GREAT NEWS !!!!!!!!!!!!!
EXTRA ! EXTRA ! READ ALL ABOUT IT ......

We have our Consulate Date/appointment. We are set for 11/30/06 at 9:30 am. This means we should be making flight arrangements THIS AFTERNOON. Looks like we will have an extended stay due to the late date for the appointment. We should leave on 11/17/06 and return on 12/2/06. We still do not have our I824 form stating we can bring home a baby over 18 months old, we hope that comes today or tomorrow. Anyway PARTY TIME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S. Please pray for the children and families still going through the waiting process. I was sadden this morning as I read that there may not be any referrals for the month of October. These families are going through a nightmare of waiting and if it had been one month earlier it could have been us. Pray that the Lord comfort them as they wait and that the children are cared for during the wait.

"There's two things I know for sure:
She was sent here from heaven and she's daddy's little girl.
As I drop to my knees by her bed at night
She talks to Jesus and I close my eyes and
I thank god for all the joy in my life
Oh, but most of all
For butterfly kisses after bedtime prayer;
sticking little white flowers all up in her hair;
"Walk beside the pony, Daddy, it's my first ride."
"I know the cake looks funny, Daddy, but I sure tried."
In all that I've done wrong I know I must have done something right
to deserve a hug every morning and butterfly kisses at night.
Sweet 16 today She's looking like her mama a little more everyday
One part woman, the other part girl.
To perfume and make-up from ribbons and curls
Trying her wings out in a great big world.
But I remember Butterfly kisses after bedtime prayer;
sticking little white flowers all up in her hair.
"You know how much I love you, Daddy,
But if you don't mind I'm only gonna kiss you on the cheek this time."
With all that I've done wrong I must have done something right
to deserve her love every morning and butterfly kisses at night.
All the precious time Like the wind, the years go by.
Precious butterfly.
Spread your wings and fly.
She'll change her name today.
She'll make a promise and I'll give her away.
Standing in the bride-room just staring at her.
She asked me what I'm thinking and I said
"I'm not sure-I just feel like I'm losing my baby girl."
She leaned over...gave me butterfly kisses with her mama there,
Sticking little white flowers all up in her hair
"Walk my down the aisle, Daddy-it's just about time."
"Does my wedding gown look pretty, Daddy? Daddy, don't cry!"
Oh, with all that I've done wrong I must have done something right.
To deserve your love every morning and butterfly kisses-I
couldn't ask God for more, man this is what love is.
I know I gotta let her go,
but I'll always remember every hug in the morning and butterfly kisses."

I Love you Christy !!!

Well it's Sunday and I guess you could say we are in count down mode. I figured out that I have 12 days left to work before we leave to get Ashley. Next Saturday we celebrate our Son-in-Law, Jeremy, passing his next step in the National Guard and he should be a Staff Sergeant soon. The Saturday after that we are having our family Thanksgiving since we will not be here on the official day, and the middle of that week we should leave. We hope to hear Monday or Tuesday on our appointment in China and then get all of the Flight arrangements ETC... We are cleaning and packing and checking and making lists and getting silly about our daughter will be here soon. I asked Billie if she would skip through the airport with me singing "adopting we will go, adopting we will go, high ho the merry oh, adopting we will go." Hey, if you had been waiting 607 days for a baby you would be singing too!!!

God bless and keep you all.

We love you Ashley,

WE RECEIVED OUR TA TODAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Praise the Lord it finally came!!! This means that the next steps are underway. A fax has been sent to China requesting an appointment on the 27, 28, or 29th of November. We should hear back from that in 3-5 business days and then the flights are booked and everything else should fall into place. (With a lot of hard work by our Agency.) We are still looking for our updated form but it should be here the first of next week. Travel still looks like Mid November and

WHAT A THANKSGIVING THIS WILL BE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We plan on having our traditional Thanksgiving here the weekend before we leave so we can spend time with our family like we normally do. I cannot express how much it means to me to have my home filled with Family and their laughter and stories and memories!!!!!

May God Bless you all.

Ashley - Mommy and Daddy are coming as fast as we can!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will try to be a bit more positive tonight but the wait is still going on. No word on the TAs from China yet so we cannot know when we will travel. Also no word on the document extending our child's approved age from 18 months to 19 months. But as we all know it will happen in His time not our time. God has a plan and has carried us this far and he will carry us through to the joyful day we join Ashley to our family. The parents are ready, the house is ready, the family is ready, but something is not ready in God's plan so we will wait. May God bless each of you who read this each day and who continue to pray for Ashley and us through this tough time. We are so lucky to have such a wonderful family and great friends.

"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words."

