China Journey Blog

I've set-up a separate blog to journal about our trip to Brock Ji Hao. Click on the title of this post ("China Journey Blog") to get to it. I'm going to do my best to update daily with pictures and commentary.

Hope you join us!

Three More Days!!!!!

We leave for China in THREE MORE DAYS!!

YIKES. YIKES. YIKES.

We are very excited, but unfortunately the dominant emotion that is emerging right now is P.A.N.I.C. (is panic an emotion? IDK and IDC - text talk in a moment of stress). Soooo many things to do as the time is quickly ticking away!


O-kay...I just took a deep breath, and now I hope to calmly say a HUGE, completely sincere and heartfelt...

THANK YOU ...

to my precious Mom and my dear sister, Cindy, who tomorrow will be filling up the tank of Cindy's van with liquid gold and driving 12-13 long hours to our home in Texas to care for our smallest treasure, Brielle.

Last summer, when I told Cindy and my Mom that we were adopting again, they both immediately volunteered to do whatever I needed them to do - namely, take care of Brielle while we were in China. Then, thinking it was best for Brielle, they suggested coming HERE so that Brielle would be in familiar surroundings! I am completely humbled and feel so blessed to have such a wonderful family! It's definitely going to be rough leaving Brielle, but I KNOW she will be well loved and cared for. Also, she'll get to spend a lot of time playing with her cousins!

I love you, Mom, Cindy, Megan, Miyah, and Mei Lin!

I can't wait to see you here in Texas!

Pretty in Patches!

Today, I took Brielle to a pediatric opthamologist. Recently, we have been noticing her right eye doesn't seem to track properly with her left eye. We ended up being at the doctor's office for two and a half hours, and Brielle was such a stellar little patient. We never go to the doctor, so I was very surprised at how grown-up she acted. She was so excited for the doctor to check out her eyes. She jumped up and down and squealed with delight (feeling very important, of course) when the nurse called her name while we were in the waiting room. Then, she happily jumped down the hall to the exam room. She quietly and cooperatively named each of the little pictures the doctor asked her to name. Sure enough, her right eye couldn't see the progressively smaller pictures as well as her left.

The doctor said her right eye has a slight astigmatism, but she wasn't sure it was enough of a curvature to cause the difference in sight. The other potential cause is "lazy eye". In either case, she said that they always start with patching the good eye to make the brain start using the affected eye.

Soooooo...Brielle gets to wear a pretty patch over her left eye for FOUR hours every day until we see the doctor again in September. This should make for an interesting summer! She did a GREAT job tonight wearing it. She picked out the blue patch with the pink butterflies, hearts, and flowers. We all made a BIG deal about how pretty she was in her patch, how special it was that the doctor is having her wear the patches, etc. etc. etc. She left it on for FOUR hours in a row without any problem. To be honest...I am shocked! Not really a Brielle thing to do. Max thinks maybe the eye drops they put in to dilate her eyes had some sort of sedative in them :o). We'll see what tomorrow brings (and the next 66 days until we see the doctor again).

Countdown to China!

TEN more days and we are off to China!!!!

Wow, that sounds unbelievable! Especially because, as if today were just like any other Sunday afternoon, I spent all day preparing for our week of school. Maybe I should've been finishing my shopping, packing, list making, etc., instead!?!? Maybe I should be taking the week of school off to shop, pack, make lists, etc. However, being that I am both a perfectionist when it comes to school and a procrastinator in almost everything (I work best under pressure -- I hope), I plan to carry on with school as if it is any other week...at least that is the plan for now...if I start to freak out mid-week, I think I'll give myself permission to call it quits until we return from China.

I've updated my "Travel Approval" post to show our confirmed travel schedule, which is almost identical to the first schedule I listed. It looks like we will meet Brock Ji Hao on Sunday, June 15th...Father's Day!! That is just FOURTEEN days from now (really thirteen, considering it is Monday already in China) :o)!!!

Max will meet his second son AND a precious almost-eight-year-old boy will meet his forever father on Father's Day -- no doubt our Father in heaven will be there, too, watching and holding us in His hand as His plan for the merging of all of our lives unfolds.