The Cheeky Robinson Clan: June 2012

Update - pictures!!

Look as these darling pictures we received last night (6/29)!!!

We are so completely in love with this precious girl!!!!

Abigail Mei is now 18 months old, 28 pounds and 2' 7.5" tall! So much for 18-month old clothes (which we have a lot of)!! (Any parents out there who have 2T clothes from their babies that they'd like to donate??)

We leave in less than two weeks to go get this little treasure...

Two weeks to go!

I woke up very early this morning and thought, "Two weeks from now we'll be at the airport waiting to board the plane to go get our little girl." Wow. I laid there and had daydreams about what that will be like.

My daydreams will soon be a reality.

I fall more in love with Tan Zhifu/Abigail Mei every day.

We're going to China!

Our appointments in China are confirmed! We've booked our flights, and we're going to China!!!!

We leave on July 13 from Walla Walla at 6:50am and arrive in Wuhan on July 14 at 9:30pm.
Gotcha Day for Miss Abigail Mei Robinson is July 16.
We'll be in Wuhan until July 20 (my birthday!) or 21, then fly to Guangzhou.
Our Consulate Appointment is on July 25 in Guangzhou.
We'll fly home on July 28 from Guangzhou at 8:30am, and arrive home in Walla Walla on July 28 at 8:49pm.

We're comin' to get you Miss Abi Mei Robinson!! We love you!!!

Mama and Daddy

TA is on it's way!

We heard from our agency today that travel approval (TA) has been mailed!! It looks like we'll be traveling in three weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Process for travel approval has begun!

We found out today from our agency that our "Article 5" has been picked up from the US consulate and taken to the China Center of Adoption Affairs. We are now officially waiting for travel approval!! Our agency says it can take two to four weeks to receive travel approval. We've seen it take anywhere from 10 to 14 days with the China adoption community we're a part of, though have seen one person wait 3 weeks. May the Lord move our process along so that it is less than 2 weeks till we have travel approval! Once we have travel approval, we will get to leave about two weeks later, depending on our when our appointments are in Wuhan and Guangzhou.

What is the "Article 5?" The US consulate needs to review our Abigail's visa application to make sure the application meets the qualifications for an immigrant visa. After they review it, they sign off that everything is in order for the adoption to be completed. This is called the Article 5 letter. The Article 5 letter must be in place to obtain custody of our little Abi Mei. It is the last big and final step of our pre-Abi paperwork! Hallelujah!

BRING ON THE TRAVEL APPROVAL!!

Heather

Tutu!

Precious friend Nicole made little Abi Mei this darling tutu!!

Horton had to try it out.

Haha. Too cute.

Baby doll had to also try it out.

She likes it!

Horton sportin' the tutu till Abi arrives home!

Time to Fly!

Molly's dad, Bill, was flying over to see her today since she will soon head off to Uganda for mission work. Molly is a dear friend and part of our church, and her dad spends the summers in Alaska doing flight seeing, so this was his time to see her before going to Alaska. Molly arranged for me to go flying in his plane while he was here. I have never flown in such a small plane, it's a 1953 "Cessna," Molly tells me. It was truly amazing!! I also feel it was picturesque of what God is doing in my life right now and at Journey too...it is time to fly!!

Bill landing!

Father and daughter

I love these two - Molly and Nicole! PS: I'm about to go flying. :)

A couple of crazy, amazing girls!!

A piece of our beautiful, amazing Walla Walla valley!

It was raining. It was really fun to go up in the rain. The Lord has given us a promise that He will "come like the rain." May it be so! Bring your refreshment, rejuvenation and revival to Walla Walla, Lord Jesus!

Bill's hands! You notice they are not on the wheel. Why is that? Because I'm driving!! He said to me, "You want to drive?" I said, "Uhh...yes!" So this is me driving! I guess I better look ahead again and get my eyes back on the "sky." SUPER FUN!!

I'm still driving. I got to do turns and everything. It was great!

"I flew a plane!"

