Pink Baby and Plaid Baby

TRAVEL DATES

So on Friday we went to the China Consulate in New York to arrange for Visas to travel to China. On our way home, we got a call from our agency telling us that we will DEFINITELY (it used to say 'probably') be picking up our girls on June 18th, their birthday, and coming home on the 27th.

We will only be in China for two weeks - we will leave New York on June 13th and return on June 27 - this is now confirmed!!

Here is the no-longer-tentative plan: June 13th - Fly from Newark to Beijing (a 13 1/2 hour flight). We leave at about noon on the 13th, and because of the 12-hour time difference, we arrive at 1:45 PM the next day.

We will be in Beijing for a few days before we meet our girls, so we will wander around and have a look at the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and Starbucks.

June 17th: Travel to Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi, and we will get our girls on their birthday! We will be in Nanchang for five or six days, but I have no idea what we do there (bureaucracy and paperwork, I guess). But we definitely meet them as soon as we get to Nanchang.

June 25th: Travel to Guangzhou, the location of the U.S. consulate - at this point we will get our final paperwork to bring them home as official U.S. citizens.

June 27th: Fly home with our girls!

The other thing that many of you know, but which has not been mentioned yet here, is that Kim's sister Jenny is going to China with us. This is fantastic because Kim and I have no idea what to do with babies, and so Jenny will be a huge help.

We are very excited that she has agreed to come along and we are really looking forward to the moment when our girlies are placed in our arms, with Jenny manning the video tape and reminding me not to hold the girls upside down. Sadly, Jenny's childhood friend Dodie will not be able to make it.