Welcome to our story...

God has richly blessed us with a big, fun family...
We have 10 children... 3 homegrown & 7 born in our hearts!

Blake... our oldest is 25 and has a heart for the Lord. He enjoys; church, family, mission trips, making music, playing guitar & drums at church, and writing.

Brianna Faith... is 21 and has a compassionate & tender heart. She's a wonderful big sister. She began talking to us about adoption when she was 11 yrs old. She is "Faith in motion"

Brent... is 17 - he's an awesome guy! He's in highschool. He has a special heart for family and God. He loves sports! Brent loves to laugh & is full of life!

Bethany Lidia... now 15, joined our family in August 2006 at 9 yrs old. She's from the beautiful country of Guatemala. She started school for the very first time (at 9 yrs old) and is now in 9th grade. Lidia's passion is sports & dancing!

Benjamin Ross... 15 yrs old. We first saw his picture in April 2007 & came home in May '08. Ben is deaf, but his special need is that he needed a family. Ben loves making home-runs & hanging out with family & friends. Ben is from Tianjin, China.

Briella Xiyao... our beautiful 15 yr old daughter from Fujian Province, China. She joined our family in July 2009. She's always wearing a big smile! She has a passion for the deaf & very proficient in sign language. She loves basketball!!

Bellamei Ying... our Inner Mongolian princess. Bellamei is 14 yrs old and held my hand for the first time on July 18, 2011. She has melted into our big family seamlessly and it is truly an honor to be her mommy.

Brinley Grace FuChuan... is 9 years old and joined our family in July 2007. She's from Jiangxi Province, China. She has the most gentle, sweet spirit... she's an angel!

Bayla Shea Chao-Yu... our youngest. She's 9 yrs old, 5 months younger than Brinley. Bayla's from Hunan, China & came home at 11.5 months. She's bright, funny (and spicy!) We can't get enough of her hugs & kisses.

and our caboose... Braxton Emanuel Jordan - 8 yrs old? (see post below) He's from Guangdong Province and is now officially our son!

This 1 min video shows how we've GROWN!

LOA is HERE !!!!!!!!!!

This is the wonderful news we've been waiting for...LOA (letter of acceptance). It is the final piece of paper sent to our agency from China. We are to sign it with our final **YES** that we want to adopt this child. We will receive it Fed-Ex tomorrow from our agency, sign it, Fed-Ex it right back tomorrow, and the agency sends it DHL to the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs), who should get it by Tuesday. Then within 2-4 weeks, the CCAA issues TA (travel approval). Once they do that, we typically should fly out within 2 weeks. Soooooo, that means we could feasibly be leaving in 5-7 weeks...probably somewhere between July 4th and July 25th. We will be gone approx 15 days or so. I am so thrilled that it will be before school starts. Now, I have SO MUCH to do!! ...make reservations for our hotels, int'l flights, and our in-country travel (we will be flying from Beijing to Nanchang, then from there we'll fly to Guangzhou, then either fly or go by train to Hong Kong, then back to Chicago, and finally home to Charlotte) order our visa's, gather orphanage gifts, packing, exchanging money, ordering NEW U.S. bills (we must pay in brand new bills), converters, check travel restrictions...Oh My! and most importantly arranging who will keep Brianna, Brent, & Lidia. Blake will stay home and hold down the fort, take care of Maggie (our lab) and the fish. And of course, Bayla will be going with us. We are still hoping for an update on Brinley...maybe a new picture, or measurements. The last report I have on her is over a year old.
p.s. Blake safely arrived in Croatia...waiting to hear more from him soon!
The song playing in my car when I got the call today was, "How Great is Our God"... all I can say today is "Amen"

6 comments:

The Ferrill's said...

Woo-hoo, we have our LOA's too! We might meet up in Guangzhou! Your list of things to do is great...I am still on cloud 9 about the LOA's that I can't concentrate on what I need to be doing! I'm so glad your son made it safely on his mission trip. Maybe we will all get some updates on our babies soon. Regardless, we know within the next two months or so, we'll have some "in person" updates!
I'm praising the Lord with you!
Laine

Farrah said...

WOW that is great news....I'm so happy for your family

Angel said...

WOW!!!! AWESOME! I am so SOOOOO happy for you. I guess you will be leaving about a week or two after we visit! Great timing. :0) I can help you shop for your sweetheart. YIPPPEEEE! This is so cool. Hugs to you friend. I love you guys. Angel

Buffi Young said...

Hey Lisa,
So great to hear about your LOA. It is so exciting. We are also with Lifeline. Karla is our social worker, and we are one of the 7 families that got their LOA's this week. What a wonderful travel group we are going to have. I saw your post on the yahoo group and wanted to check out your blog. It is great!!! I look forward to following your journey too! I just wanted to say hello and I hope that we all get our TA's soon and yes...that we travel and get back before school starts!! Either way, like Laine says...we'll have that "in person" time soon!! Have a great week! God is so good!!!
Buffi

Journey to Lilly! said...

Lisa, Laine has just given me your blogspot!! I am so excited about our LOA's. There are 7 families that are possibly traveling together!! I would love to get together & meet with you!! Please e-mail me & we can chat!
Kim
www.pintaroadoption.blogspot.com

Journey to Lilly! said...

Lisa, I was going to go up to the top & post another comment ..... but this is the top!! My Lilly is in the same Province as your Brinley!! My e-mail address is....Meohmymommy@aol.com
Blessings!
Kim