It’s clearly time to resurrect this blog to a semi-useful state.  We’ll be posting travel information, pictures and video here as we prepare and depart for our trip to China.

We are now looking to leave next Friday (April 9th) and really hope it pans out that way.  Our original thought was that we would leave today, but alas, no such luck!

I’m currently running some tests with video and image posting to make sure that we’ll be able to keep you all updated as we travel to and around China.  For those interested, here’s our basic travel plan for the trip …

We hope to leave late Friday so we arrive in Nanjing, China sometime during the day on Sunday.  Nanjing (at Nanjing University) is where both Sandy and I spent most of our “study abroad” time before we were married.  It is the former capitol of China and the name, in fact, means Southern Capitol.

Anyway, it is Nanjing that on Monday (likely) we will first meet in person and be given Claire (ChunYi).  We will spend a few days in Nanjing while finalize paperwork and process on the Chinese side of things.  We might take a trip down to the Shanghai area to visit the orphanage where Claire has been living and maybe even see some of Sandy’s family?  Not sure about all of this right.  But any of these things would have to happen during this first week of the trip.

We will then likely leave on Saturday or Sunday for Guangzhou where the US Consulate exists (at least the consulate tasked with managing international adoptions).  We will have an initial appointment on Monday.  Some medical screening and follow-ups over the next couple of days and we should be done sometime on Thursday.

At this point we then plan to head to Hong Kong for a few days.  This is a personal diversion that Sandy is allowing me as I REALLY want to spend a bit of time in my old mission areas.  Can’t wait to see how the place has changed over 15 years!  We’ll likely fly out of Hong Kong that Sunday or Monday and be home the same day depending on when we leave.

All in all, the trip should take just a couple days longer than two weeks.  We can’t wait to go and are anxious to finally have Claire home with us.