The long overdue update and more pictures!

Hi........we have been sooooooo busy here.  Since my last big post this is what we have been up to:

On March 1st, Collin had his legs surgically straightened.  This basically entailed breaking each leg in two places and then resetting them with pins.  It was incredibly painful for him.  The doctor had initially told us he'd keep Col in the hospital for 3 or 4 days.  We stayed 6 nights....and even by then, Collin's pain was still severe.  But, here we are just over 4 weeks post-op and I'm thrilled to report, he's doing GREAT!  He's walking with a walker, he's back in school after missing 3 weeks worth of work and he's nearly pain free.  The doctor said to expect the healing process to take between 3 and 4 months, so now the healing and waiting continue.

While Collin and I were the hospital, we got the news that Ava had been told that she was going to be adopted, that she had a new Mommy and Daddy waiting for her in America and that she was going to be living in a place that gets lots and lots of snow.  We were told that she got very excited about all of the above.

Then, on March 14th, we got our I-800 approval, this approved Ava to travel to the US, then on March 28th, we got the NVC letter, this comes from the National Visa Center, basically stating that they have received the paperwork they need on Ava.  Our next step was to get this to the US Consulate in China along with the rest of our Immigration paperwork.  That was done March 30th.  The Consulate with be finished with those on April 14th and will then issue our Article 5, which will then get delivered to CCCWA (the office in China that handles adoptions) in China, they look over our paperwork and then issue our TA or Travel Approval!!!  Once we have our TA, it's time to book our flights and FINALLY plan this trip!!!  It won't be too much longer now, probably 1 to 2 months at the most!  So we are really excited over here!  We still have to finish Collin's room downstairs.  All we need is the carpet, then we can move his stuff down their and start on Ava's room.

We also were able to send Ava a care package.  She got that on April 4th.  The picture I posted in the previous and here are of her opening her package and playing with the Minnie Mouse we sent her.  Ava is 30 lbs and 32" tall, we didn't realize it at the time, but Minnie is about half the size of her, so is the box we sent to her!