We Made it

 Hello All,

We are in Lanzhou, Claire's city, and we are beyond exhausted!  We traveled for around 28 hours straight through.  So, we will update more tomorrow, but the internet connection is terrible!  It's 10:45 on Friday night here, and we get Claire on Sunday at 2:30 in the afternoon our time.  We are ready!!

Thanks for all the prayers, please keep praying and for our internet connection, too!

Love to all,

Chris and Leslie

We have travel approval!!

GOOD MORNING ALL!!!!!
Whew!!  It has been an emotional few days here!!  Jack started kindergarten yesterday.  Of course, he loves it and is in a fantastic school with fantastic teachers, and we are so blessed.  Second, today is his 6th birthday, and we are just thrilled to share it with him and have the honor of celebrating HIM and all of his accomplishments and milestones!  And.....WE GOT OUR TRAVEL APPROVAL YESTERDAY!!!!!  We will hold Miss Claire in our arms on Sunday, September 2!!!!  Praise God!!!  He is so faithful and so good!  We will know specifics today or tomorrow, but we will probably leave for China in two weeks!!!!  Let's go!!  We are so ready for this travel journey to begin!  Knowing what is in store, though of course it will be unique and special, is comforting and exciting.  We will get her in our hotel in Gansu, instead of going to her orphanage, and we should be able to spend the first night not having to go place to place getting paperwork done, but just enjoy and begin to get to know our new daughter.  Which means I get to bathe her and love on her right away like I have dreamed of doing for a whole year!  A year ago today we took place in the phone interview to be considered for her family.  A year ago tomorrow our agency called us to say that there was no doubt in anyone's mind, and she was our daughter!  Look at what the Lord has done in a year!!!!  All of Jack's surgeries are completed (beautifully and he has healed beyond what any of us thought possible), and now he is a big boy in school and mommy has free time to dote on Claire and get her to all of her appointments.  His timing is perfect.  We didn't miss Jack's first day of school, or his 6th birthday. We didn't miss Cate's first day of middle school, Gracie's first day of high school, and got to watch Evan drive himself, Grace and the neighbor boy off to high school.  That is priceless.  Thank you, everyone, for your love, support, financial blessings, gifts, encouragement, and prayers!  We hold each of you dear to our hearts.  There are no words to express how much we value our support system.  We will keep you posted, and we will be able to blog again from China and post those coveted pictures.
Love to all,
Leslie

Article 5

We received our article 5 today! Last piece of paperwork that we needed before we get travel approval. We got it much faster than the adoption agency predicted, which is a blessing. We are so ready to go and get our girl. We are told that it will take 2 to 3 weeks to get travel approval, so we are praying that it doesn't take that long.