At least three weeks

We have news from Vietnam, but I will not trust the reliability without evidence, especially since its 4th hand information. Hang talked to people at POJ today, who talked with people at PPC. It sounds like PPC should be handing over our paperwork this week (fingers crossed). Ordinarily we would be able to travel right away. But this ridiculously slow process will be drawn out even further since Hang, our adoption coordinator, and some guy at the POJ that is in charge of the G&R ceremonies will all be on vacation come October. So the earliest we could possibly travel is Oct 18th.

I caught this box turtle on my walk with Bruno this afternoon. After I set it down in the backyard and grabbed the camera it took about 20 minutes for it to slowly emerge from its shell. We have waited 2 years for Gianna, I can wait 20 mins for my apropos picture of a turtle running away in slow motion. I set him free out of Bruno's territory but now think maybe I should return him to the ditch I pulled him out of in case there is a spouse waiting at home.

Halloween with Gianna?

Most of you know Halloween is my favorite holiday. There are no awkward family gatherings, no cards to send or gifts to buy. I celebrate by decorating the house, dressing myself and the dog in a costume, watching cheesy horror movies, and handing out my cauldron of candy to the mobs of kids that come to the door. The children in costumes [and the leftover candy] are the best part. I don't know if we will get to celebrate Halloween with Gianna this year or not. I didn't buy a costume for her, the dog, or myself. There is only one thing on my mind, bringing her home. Today our agency sent out a hypothetical new travel itinerary that has us flying home Oct 30. If that happens, this year the kids will be greeted at the door by a real-life zombie! But still no news from Vietnam, so this new travel itinerary is pretty meaningless.

**Gianna tomorrow is one less day without you!**

PPC blocking our adoption

As we were making our final travel arrangements, we got word from Vietnam strongly urging us not to travel. Hang talked to people at Holt International who had several parents adopt kids from Hanoi and ran into serious problems with PPC (the group that is holding our dossier). Sometimes PPC holds out for a long time past the 15 day limit or requests additional documentation, presumably looking for bribes. So again our trip is delayed indefinitely. This goes for everyone in our travel group. They hope to reschedule for the end of October, but we really have no idea when PPC will give up looking for bribes and just hand over our dossiers. If it was up to the families, we would pay them whatever they want, just release our kids. But our agency has a firm policy against paying bribes. So these next few weeks will be really difficult for us.

Friday Flight

Dan and I have taken some risks in life in the name of love and had some pretty cool adventures along the way. Well here we go again. Even though we still don't have a ceremony scheduled, we are flying to Hanoi on Friday night to meet our daughter. This is a leap of faith because we don't know how long we'll be over there since they are dragging their feet with this final step. It could be a few weeks or a month. We will stay at a cheaper hotel (~$35-50/night) until we have a date confirmed and the other people in our travel group fly over. In the mean time, we will visit Gianna, volunteer at the orphanage, and see some sights around Vietnam. We have been to Southeast Asia before and are looking forward to the culture shock that makes you appreciate the cushy life we have here in the States. Please keep us in your prayers!

**why do I jinx myself by saying "a few weeks or a month"? Let me change that to "an indeterminent amount of time"

Let me off this roller coaster ride, I'm getting sick!

This week was filled with too many ups and downs; I felt bipolar. One minute we're leaving on Tuesday, hooray! Then a few hours later, not so fast, better unpack those bags. Here are the beaurocratic details. A group called PPC (I can't even think of what it stands for anymore) was supposed to give us the authority to schedule our giving and receiving ceremony within 15 days of receiving our file. That 15 days was up on Wed/Thurs and they are stonewalling us. Now our agency doesn't know what to do because they don't have any word from them on whether they will make a decision in a day or two or if they feel like it in a week or two. They explain that Vietnamese laws are more like suggestions (kinda how I regard speed limits and no parking signs here in America). So since we still did not hear anything on Friday, we let the Tues tickets expire. I want to re-book for Friday the 26th no matter what and run the risk of being over there longer than "necessary". At least we will get to see our daughter, buy her food and clothes, play with the kids at the orphanage, and see the city of Hanoi. So this weekend I'm going to finish packing and get the house ready for our house sitters to arrive next week, keeping spirits up that PPC will come through for us and we can leave on Friday with confidence.

And for those that were wondering, Bruno passed his interview at Camp Bow Wow yesterday. We were able to watch him on the web cam all afternoon playing with the other small dogs; he did great. Now if he gets too sassy with Martin while we're gone, he can take him over to Camp Bow Wow.