Thank you all for singing back to us when we have been down.

Love Michael

Well I must say that the current wait is much harder than the 18 months prior to that. We have known who our child is since 9/25/06 and it is now 10/24/06 and we still do not know when we leave to go get her. This is crazy!!! We are still waiting for the update to the form allowing us to bring home a child over 18 months old and there is no word on when that will come. There is still no word on the TAs from our agency and we need that to go. Then there are the flight arrangements and hotels and packing and medicines and, and, and..... But everything seems to be on hold right now and there is no logical reason for this hold!!!
Also DHL has not delivered our package that we sent on 10/2/06 to our baby. We gave then the address in English and Chinese and even paid to find out the phone number. Now DHL tells us that they delivered it to "a third party for the consignee" and they can no longer track it and tell us if it was delivered or not. I am glad that we paid them so much to deliver it to the orphanage. I guess they got their money and don't care about anything else. I knew we were taking a chance that our child would not get the things we sent but I thought the orphanage would be the ones not giving them to her not a paid shipping company.

Sorry I am venting right now as I want to hold and love our baby. I hope you all forgive me for my ranting but it is real hard to look at her picture and know you can do nothing for her right now. As a parent and grandparent I am not use to not being able to comfort my children or grandchildren.

Enough for tonight, please continue to pray for us and for Ashley.

Not much has happened this week with the process, at least from what we can find out. We are still waiting for the extension to our form to bring home a baby that is over 18 months old. I am told that could take a month so we should see it anytime now. We are also waiting on the Travel Authorazation (TA) from China and we received an e-mail yesterday that stated Monday would be the soonest that we could expect that. I spoke with the angency and they said that as long as they receive that document by 11/6/06 then they should be able to get us off as planned in the middle of November. Our travel group has been in a lot more contact recently, I think everyone is getting anxious. I set up a Yahoo Group for our group to use to keep in touch so eveyone in the group can share thoughts and information. I needed a picture for the group site so I put together a picture with all of the babies that people in our group have shared with us. They are a bunch of beautiful babies!

Today was a wonderful day. First we were able to spend time in Church with the Lord and our Christian family. Next we were able to spend time with our oldest daughter and granddaughter. It would have been better if we could have spent time with our youngest daughter and granddaughter as well but the miles prevent that at this time. Today we went to lunch at a Chinese Buffet in town and had a great meal and good time talking and catching up. At the end of the meal everyone was opening their fortune cookies and reading their fortune to everyone else and laughing about how they applied or did not apply to them. When I opened mine I did not laugh, I choked back the tears as I read what that small piece of paper had to say "A small lucky package is on its way to you soon." We are now being told we should call Ashley "Lucky Package", but Billie and I are the lucky ones. God has blessed us with so many things in this life and with the things that money cannot buy. The love of our family, our precious daughters and granddaughters and ones on the way.
Thank you Lord, To God be the Glory Forever.

PICTURES, PICTURES, PICTURES
Need I say more. We received update pictures of Ashley today and she is BEAUTIFUL !!!

Well it has been another hectic day in the process. Today we received a message from DHL that our package was still not delivered and we shipped it on 10/2/06. They said they could not find the SWI (Social Welfare Institute) and that they needed a phone number. I have searched everywhere I can think of to find someone or a website that might have a phone number with not luck yet. I have checked with the agency and even a good friend from China and dead ends everywhere. Maybe the bright side is that late today I received an automated e-mail that the package was delivered this morning. I call DHL back and the contact that I had said the system still showed it as not delivered. So she is checking with "the station" to see where it is and will call me tomorrow to let me know. I still have one website working on finding the number just in case. I really hope the package gets to Ashley so that she can see what her Mommy and Daddy look like. We both just wish that we could hold her and give her the love that this family can provide as soon as possible.

"Making the decision to have a child-it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."--Elizabeth Stone

I received that quote in an e-mail this week and find it to be so true in our lives. With Ashley we are doing this all over again for the third time.

Carl Sandburg - "A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on."

And finally I think that our grown daughters are seeing this one to be true now, just as we did after we had grown up and moved on from our Moms and Dads.

Chinese proverb - "To understand your parents' love, you must raise children yourself."

Thanks Mom & Dad for loving us so much that we have been able to love and live with abundance. To be able to give our children and grandchildren the love just as you gave it to us, to "Pay it forward". God bless you all.

Well it has been a couple of days without much news to tell. We are still waiting on pins and needles and it is hard to wait these few weeks. But today we have NEWS. No pun intended. We received the "Finding Ad" for Ashley which gave us the first know picture of her. The ad states "Ad #1566 Xin Hong Zan, A Girl, On 5/12/2005 she was found at the gate of the Xinyi City orphanage, She was over 20 days old when found, Claim unit Xinyi City orphanage." We received a negative of the ad, a blown up copy, translation I quoted above, a certifacate, and a copy of the actual paper as well. I have added some of those items here for you to see. She is an awesome gift from God !!!

