is ours). So… we have officially found our future son, Josiah. Here he is!