Snowbell at school concert today

This is to test if I can email from my iPhone. Snowbell did the
Welcome to Country today at school at played the xylophone in the
class music performance.

test from Asus/ Snowbell's Party

I held a party last Friday for Snowbell's 8th Birthday which will happen while we are away.9classmates and 3 other friends. We saw UP 3D and had Pzza in a cafe in the food hall nearby. Best thing was that all the mess was not in my house, it was over in 3 hours and the girls all had a wild time.Snowbell was happy!

Snowbell's Party Photos

The party photos didn’t load from the Asus only the text – another reason to take my Mac.

Belle's First load of laundry

10 days to go until we leave and I have most things sorted. Technology is frustrating me. I can get everything to work fine on my Mac laptop but not my little Asus which I bought specifically as a light little computer to take with us to China. I think I will have to ring Asus tomorrow for some help. But I am seriously considering taking my big laptop. My only worry is it getting stolen whereas the Asus I reckon could fit in the safe in the room. In the meantime I am successfully reducing THE LIST down to only minor issues some of which could wait until my return.
Most enjoyable was doing Belle’s first load of laundry and just as I did 7 years ago with Snowbell's first load we took pictures. The best was this one taken by Snowbell from underneath! Beautiful clear sky – you wouldn’t know that we had the big RED dust storm only 2 days ago.

Photo of the package we have sent via Red Thread

Here is a picture of the package that I arranged through Red Thread to send to Mi Ji Eloise. The pyjamas are for the other children in the SWI and the sweets are for the carers. I love the pillow and wonder if this will become her special pillow just as Mei Mei has her pink pillow also in silk made by my cousin Jenny. Mei Mei has had hers from a baby and still sleeps on it every night.

New photos of Belle from Red Thread

I received 3 new photos via Red Thread of sweet Belle today. She looks amazing for 5 months – so alert and smiley!

 

Travel Plans Coming Together.

I met with another batch member today at the travel agent. It is now decided that flying from HK straight to Nanchang on Friday 16th October is the best plan as it is less flying time and cheaper than flying via Shanghai. It also means that we will be settled in Nanchang for Snowbell’s birthday on 17th. We have also decided that our holiday prior to the adoption will be in Bali in Sanur near to where my brother lives. We will stay at a resort with a kids club so that there are activities for Snowbell while I have the odd massage or spa treatment/ sleep/ or read a book and a generally indulgent break prior to becoming the parent of two! We will spend a couple of days with my brother as well before flying to HK where we will have 2 nights at HK Disneyland. Only 1 day in Disneyland though – we’ve done it twice before so we can just do the rides we really wanted to do again – like Space Mountain!!
While I am making sure I have an indulgent holiday I am really so looking forward to becoming Belle’s mother. I am fast attaching to her darling little face as is Snowbell. I am feeling very happy and so unbelievably fortunate to have been allocated two such wonderful children.
Meanwhile I have ever increasing lists of things to take, do and purchase.... I will definitely need the holiday!
My friend H arrived back from Bali today. All looking good for him coming with us as our support as he did last time.

Our new baby Girl!

We finally got "the call" as they say a week ago on Friday 28th August 2009. Snowbell and I were driving to her piano lesson in late Friday afternoon traffic - I had given up expecting to hear and was feeling glum and flat after a very emotional week of waiting - when the phone rang and it was the Manager of the dept who arrange adoptions. I didn't have my ear piece in to go hands free so after some panicked attempts to find them I handed the phone to Snowbell in the back of the car while I drove into a side street and parked.

The wonderful and amazing news was (after a nearly 6 year wait) that we have been allocated a less than 5 month old baby girl (unheard of in Australia to get one so young from China and I don't remember hearing anyone getting one so young from China anywhere else!). She is residing in small and very caring orphanage in the Jiangxi Province. Her name has strong links to the name my elder daughter uses and she has my late father's birthday. I feel he and my Mum are looking after me on this one. I had been expecting and preparing for a 2 - 3 year old so this was a big surprise. As I am older I had felt an older child would be more practical but in my heart I secretly hoped I would still get a baby - but I NEVER imagined such a little one. Mind you she is a bonnie healthy baby with her weight steadily up at the 75th percentile on the Growth Charts for Chinese Girls.

So since that amazing moment a week ago I have been very busy with emails, phone calls, planning and doing paperwork. All our documents went to China today. We had a big meeting with our batch last night and then I took all of our completed paperwork to Docs and then Dept of Immigration. We got an email later this afternoon to say that another families paperwork had arrived from interstate and all the documents have been sent to CCAA - specifically our acceptances of the babies!

We are hoping to meet our babies on 19th October. They will be brought to us in Nanchang which is the Provincial capital. We will also strongly request to travel to visit her SWI and finding sites but that will possibly depend on swine flu restrictions. It will be very disappointing if we can't.

We will fly in and out of China through Shanghai as that is where our Consulate is which is lucky as the Trade Fair in Guangzhou is making it very difficult for Americans to travel as that is where their consulate is. The fun part is that we will know people in Shanghai and a friend may travel down from Beijing to see us too. My daughter has her birthday on 17th October so we may be able to rustle up a party for her in our week in Shanghai. We are very excited and longing to get to our darling baby Belle ( her name in this Blog)