Adoption Timeline At-A-Glance

March 28, 2009: Made the decision to adopt from Nepal.
March 30, 2009: Google-searched for an agency that has a Nepal program (there weren't any in 2008 since we had searched at that time), and found Adoption ARK.
April 6, 2009: E-mailed Adoption ARK expressing interest in Nepal.
April 6, 2009: Linda Podas (adoption consultant) at Adoption ARK e-mailed back, and sent the pre-qualification application.
April 7, 2009: Completed the application and faxed it to Linda.
April 8, 2009: Linda lets us know that we pre-qualify, and have been put on the 2010 Nepal waiting list.
April 16, 2009: Linda e-mails letting us know that our name has come up on the Nepal waiting list and we can officially apply into the Nepal adoption program!
April 17, 2009: Linda sends us the official contract, and says that we need to turn it around within 72 hours, along with money. :-) The contract is 35 pages (!).
April 20-22, 2009: Read the contract, filled out all the pages, and sent it in the mail with our money by April 22.
April 23, 2009: Linda e-mails saying our contract has been accepted, and that we are officially in the program. She said our case manager would be in touch with us within 48 hours.
April 24, 2009: Alina Radoslav e-mails us introducing herself as our case manager. Sends us lots of information and lots of attachments to fill out!
April 30, 2009: Phone call with Alina to meet each other and go over what we should be working on right now.
May 1 - June 9, 2009: Worked on our home study.
June 17, 2009: Overnighted our home study packet.
July 14, 2009: Mailed I-600A form to USCIS.
July 31, 2009: Home Study interviews in Seattle.
Aug. 28, 2009: Home Inspection at our house.
Sept. 30, 2009: Heather has her doctor's appointment for dossier medical report.
Oct. 3 and 4, 2009: Psychologist interviews; MMPI-2 test (457 questions!); Rohrschach test; intelligence test; and some other test that I don't know the name of.
Oct. 5, 2009: Meeting with psychologist to discuss report findings and review letters written by psychologist for our adoption agency. (Note: Tests confirmed that we are not crazy. Whew!)
Oct. 13, 2009: Andrew has his doctor's appointment for dossier medical report.
Oct. 22, 2009: Home Study approval reports received in the mail. (!!)
Oct. 22, 2009: Home Study approval reports sent to USCIS for I-600A application.
Nov. 10, 2009: Found out the USCIS address they gave us to send our home study report to was incorrect. Had to re-send to a different address.
Nov. 18, 2009: Sent all of our notarized documents to the Secretary of State for certification approval.
Nov. 30, 2009: Fingerprinting for USCIS approval.
Dec. 1, 2009: Dossier sent to Adoption Ark.
Dec. 7, 2009: Dossier sent to Nepal.
Dec. 11, 2009: Our agency's in-country Nepal represent receives our dossier.
Dec. 15, 2009: We are officially on the Nepal 2009 list! We are #500.
Aug. 6, 2010: The US closes adoptions to Nepal. We plan to keep our file there, praying that the doors will open again. May the Lord move mountains so these precious children can be with their forever families!

A New Beginning - China
Mar. 21, 2011: Chose Lifeline Children's Services as our agency.
Mar. 22 to Oct. 5, 2011: 10 months of all of the same stuff as above. :)
Oct. 21, 2011: Received USCIS approval to adopt from China.
Nov. 9, 2011: DTC! (Dossier To China)
Nov. 23, 2011: Our agency confirmed that CCCWA has received our dossier.
Dec. 20, 2011: Matched to our amazing 12-month old daughter!!
Dec. 30, 2011: Pre-approval received from China for our daughter!
April 24, 2012: Letter of Approval (LOA) from China
May 16, 2012: i800 approval (USA approval) for our daughter
May 25, 2012: USA approval cabled to US Consulate in Guangzhou. Now the Consulate will prepare the "Article 5."
June 11, 2012: Article 5 picked up from the Consulate and taken to the CCCWA.
June 25, 2012: Travel Approval (TA)!
July 13, 2012: Leave for China!
July 16, 2012: "Gotcha Day" – family of three!
July 17, 2012: Official adoption day with China.
July 25, 2012: Consulate appointment – Abigail became officially ours according to the US, and officially an American citizen!
July 28, 2012: We returned home to Walla Walla as a family! Abi also became an American citizen the moment she stepped on American soil.

Adoption blogs I follow (all but the first one are Nepal adoptions):

http://hernkekid.blogspot.com/ http://achairtospare.blogspot.com/ http://aboyfortheharrells.blogspot.com/ http://pebbletostone.blogspot.com/ http://apennyanickeladollaroradime.blogspot.com/ http://themelsersfaith.blogspot.com/ http://yoloholloway.blogspot.com/ http://bfsmoms.blogspot.com/ http://oak2ktm.blogspot.com/ http://nepaladoptionadventure.blogspot.com/ http://bugbeanandreed.blogspot.com/ http://kjernald.blogspot.com/ http://www.nepaladoptionblog.com/ http://jsjobeadoption.blogspot.com/ http://whenwebelong.blogspot.com/

The Cheeky Robinson Clan