Let me introduce....Our Timeline

I am so grateful for all of the comments on my last post. As I began to blog it has been so exciting to get online and have comments!!! So, please comment away.
I LOVE to hear from each of you!

It is so reassuring that our language barrier will not be such a big deal. This whole adoption process has been a walk of faith and we will continue to walk this journey, knowing that
the God that led us to adopt
will also break the barriers
between our language differences.

I have been meaning to do this for quite some time, but time is not always on my side when it comes to blogging. I want to give the dates of this adoption time line so others
can see what all has been involved. I have enjoyed looking at other
adoption time lines to see how long certain things have taken,
knowing that God has the
perfect time
in mind for every event.

11-07-08 Requested adoption info from AWAA
11-28-08 Took a leap of faith and submitted $250.00 application fee + AWAA appl.
12-12-08 Received acceptance call from AWAA
01-09-09 Homestudy packet came in the mail
01-13-09 Dossier packet came in the mail
01-21-09 Mailed dossier info guidelines back to AWAA

02-05-09 Submitted waiting child application online, praying as we selected a variety of
special needs, wondering which one God had in mind for us
02-23-09 Tia's dr. visit and TB test
02-24-09 Our home fire inspection by the fire marshal
02-25-09 David, Brandon and I dr. visits/ Tia TB test read
03-15-09 Mailed home study packet
03-24-09 10 days later our home study made it 75 miles, getting lost along the way
04-4-09 1st homestudy mtg at Starbucks
04-19-09 2nd homestudy mtg at our house with kids
04-23-09 3rd home study mtg at my mom's house with David and I
04-15-09 Completed the online Hague training
04-18-09 Began trying to raise money - Garage Sale - raised $320.00
06-03-09 Our referral call came, as I sat at my classroom desk, after a long day.
06-19-09 After much prayer and medical consultations we accepted Jiang Li Fei's referral
06-24-09 Submitted our EA(electronic accceptance) requesting to adopt Li Fei
06-25-09 After months of paperwork and frustration our home study was finally
completed and approved!
07-10-09 David and I took documents to Austin for authentification
07-14-09 Mailed authenticated paperwork to Chinese Consulate
08-1-09 Huge church garage sale, with generous donors helped us raise $1800.00
08-17-09 Fingerprint appt.
10-30-09 Sent Dossier To China(DTC)
11-04-09 Log in Date(LID)
12-27-09 Care package sent for our little girl's birthday today!
01-13-10 AWAA recieved our Referral Acceptance(RA)
01-14-10 Mailed application for grant to Show Hope
01-15-10 Referral Acceptance(RA) came in our mail - YEAH! We are approved to adopt Lia
02-25-10 Faxed travel info to AWAA - continue to wait on our Travel Approvel(TA)
03-12-10 Letter from NVC came in the mail

04-2010 Anticipated travel - David, Brandon, Tia and I are planning to bring Lia home. God had other plans!
04-27-10 Travel Approval(TA) arrived at AWAA
05-19-10 Planning to actually FINALLY travel

Needing some adoption advice please

Ok, my fellow international adoptive parents: I need some advice and I am looking for your comments. Please send me your thoughts and suggestions!

As we plan to travel to China to get our little girl, we are concerned about the language barrier and how we should be preparing to best meet her needs. My husband recently purchased a Rosetta Stone in Mandarin, so I decided to give it a shot at learning a new language. Let's just say that after about 30 minutes of total confusion on my part I decided to come back another day. I am NOT fluent in any other language, but did take a couple years of French in high school and have some Spanish speaking students in my classes at school. I can't imagine a language that is more difficult to learn than Chinese. We want to be able to communicate with her at least a little bit, but don't know how we will do this.

So, here are a few of my questions: Have you adopted an older child (3+) that has been in an orphange? Did he/she typically know any English? How did you communicate in those early days? Fortunately, love is a universal language, but we dearly want to be as prepared as possible so that we can make her feel as comfortable as possible.

I'm looking forward to your suggestions and comments!

It doesn't get much better

When your morning begins with the freedom to enjoy these:

And then we get all of this:

And all of the family is home to enjoy it

along with lots of extra friends added to the mix
You can't help but have a wonderful day. It was full of fun, snow, friends and and a warm bowl of tortilla soup to end the day in front of a roaring fire watching a great movie!

Who could ask for more?

Well...there's just one more little thing would make it even better:

A sweet little girl to enjoy it with us!