Thursday, September 13, 2012
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
18 days... and counting!!!!
We have 18 days left until we leave to head to Taiwan for our trip to bring Eli home!!!
I've taken many trips in my life and have been to visit so many amazing places. This life-changing trip will hands down be the best one ever! Thrilled over here!
We heard from our Immigration Officer on Tuesday (9/11) that she had finished processing our documents on Monday (9/10), so we should be all set. She'll be mailing the confirmation to us soon.
We bought our airline tickets last night, so it's official.* We have travel dates AND seats reserved on flights. Two passengers going and three returning. :) We'll fly Delta this time because we were quite unimpressed with United's customer service several times during our summer trip. Hope this time things go smoothly.
We'll fly out on Sunday, September 30 (Mid-Autumn Moon Festival in Taiwan - wish we could've been there just a tad sooner...) and arrive late on October 1st.
Eli will be with us from Wednesday, October 3rd on - and on and on and on...... :) :) :)
We'll come home on Columbus Day/ Canadian Thanksgiving - Monday, October 8th.
So so so excited!!!! Woo hoo! Happy happy tears of joy!
* I realize that I keep on saying "It's official." I think I'm trying to convince myself each step of the way that this really truly is happening after all this time! Someone pinch me please.
I've taken many trips in my life and have been to visit so many amazing places. This life-changing trip will hands down be the best one ever! Thrilled over here!
We heard from our Immigration Officer on Tuesday (9/11) that she had finished processing our documents on Monday (9/10), so we should be all set. She'll be mailing the confirmation to us soon.
We bought our airline tickets last night, so it's official.* We have travel dates AND seats reserved on flights. Two passengers going and three returning. :) We'll fly Delta this time because we were quite unimpressed with United's customer service several times during our summer trip. Hope this time things go smoothly.
We'll fly out on Sunday, September 30 (Mid-Autumn Moon Festival in Taiwan - wish we could've been there just a tad sooner...) and arrive late on October 1st.
Eli will be with us from Wednesday, October 3rd on - and on and on and on...... :) :) :)
We'll come home on Columbus Day/ Canadian Thanksgiving - Monday, October 8th.
So so so excited!!!! Woo hoo! Happy happy tears of joy!
* I realize that I keep on saying "It's official." I think I'm trying to convince myself each step of the way that this really truly is happening after all this time! Someone pinch me please.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Progress...
Done:
Child safety gate is up in the attic/family room.
Corner protectors are up around the very sharp chimney corners in the play room area.
Safety latches are on all cabinets w cleaners, weird liquids, etc.
Outlets are plugged w those kid covermajobbers.
Breakables are mostly moved out of reach or away.
Bookshelf is painted powder blue in his room.
Dresser that was green, red, orange is now painted blue, red, brown. Thanks, S&D!
Curtain is made (even if not quite as wide as i had hoped for) and up in his room. (I'm no seamstress.)
Great letterpress red ox art work is matted and framed. Ready to hang.
Got him a bike helmet (to go w his cool bike from Bridget - thanks!).
Bought night diapers. (So strange, the shopping and buying experience - not the diapers.)
Got the A-OK from HR at work today. Phew!
What's left?
Organize the bins and books to go in his newly blue bookshelf.
Put the cute looking growth chart tree up on his wall. (just arrived today from anthropologie.)
Put little toddler clothes in his dresser.
Finish clearing out his closet (- used to be my office closet.)
Sew two easy blankets. We'll see....
Buy airline tix.
Reserve our hotel.
Enjoy quiet reading time while I have it. ;)
Is there really no ready made checklist for this?
Parents, (aunts, uncles, grandparents) - what am I forgetting? Seriously. Any suggestions? What else?
Child safety gate is up in the attic/family room.
Corner protectors are up around the very sharp chimney corners in the play room area.
Safety latches are on all cabinets w cleaners, weird liquids, etc.
Outlets are plugged w those kid covermajobbers.
Breakables are mostly moved out of reach or away.
Bookshelf is painted powder blue in his room.
Dresser that was green, red, orange is now painted blue, red, brown. Thanks, S&D!
Curtain is made (even if not quite as wide as i had hoped for) and up in his room. (I'm no seamstress.)
Great letterpress red ox art work is matted and framed. Ready to hang.
Got him a bike helmet (to go w his cool bike from Bridget - thanks!).
Bought night diapers. (So strange, the shopping and buying experience - not the diapers.)
Got the A-OK from HR at work today. Phew!
What's left?
Organize the bins and books to go in his newly blue bookshelf.
Put the cute looking growth chart tree up on his wall. (just arrived today from anthropologie.)
