This is getting more and more REAL! Tonight, I had to drive to Charles' office for a 5:15 phone conference/family travel meeting with Josh from our adoption agency. (Small World...and they are amazing!) Mia took a nap in the car on the way, and we stopped to pick up dinner. We had a fine dining experience with Taco Bell on Daddy's desk in his office! ;)
The meeting lasted an hour and a half and went over our travel in detail. The biggest stand-out piece of information we received was that we are NOT staying at The White Swan Hotel like we did with Mia. At first, I was a little sad about it...until I asked Josh about The Garden Hotel in Guangzhou! (We will be in Guangzhou for the last half of our trip.) He told us that in the beginning of 2010, Small World stopped using The White Swan because they have been saying for awhile now that they are going to close. (I think to renovate. It is nice, but very dated.) They started sending their families to The Garden Hotel which is SUPER gorgeous, new and fancy...and costs $30 less per night. We looked it up online during our phone conference and it was really breathtaking! Get this...it costs less, and we will get a suite instead of the very small room we had at The White Swan! We loved our stay there because it was so meaningful; but, we are looking forward to the extra space and the luxury! We will go over to Shamian Island several times though, because we know our way around and just like it!!!
I am not sure our notes are complete, but I am pretty sure he broke our days down like this:
Nov 26 arrive in Guiyang
Nov 27 pass out from travel exhaustion ;)
Nov 28 "Gotcha Day"!!! We meet Kennedy and she comes with us!
Nov 29 Adoption Day!! Return to finalize adoption paperwork...Kennedy becomes a Manning!
Nov 30-Dec 2 Tours in her province and bonding time
Dec 3 Fly from Guiyang to Guangzhou to the Garden Hotel
Dec 4 Medical exam
Dec 5 Tour/down time...Charles gets to do LOTS of paperwork...his turn!
Dec 6 Return to medical clinic for TB test reading
Dec 7 Consulate appointment, we don't actually go...our guide takes our paperwork for us
Dec 8 Swearing In Ceremony at the consulate, this time we go!
December 9 Receive Kennedy's passport with visa to enter USA!
December 10 Relax and/or last minute shopping, then fly from Guangzhou to Los Angeles at 9 p.m. We will have to spend the night in LA, can not make last flight to Houston
December 11 Arrive HOME with BOTH of our precious daughters as a family of 4!
Have I mentioned how EXCITED we are???????????? This has been a long journey, and it is finally leading us to the daughter God planned for us before WE were even born! We can not WAIT to HUG her!! Mia keeps asking every day, "How many more days until I meet my big sister???" Not much longer now, sweetie!
1 comment:
I am so excited for you. It was hard not staying at the white swan, mostly because we weren't on the island. We saved a lot of money not staying at the white swan too.
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