A lot of hope

Today, we are a lot more hopeful as Tim the director called and said we are 98% sure for travel on January 10th. Mary and I have been working to book tickets and the hotel. Sandy our travel agent found some great tickets. Friday, we should have official word as our agent needs to travel to the Orphanage to sign some documents. For the next two days we will be working on the visa applications and I will be going to the embassy on Friday to expedite the visas.

We are hoping that our next few days will be a lot of rush as we worked towards that travel date. This is a great New Years gift. The good news is that we will be in Vietnam to celebrate her first birthday if everything goes to plan!

Thank you again for your thoughts and prayers you have made the journey to Elizabeth a lot easier and hopefully soon we will be posting pictures of her smile on the web site.

Happy New Year to all!

12/30 -- hoping for a New Years Gift

Today, we chatted with Tim the Executive Director of New Beginnings. He said our case is in better shape than the other family -- our hearts and prayers goes out to them.

We have not received a G&R date and Tim has not heard from our contact on the ground. He plans to call him this evening or tomorrow morning. We have a checkpoint tomorrow morning with Tim. If we understand correctly we are in a 10 day wait period for the G&R so hopefully we will hear something by 1/5/2009.

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers -- it really means a lot to see so much support.

Cautiously Optimistic

Today (12/23), we learned that our paperwork was approved. It takes about 10 days for us to receive our G&R date. We are cautiously optimistic and will not believe it until we have our official travel date. Next Checkpoint is Tuesday 12/30.

December 22

Elizabeth turned 11 months old today. We are cautiously optimistic that our paper work has moved forward. We spoke with our director today and he said that some of the paperwork moved forward. He is going to call Vietnam tomorrow since he would like some more clarification. Hopefully tomorrow we will know more.

I would like to thank Steve, Carol and Samantha for their hospitality and to enable me to have my Samantha fix. Samantha, Steve and I were looking at the blog and the pictures of Elizabeth and Samantha in her 1 year old voice said -- "Whz tht" (we translated it to Who is that). We said your friend Elizabeth who we are hoping we will be able to bring home soon.

Hopefully soon we will have our G&R date and invitation to travel. We are hoping to travel in January and will remain cautiously optimistic. One day at a time.

Thank you for all of your support and prayers.

Looking ahead to December 22

December 22, Elizabeth turns 11 months old. We also have a checkpoint with the director in the morning. Hopefully we will hear about the next steps or action plans to help break the deadlock within the government.

We thank all of our family and friends for their support.

Escalation

Let the escalations begin. We spoke with our director this week and we are now waiting for a letter to be sent to the People's committee. We are hoping that this will help break the deadlock and that our paper work will move forward. Our director is investigating other areas to push on for phase 2 of the escalation. Next checkpoint is next Tuesday.

Delays, Delays, Delays

Today, we have a set back in which we learned "...that the different govt. organizations that process adoptions aren't very cooperative and they are fighting through every piece.
He says he is still prodding them along and will continue to do so until they complete it, but it might not be really quickly. He is doing everything he can to push."

One day at a time and we appreciate your support.