Visas Arrived

Tonight there was a Fed Ex envelope on my front doorstep, covered in leaves. It was our visas to Vietnam! Things go so fast here in the US, especially when you pay more money ;-) I wish the same could be said about Vietnam. The visa is valid from Sept 22nd until Oct 22nd. We still do not have any final word from them, however they said if we went early, we would be able to visit Gianna every day at the orphanage, perhaps even take her out if the director approved. That balances out the fear of going early and losing time at home afterwards with her (I will have to go back to work on Dec 1). Our strategy is to wait until the Tues tickets can't be held any longer. If we still don't have word from them, we will either re-book for later next week or just go Tuesday on faith.

Tickets for Tues Sept 23

Tickets are on hold for us to fly to Vietnam one week from today. The itinerary takes us out of JFK at 11pm Sept 23, stopping over in Vancouver, then Hong Kong, then Hanoi, arriving 9am Sept 25. Yes, you lose a whole day flying over there, and yes the tickets are only on hold, not purchased yet. We still do not have a confirmed G&R date. Hang was not able to get more information for us and will hopefully keep trying. Since its no problem to hold the tickets for a few days, that seems like the safest choice at the moment. [can you sense my emotional exhaustion here?]

Todd the Travel Agent

This weekend we spent cleaning, shopping, doing laundry, and packing for the trip. We are taking 3 suitcases and several carry-ons. There are still a dozen little things we need to buy like Pedialyte and Nix shampoo, but the big things are checked off the list. I talked with travel agent Todd today. He totally agreed, this is insanity. And his only business is sending adoptive families abroad, so he's used to craziness! One one hand, he doesn't like to book trips without a G&R ceremony scheduled, on the other hand, we need to book tickets NOW if we are going to get a decent rate and seats for next week. He could get us ~$1100 RT from JFK to Hanoi and will send us some itineraries to review. But in the mean time, he told us to put pressure on Hanoi to confirm the date. Hang, our woman on the scene, is going to press them tomorrow (tonight) and hopefully we will know something more tomorrow (unlikely). Dan and I are going to book the 23rd unless we hear otherwise in the next day or two. Todd also mentioned the standard $100 fee to change your flight itinerary. In the grand scheme of things, that's chump change that we're willing to risk. I just want to see my daughter! Some people have asked if we will be able to meet her earlier if we go over early. That's up to the orphanage director. Since they've never done international adoptions before, anything is fair game. More news as it develops.

Time to go

This is what we have been waiting two years for, time to go to Vietnam and pick up our daughter. The travel meeting today packed in a lot of information, but the most pressing question we had was "when are we leaving?" That is complicated and I will try to explain the scenarios. The first thing we did after the meeting was to rush home and Fed Ex our visa applications to our courier in DC for expedited service, which is 2-3 business days. Our giving and receiving ceremony has not been set yet. It will either be Mon, Sept 29, or Mon, Oct 6. The trip itinerary has been whittled down to 1 week with expedited services and a lot of rushing around. This might sound good to people that are squeamish about travel to undeveloped countries. But we wanted more time to learn about the birthplace of our daughter. So we are planning to go early. Instead of leaving on a Thurs or Fri, we will leave on a Tue or Wed. There is a bit of a gamble here. We may have less than a week notice of the final date of the G&R ceremony, and we have to be in the country at least 2 days ahead of time. So what do we do? Scenario 1 is to book tickets for Sept 23 and run the risk we could be there over a week ahead of time if the G&R gets pushed to Oct 6. Scenario 2, we wait until everything is 100% scheduled, then buy tickets at the last minute, and run the risk of bad flights and no time for sight-seeing before the G&R. We will mull it over this weekend, then call the travel agent on Monday.

Sep 11

Today everyone is recalling where they were on Sept 11th, 2001. We lived in Phoenix, AZ at the time, so we were still sleeping when the events actually took place. Dan left for work and I turned on the TV to see CNN video of the trade centers on fire. I called Dan and he saw a Yahoo news crawler that the trade centers had collapsed, but my CNN video clearly showed them still standing. Little did I know I was watching taped footage. I went to school and cancelled my classes. One of my students was in the army reserves and got called up for active duty that day. Today Dan takes the PATH into the WTC station every day. We know the area like the back of our hand, so it was even hard to find a photo of it (circa April 2007). Many of his friends and co-workers were there on Sept 11th, so we think of all of them, esp those that lost loved ones that terrible day seven years ago.

Look for a post sometime tomorrow night or Saturday morning recapping our adoption travel meeting scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Could it really be that we are leaving for Vietnam in 2 weeks? Hopefully we will get the confirmation we have been waiting for. Stay tuned.