Welcome

Hi everyone! Welcome to our blog! I have been working on it for the past few weeks, and I think it turned out pretty good considering I am essentially computer illiterate! I have made this blog so you can follow our trip to go to China to get our son, Brody. I hope to post on it a few times before we go, then frequently when we travel. This is so much easier than sending out e-mails! Since it is easier, I am much more likely to actually do it!

For anyone who is new to our journey, my name is Monica and my husband is Bernie. We live in Kansas with our daughter, Makenna, who was adopted from China 9/06. She will be 4 on August 21st, and is the absolute joy of our lives. Bernie and I often wonder what we did and what we laughed about before she came along! Makenna is a very funny, independent, headstrong, precocious and loving little girl. She comes from Nanning, China, which is in Guangxi province. Nanning is in the southernmost part of China-when we travelled to get her we were only about 100 miles from the Vietnam border. She has now been with us almost 3 years, and I don't know what we would do without her!!!

We filed the paperwork to adopt a second child on November 30th, 2007. At that time, I think the wait was around 2 1/2 years and growing. The wait is now 3 yrs, 3 months, with no speed-up in sight. Since Bernie and I are not exactly "spring chickens", we decided that we really didn't want to wait the projected 5-6 years it would take for our paperwork to make it to the top of the stack. I started perusing the "waiting children" list that our adoption agency receives from the CCAA (Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs) from time to time, hoping to see the face of our dreams, then one night around 10pm I happened to go to the WC list and there he was! Our little guy is named Sun Jian and his birthday is 10/22/07, so he is a little over 1 1/2 yrs old. We are going to name him Brody Allen. He has an extremely minor and correctable special need that will cause him no problems in the future. He is at Dongguan Children's Welfare Institute in Guangdong Province (yes, we are going to Dongguan, Guangdong!).

We got extremely good news yesterday that we have been waiting for: we have Travel Approval! We are projected to leave for China on July 30th. It is too coincidental to be mere coincidence that we received our referral for Makenna on July 30th, 2006!!! Isn't that weird? Brody is definitely meant to be a member of our family!! The countdown begins! We have LOTS to do! I'd better start making lists! (Only kidding- I already have lots of lists made ;) !). Today we had a garage sale (thank heavens that is over!) and tomorrow we will paint Brody's room and try to get some decorating done. I'll post some pictures when it is finished. I just LOVE to have an excuse to decorate!