Put little toddler clothes in his dresser.
Finish clearing out his closet (- used to be my office closet.)
Sew two easy blankets. We'll see....
Buy airline tix.
Reserve our hotel.
Enjoy quiet reading time while I have it. ;)
Is there really no ready made checklist for this?
Parents, (aunts, uncles, grandparents) - what am I forgetting? Seriously. Any suggestions? What else?
Friday, September 7, 2012
Happy Birthday, Eli! :) :) :)
Basketball and hoop and play dough kit from Zephan and Alanna.
Art smocks and light switch cover just arrived today from Etsy orders. :)
Happy birthday to our little man! xo xo xo
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Travel dates !!! :)
Today is the day we've been waiting for! We got news of our travel dates. WOO HOO!!!
Yes, this is set three of travel dates because the first two sets had to be rescheduled. But these ones are the final travel dates. We will be buying airline tickets this week and booking our hotel. It's for real. :) :) :)
They want us in Taiwan the first week in October. And we'll be there with bells on.
I plan to teach until Sept 28th and we hope to travel that weekend. So so excited over here!
Today was my first (official) day back at school. It was long and pretty stressful, but I had this happy news to fuel me.
We are thrilled!!! Hooray! :)
I exceeded the recommended use of !!!s in this post (and very well may have broken my personal record!) and I'm not even going to apologize! ;)
Woo hoo!!! :)
Yes, this is set three of travel dates because the first two sets had to be rescheduled. But these ones are the final travel dates. We will be buying airline tickets this week and booking our hotel. It's for real. :) :) :)
They want us in Taiwan the first week in October. And we'll be there with bells on.
I plan to teach until Sept 28th and we hope to travel that weekend. So so excited over here!
Today was my first (official) day back at school. It was long and pretty stressful, but I had this happy news to fuel me.
We are thrilled!!! Hooray! :)
I exceeded the recommended use of !!!s in this post (and very well may have broken my personal record!) and I'm not even going to apologize! ;)
Woo hoo!!! :)
Monday, September 3, 2012
can't wait to share more photos...
This one will have to do for now. Aren't they great together?! :) :)
No new news yet. :( Getting antsy over here..... AND my school year officially begins tomorrow.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
hooray! guess who has a clean record?! ;)
Yes, I have a clean police record. :) No surprise, but we have that in writing and notarized now, and this matters. Yeah!
So, Friday we had some dear friends visiting from Binghamton. She and I went to college together and lived and taught in Taiwan together too. Her daughter and son came along and we had a delightful day together - going to the play ground, sand box time, visiting Jill's lemonade stand, lunch on the deck, play time in the attic. We were having a blast. Then around 2:15 J runs up to the attic and I can tell he has important news. Our local police office just called and they have my police clearance letter ready - hooray! It took 9 days, instead of 14. That's such good news. Now I won't need to take time off work to go in and pick it up. My friends were very kind and had no problem letting J and I zip off to get these documents, while they kept playing in the attic. We were there and back in about 15 minutes - documents look great and were notarized the same day - August 31, 2012.
So glad they called. So glad we offered to pick it up instead of wait for the mail. With labor day next week would've taken much longer. Now our final documents are in. We use these to complete our i600A. Then processing time (a few weeks) and we'll be off.
Should've heard about our travel dates yesterday, but we didn't. :( Not sure why. Hoping to hear on Monday or Tuesday. They don't have labor day Monday in Taiwan. Can hardly wait for our travel dates now. Things are falling into place. Yeah! :)
So, Friday we had some dear friends visiting from Binghamton. She and I went to college together and lived and taught in Taiwan together too. Her daughter and son came along and we had a delightful day together - going to the play ground, sand box time, visiting Jill's lemonade stand, lunch on the deck, play time in the attic. We were having a blast. Then around 2:15 J runs up to the attic and I can tell he has important news. Our local police office just called and they have my police clearance letter ready - hooray! It took 9 days, instead of 14. That's such good news. Now I won't need to take time off work to go in and pick it up. My friends were very kind and had no problem letting J and I zip off to get these documents, while they kept playing in the attic. We were there and back in about 15 minutes - documents look great and were notarized the same day - August 31, 2012.
So glad they called. So glad we offered to pick it up instead of wait for the mail. With labor day next week would've taken much longer. Now our final documents are in. We use these to complete our i600A. Then processing time (a few weeks) and we'll be off.
Should've heard about our travel dates yesterday, but we didn't. :( Not sure why. Hoping to hear on Monday or Tuesday. They don't have labor day Monday in Taiwan. Can hardly wait for our travel dates now. Things are falling into place. Yeah! :)
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