Flights booked - for 5!

Aaaahhhh. It's finally official. On Monday, we got word that our dates are official. We will fly out of Minneapolis on the 14th of January and get our little Sophia - gotcha date - on the 18th (I think). Our official consulate date is Monday the 25th and we are cleared to fly back on the 28th. If this all goes as planned, we will land in Minneapolis at 10:40pm on the night of the 28th.

Why Minneapolis, you might ask? Well, my sister Liz's wedding is on Saturday the 30th! So, pray for no major snow storms or weird flight delays. I'm a bridesmaid and David's doing the message. We have to make it!

Christmas has been very nice. We are still in Minnesota and enjoying the mounds of snow and frozen lakes for skating. One of the fun things Sophia got for Christmas is this beautiful quilt made by my sister Nikole. Lauren is holding it up for the photo. Obviously, Sophia will be able to enjoy this quilt for years to come! One of the cool things about this quilt is that it is stitched with red thread which is a traditional Chinese thing. I can't wait to see her wrapped up in it.

Finalized dates

The Roux's find themselves in snowy, cold, beautiful northern Minnesota. We are visiting David's grandparents on his mother's side. It's delightful. I went for a run yesterday and I felt like I was in a different world...snow-filled pine trees, lightly-falling, puffy snow flakes and most importantly, no cars or people. It was so beautiful, I almost didn't notice the steep hills...almost.

As of today, we have a consulate date in China and flight dates...finally! We will fly out of the USA on the 14th of January and hopefully return on the 28th. You can pray for the details on that last date as they are a little fuzzy due to some weird complications. We have to be back in the states for a very important wedding. My sister Liz and our dear friend Bevan will be getting married on the 30th.

We would love some uncomplicated details for a change. As our life is anything but uncomplicated, to have things go as planned would be sweet. And unique. Please pray about this!

We will be getting Sophia Meilynn on the 18th and then spending the next 10 days or so in China getting used to each other. The plan is to take the whole family, but as flight details are not yet completely solid, nothing is final! Hopefully, everything will be completely nailed down here in the next day or two.

We are anxious to get our Sophia. Stay with us. Hopefully this is almost over! Have a merry Christmas.

Travel Approval!

On Thursday of last week, we got word that our travel approval was enroute from China! This was only 2 days after our official referral paperwork was dropped off at the China Center for Adoption Affairs. It was official yesterday and we are rejoicing!

At first, they were saying we could go on Christmas Eve which was feeling a little quick and more than a little expensive. I can't imagine a more pricey time to fly! We were then given the option of going with a group on January 7 (yes, the very day we were hoping and praying for!). This group is not yet official, so that is really the only down side...the dates are not quite solid yet. We hope to know by Christmas for sure. Pray for other families to get travel approval so our group becomes large enough to be official. We only need 2 more families to get travel and we're set.

Oh, have we mentioned that we named her officially? Sophia Meilynn

Funny, yesterday I was tearing up as I held her little coat and a pair of baby girl socks. I think we might be ready! I even bought my first ever container of formula.

Updated photos of Sophia!

We received more photos from China!!! On Sunday, I wrote to a fun and useful source in China that can sometimes get updated information about your soon-to-be adopted child. She was fast! Yesterday she let us know that our Sophia's orphanage was willing to cooperate and could get us photos and measurements!

She is so much bigger! Of course, the other photos were taken 5 months ago, so she should be bigger! She actually is still pretty tiny - just 16.7 lb and 27 inches. From all we can tell, she's very healthy and doing well. She just needs her mom and dad and sister and brother!

Still no word on when we get to go. We are anxious, but pretty busy which is probably good. Pray for those travel dates!

We're official! We have photos!

We've got the Referral Acceptance! That probably doesn't mean much to you, but it is a very big and important step in the process. We get to post pictures and send care packages and begin to gather stuff we will need for international travel. This very afternoon I took an official Chinese adoption agreement to FedEx and sent it to China! ($51 later...). Expensive, but exciting!

Now we finally enter travel stage. What that means is in the next 2-4 weeks we will get Travel Approval which will get us set up for a travel group and time. Until we get the TA, we won't know exact travel time. Right now they are saying late January which is kind of funny because my sister Liz is getting married on January 30. We will be home for that, so we may have to wait for February if we can't get there in early January. You can pray for January 7. That would be the perfect day.

It all feels very real again. This will be happening any day. We are hoping to get some updated information so we will know more current sizes and development stages. I need to unpack Meilynn's suitcase :( and repack for a 1 year old. Supplies for bringing home a baby need to be gathered and purchased. I'm glad that my Christmas shopping is mostly done! We should be very busy over the weeks to come. Christmas letters will be put on hold as we wait for a photo of our whole family, but we still need to manage the Christmas rush in the midst of all the adoption craziness.

And then there is her name... We have decided to name our little lady Sophia. Her middle name is still being debated (Meilynn or Elliana). We will have to land that plane soon!