Another day closer. Saturday we go to infant and Child CPR to get that renewed. We had taken the class early on not knowing the process would take so long that the year long certification would expire. It is a good thing to keep up to date though, you never know if you might need it for your own child or to help someone else. It makes a lot more sense than when our finger prints expired and we had to get the renewed. I do know about you but I have had the same finger prints my whole life, so how do they expire? Some of the paper work is just crazy through this process. I guess being an Engineer I look for logical processes and to get a certified copy of my birth certificate and then have to send it back to the Secretary of State to have them certify that this certified copy is certified is just NUTS. Of course at each step they want some money and that is what it is really about on most of the documents anyway. Just like the one we had to express mail out as soon as we received our referral. The document said we could adopt a child between 6 and 18 months old. Ashley is 17 months old so we are okay, right? No, she will be 19 months old when we get her back to America, due to all of their delays not us, so we had to pay $200 to update the document to say 19 months was okay as well. No Logic there just wanting money. But when you are talking about your children money doesn't matter. A good parent does not count how much they spend on their child they look to see if they have provided all that the child needs.
Every day all Billie and I can talk about is our family and how blessed we are. We have wonderful children and grandchildren and we cannot wait to make Ashley a part of it all. She will be loved by all of these and her Grandparents, Aunts, and Uncles as well. They are all talking about her.

Ashley, Mommy and Daddy Love you with all our hearts and we cannot wait to get you home where you belong. May God continue to watch over you and bless you. Sweetheart...We are coming soon!

In case you have forgotten this is what our beautiful daughter looks like.
Time is really starting to drag on waiting for more information on when we can go and get her. The wait to this point was longer but the days seem longer right now. We received confirmation that our papers were sent out on time yesterday. The package that we sent to Ashley has made it to Hong Kong and clearance processing is complete at Kowloon. I hope that means it will be delivered to her tomorrow or Friday. I hope that she is as happy with her mommy and daddy as we are with her. The two cameras should provide some good pictures as keepsakes for her when she gets older. We will see what happens tomorrow.

Today we took the heath documents to the doctor to review and discuss. Everything looks good to him and that is wonderful. He gave us several medicines to take with us on the trip in case they are needed, we hope they are not. Billie is having a blast telling everyone all of the illnesses that I have since he wrote the prescriptions in my name. One friend said that it was strange that I was so sick, "He looked like he was fine Sunday". Ha, Ha everyone.....
I also searched the web today some more and found several pictures of the Welfare Institute where Ashley is right now. Most of them just made me want to go get her right now!!!
I find that night time is best right now as I am asleep and not worrying about Ashley and the fact that I have no control right now. A song from when I was in high school comes to mind just because of one line in it, the song is "I Like Dreamin". "I like dreamin' cause dreamin' can make you mine." The rest of the song is obviously a love song but that one line applies here. I feel that way right now because when I am asleep I can dream that I am holding Ashley or playing games with her or watching a movie. It is only a dream right now but one day soon it will be real, Ashley will be home with us and we can take care and love her like a child should be cared for and loved. I just have to hold up until that day comes true and with the help of God and my wonderful family and friends I will make it until that day.

May God bless you all and continue to watch over Ashley and all of us.

Well it is Monday night and we are another day closer to going to pick up Ashley in China. Billie spent the day yesterday telling everyone "We go get her next month." as it was the first and that sounded better than in 6 more weeks. Tomorrow the adoption agency will send off the paper work to start the next step. We now wait for Visa's and TA's from China, then we will wait for an appointment to go through the paper work in China. Once all of that is done then we can make flight arrangements and really get excited.
Billie made me a shirt yesterday that has a picture of Ashley on it and below the picture is says "Daddy's Girl Ashley Renee". She will be a Mommy's girl too but I believe that I have become an expert at spoiling with our two daughters and two granddaughters, so I will keep up the good work.
Good night for now.
One Day Closer to a Dream Come True and and Gift from God......

This morning I thought we could talk about some of the thing we do know about Ashley from the documents that we received in her referral.
Date of Birth is estimated at 04/18/2005
Height 75cm or 29.5"
Weight 10.3kg or 22.7lbs
She was found on 05/12/2005 and placed in the Xinyi Social Welfare Institute.
One statement in the document: "Xin Hongzan is a irresistible child, she will laugh loudly while being amused. She is a lively and cute child."