We Have Ava !!!!!

We have our precious daughter!! We met our group in the lobby at 3:30 and headed out to Dong Anh. When we arrived we walked to the rooms where tha babies were. Ava was in the first room. We recognized her right away. She is much smaller than we thought she would be. The pictures made her look huge. The pictures also made her look like she has big feet and she really does!! She her daddy's child. She came right to me and then to Davis. Erin and Peyton also got to hold her. She never cried. She is very alert. She just kept looking around at everything that was going on.

We are blessed that she is not sick. The other three babies are congested and coughing. I think all of the families are going to the clinic. Ava is asleep right now. She fell asleep on her daddy in the van. She is GORGEOUS!! We are so thankful that God has blessed us with another beautiful child.

A Big Surprise!!!

Cherie called last night around 9pm and asked if we would like to go and get Ava Sunday afternoon instead of Monday!! Of course we said YES. So we are meeting her in the lobby at 4pm and heading out to the orphanage. I can't beleve that we are only about 11 hours (I'm typing his at 5:30am) from getting our baby girl. I will post pictures and an update as soon as I can. Please pray that she will adjust well. I always dread the trauma that this causes the babies' in the beginning. It is for the best in the end but initially they are frightened by not knowing what's going on.

We're In Hanoi !!!

Well we arrived in Hanoi yesterday at 10:30 Vietnam time. We drove about 45 minutes to the hotel. In some ways Vietnam reminds me of China but in a lot of ways they are very different. We never saw a lot of the impoverished parts of China because we were in the nicer parts of each city. We saw more poverty on our way here. Our hotel is located close to the French Quarter and you can tell it in the buildings. Our apartment is very spacious but not as nice and "new" as the hotels we stayed in when we were in China.

Davis & the kids went down to the swimming pool but it too cold. They came back and we all fell asleep around 4pm. We just woke up at 4:30 am. The jet lag is brutal! We hope to get out a little tomorrow.

Vietnam Or Bust!!!!!

Well, this will be my last post from the States. We leave today at 3:45 heading to Vietnam! We are looking at around 30 hours from Jackson to Hanoi. We will fly from Jackson to Dallas to San Francisco to Hong Kong to Hanoi. Whew! We are scheduled to return to Jackson on Saturday, Dec. 1 at 9:00 am. Please continue to pray for safe travels and that our paperwork goes smoothly and we're able to return as a family on the first.

Sleeping Beauty

We received another picture of Ava. It is getting chilly in Hanoi right now. She makes the cutest little snow bunny. We are still siting on pins and needles about our trip. I won't believe that we are going until we are on the plane. It turns out that the families that have been in Vietnam for over four weeks have babies from the Phu Tho province. Apparently the embassy has a problem with that province but has failed to mention it to all of the adoption agencies. They posted it on a blog and then on their website but never contacted any agencies to clue them in. Our tax dollars at work! Please pray for these four families. They are meeting with the embassy tomorrow. Also pray that the Dong Anh cases will clear this week.

Another Roller Coaster Ride

There are a few families that have been in Vietnam for 4 weeks now with no visa for their baby. Our agency is saying that our group could face delays if we go ahead and travel. Please pray that we will still leave next week and that everything will go smoothly. I am preapering myself for a 4-6 week stay in Vietnam. There is a chance that we could finish in 3 but I'm going ahead and thinking it will be longer. Davis will stay for 3 weeks and then fly home. I will stay in country with Ava for as long as it takes. Even though 4-6 weeks sounds like a long time, in the grand scheme of things it's not really. There is a process that we have to go through that in the end will give us our daughter. A longer stay in Vietnam is a small price to pay to have our baby.

Official Permission To travel

We were instructed by PLAN to email the embassy in Hanoi and ask permission to travel on Nov 8 and be processed under the "old" I 600 rules. We received an email this morning from Hanoi stating we can travel. This is from the embassy so it's official!!! I better get busy packing. I'm so glad to be off of this roller coaster. I HATE roller coasters!!

New Pictures

We received two new pictures of Ava. The one where she's holding the notebook cracks me up. Her face is wet so it looks like she may have been sucking her thumb and they took it out to take her picture. She looks very annoyed. I can't believe that in less that three week we will have her in our arms.