Extremely Tardy Post

...but for good reason.  I have been too busy list-making, packing, organizing my desk at work and making a "house handbook" because we are GOING TO CHINA!!!

TAs came and went and our file was not included.  Then, at 5:00 on Friday, Dec. 20 I was driving around a shopping area in Kansas City known as The Plaza.  For those who are not familiar...it is super crazy to drive around The Plaza around Christmas as there are a lot of shoppers, tourists, and horse-drawn carriages.  So...I am driving around looking for a spot so I can do some last minute shopping and I get a call from our agency.  Turns out that our TA came in as a straggler at the end of the day!   They needed to get some info from me and figure out possible travel dates so they could send a request for our Consulate Appointment (CA) as soon as possible.  With Christmas the following week, they wanted to get our request to the Consulate in China so it would be there and waiting as soon as they came in on Monday.   hey have three business days to respond and we had our fingers crossed for a CA on Monday.  Monday came and we received our CA for January 22.  Once we had that information, they were able to set our dates for arrival and departure.  We are leaving January 8 and will return on January 24.  So...along with getting ready for Christmas we also had to kick our preparations for travel into high gear. Which is my reason for not posting this sooner.  We have been busy, busy, busy....this just got real people!!!


We have our international flights lined up and are awaiting for our in-China details from our agency.  (We hope to have that information tomorrow.)  As of now we know the following:

January 8 - leave for China
January 9 - land in Beijing
January 13 - HOLD TEAGAN FOR THE FIRST TIME
January 22 - CA
January 24 - depart Guangzhou

My last day of work is tomorrow, so I have been mostly focusing on getting things in order there.  Jeff and Izzy have been off for winter break and Jeff has been nothing less than a super hero getting things ready around the house. 

We didn't tell Isabel about our travel plans until after Christmas.  Time is still a bit of a fluid thing for her and so there was no reason in telling her and having her stress about our leaving any earlier than necessary.   Jeff and Izzy met me at my office for lunch last Friday the 27th and that is when we told her.  It came up naturally in conversation and when Jeff told her that we would be headed to get Teagan after she starts back to school; Izzy simply responded "Oh, that is good!...can you pass me that extra plate for my pizza?"   LOL  To say she took it in stride is an understatement.  We discussed it some more to make sure it was sinking in and she was honestly quite fine with the topic.  (I was fully prepared for many tears...from both her and myself!)  Since that afternoon, she has asked me a handful of questions daily:  How many days will we be gone?  What all will we do there?  Will we be able to talk every day?  How does our body make poop?  (Okay, so that last one was a bonus question she tossed out.)  She is doing as well as can be expected.  Last night she had her first tears when talking about it with me at bedtime.  I have told her that she will be sad and Jeff and I will be really sad too.  It will be hard, but we will be home before she knows it and the next time we go to China it will be all four of us together and we will go to visit where she is from.  (To this she asked if we could go back to get another sister for her someday...I answered no...as her daddy and I would surely be 80 by then.)

I think that should bring you up to speed.  I finished a wall decal for the nursery last night...decorating the nursery is how I rang in the New Year.  Which, while a nontraditional way to celebrate, seemed quite appropriate for our household. 

Here is to 2014...the year our family will finally be complete!!