So Much Beauty

Rachel is from the Shanxi Province in China. The name Shanxi literally means "Mountain's West", which refers to the province's location west of the Taihang Mountains. Shanxi is surrounded by mountains. East of Shanxi is the Yellow River. The scenery I have seen in pictures is absolutely beautiful and will take your breath away. I can't wait to see it.

The capital of Shanxi is Taiyuan City, Rachel's birth city. Taiyuan is the largest city in Northeastern China. It has a population of 4.3 million. Its name means "Great Plains". It is an ancient city having been formed in 859 B.C. It is one of the biggest stainless steel producers in the world. It is also one of the top 20 most polluted cities in the world. This could explain why Rachel has allergy symptoms.

 

It will be so exciting to take my own pictures to share on this blog in the near future!

What do I see? And where are we now?

Can you believe it? We received another update. This time the update was about Rachel's vision. It sounds as if her sight is even better than we had first imagined. They say she can see things close up as any child does. When she tries to look far away she squints her right eye, turns her head slightly to the right, and looks with her left eye. They also say the left eye opens larger than the right eye. Our guess is that she is definitely near sighted in her right eye, but it's possible that she has good vision in her left eye. Of course, we'll know more when we get her home and checked by a pediatric ophthalmologist. All in all it was a very encouraging update!



We're awaiting immigration approval at this time. The form which we filled out and mailed to homeland security is called the I-800....it is less than half the length of the previous immigration form, but it was still 10 pages long. We were approved in January to bring a child from China into the United States. Now we are asking to bring this particular child into the country. We're hoping to hear something very soon. We would appreciate prayers for a quick process.

It's about time....

I'm sure that's what you are thinking. It's been awhile since I updated the blog, and really nothing was happening for so long. But that is not the case now...as of Monday...we have been formally...

....to adopt Rachel! We received our Letter of Acceptance. That sent us into a whirlwind of activity to get our I-800 filled out and sent to immigration! We signed our Letter of Acceptance saying, "Yes, we do want to adopt this child," and we sent it off pronto! We hope that each step from here on out goes much faster than the last one which took 76 loooooooooong days. Our agency said we could possibly travel in late September. We would love to shave that time down to the end of August or the first part of September. It could happen!

We were hoping the great start to our week would continue on throughout the week and IT DID! We asked for an update on Rachel a little over a week ago and just days later, today, we received the update. Rachel is said to be outgoing and gets along well with her peers. She likes to jump, sing, and dance. And the one thing that made us laugh out loud was, "She is a popular girl." