Book Club Shower

On Saturday afternoon I had my monthly book club meeting and they surprised me with a shower for Merrin! I was so sweet! We had wonderful food and desserts. It is a great club that I joined only about 4 months ago but I knew it was the book club for me when the first meeting I went too had awesome food and wine! These ladies always have a fantastic spread of food and drinks, I am actually scared to have it at my house, I already started planning the menu!

Present's!!!!

We also received a ton of clothes but the picture I took did not come out very well, but believe me Merrin will be dressed very well! Thanks again to everyone we really appreciate everything!

Update On Merrin's Room

My Sister Lisa spent the night after my shower and did the M on Merrin's wall. It looks great! She also did a stencil of 3 fleur de lis on the back of Merrin's door. We also put the new cushions that Lisa did on the glider and they look so good! We hung the cross Merrin's Mamere and Pops gave her and also hung the MW that Big Joe designed for her! Everything is coming together!

We Booked Our Tickets!!!

We had a great surprise today and received an email stating our Consulate Appointment had been confirmed. We booked our tickets and we leave for China on July 17th. We will get Merrin on July 20th!!! We will be very busy until we leave we have tons to do but we could not be more excited!

More Baby Shower Pics

Baby Shower

I was given a baby shower for Merrin on Wednesday and it was just wonderful! Thank you so much Shannon, Jamie, Lauren, Michele, Beth, Trish and Lorie, everything was just awesome and I truly appreciate all that you'll did to make it such a special night! I received so many great gifts it really was a perfect night!

We Have Our Travel Approval!!!

We received our Travel Approval this afternoon, Thank Goodness!!! We now just have to wait for our US Consulate appointment to be confirmed and then we can book our travel. We are hoping to be in Hunan for the July 19th and we will get Merrin on the 20th!!! We should hear back either Monday or Tuesday.

We have been praying really really hard that our travel approval would get here by the end of the month. Joey and I received a letter from our agency on Monday afternoon stating that they were closing, yes closing and by the end of June and yes 2009! We were shocked and very worried! If our TA would come in before the end of the month then we would still be able to have them do our travel and travel with them in China. We kept this a secret because we did not want to have to worry everyone else, and it all worked out in the end. We would have been referred to another agency that I know people who used them and have said they were great but we were afraid it would delay our travel. So anyway I also had my wonderful baby shower last night and it was just perfect. I will post about that tomorrow, I am exhausted from this week!!

Still Waiting on our TA!!!

We are still waiting for our Travel Approval from China. Our agency sent them off on June 1. Once they receive our TA's then they can request our Consulate appointment and once we have that we can book our flights!! Please say some prayers that this comes very soon, we need to go get our girl!

Merrin's Room

I painted Merrin's room this Saturday. Meghan and I had painted it yellow about 3 years ago but I decided since then that I wanted it pink. It is a very light pink, Meghan actually thought it was white when she saw it today! My Sister will be stenciling a M above Merrin's bed, Thank You Lisa, it will be in a darker shade of pink, I copied the one above from PB Kids but it will look like that. Joey is out of town for two weeks so I painted, cut the grass and tried to clean out Merrin's room. It has been a workout room, I still have the treadmill in there for now but I will move that out before she gets here! I am posting some picture's of the newly painted room and the glider that is in the room will be recovered also by Lisa. I am so not creative or crafty and I can barely sew a button, in fact I am making my SIL Jamie come over tomorrow to measure Merrin's windows so I can order the shades. I am too scared that I will measure wrong and they need to be specially ordered, so Thanks Jamie!!

We have not heard any other news on travel so say some prayers that we will hear something soon.

10 Month's Today

Merrin is 10 months old today! I would be lying if I said this did not make me sad. I cannot believe we have missed the first 10 months with her. It just makes my heart ache but I keep telling myself it will not be much longer until we are together and then we will not miss anything ever again!

We went to Big Joe's and Colleen's tonight and had Chinese food. Colleen bought a cake that said Happy 10 months Merrin, it was so sweet! We also received two precious outfits from them.

Also, yesterday we received an email from my agency stating that all acceptance letters have been received and are being sent to CCAA. CCAA usually issues travel approval's approximately 4 weeks from the time they receive the signed acceptances. Once we have travel approval we can then request the consulate appointment and as soon as we have our confirmed consulate appointment then we can make travel arrangements. Please say some prayers that everything moves along smoothly!