Monday, July 11, 2005

How Mr. Bill saved my day/The finding Ad

Sooo...after the breakdown on Tuesday, I got regrouped and went over all our info that we need to get going on. We need to get our pictures together, we needed to get our police letters notarized, we are still waiting for wanes letter to get back from the Chinese consulate in Houston. This brings us to how Mr. Bill from the ISD saved my day.

As of Thursday morning I still hadn't heard from AAI about our reference letter from Beth. Feeling that I no longer could wait, I stopped at the ISD to see if I could scrounge up someone to write a letter on Wayne and I's behalf. I HIT THE JACKPOT!!!!! Mr. Bill was in his office and volunteered his services as well as his computer to write the letter at that same moment!!! So, we sat down with the requirements that MaryBeth had told me and we wrote (I typed) the letter. YAY!!! We got the letter done, he signed it and I was off to meet with my new love--The Fed-Ex man!! Lucky for me Cal-Chlor has a Fed-Ex account and there's a drop at the Shell station just a few blocks away. PHEW!!!! MaryBeth told me she would hold our home study hostage till she got that letter. I just hope it includes all that she needed. That was a HUGE weight off my shoulders. I wanted to get our info to officer Teske before she headed out on vacation, but it's not gonna happen. :-( Bummer, but I'm still hoping to be DTC (dossier to China) before the end of July, but I think that's just a bit to hopeful.

On Wednesday we received Julia's (aka Yin) finding ad. What's a finding ad you ask? In China, when children are abandoned they place "ads" in the local papers. Those ads consist of small grainy pictures, what little info they know about the child (ie: birthdate, what date the were found, what clothes they were wearing, the exact location of where they were left and any physical deformities). Some ads are just text, no picture. We are extremely lucky that her ad is a picture one. As luck would have it, Liz and Brion's son is 2 ads below Julia. I sent a scan of the ad to them. So what did Julia's ad say exactly? Here's what we got:

Ad #30: Name now: Lu Yin Gui, A girl Birthdate: 10/14/2003 (estimated) Finding date: 11/22/2003 Found abandoned at #2 Huarongshan, Xianan district, Xianning City (gate of the district orphanage) She was wearing a yellow sweater and white cotton pants with yellow flowers and had a red cap. She has no right ear.

This is similar info to what we got from AAI. I knew that it was her when they mentioned her clothes. Those match exactly to what AAI said. Wayne and I would love to have that outfit. I doubt I will get it, but it's always worth asking for. We feel as though this ad is as close a birth announcement that we will get for her. No matter I guess, we love her already. The kids are over the top about her. Here's a picture of her ad.





I also went to the summer Pentwater Art Fair. I purchased 2 of Todd and Brad Reed's books to take to China. www.toddreedphoto.com Go look for the book titled: Lake Michigan: Point to Point. I bought one for Director Lu and one for Julia's foster mom.

Ok, I need to go. G'Night!! :-)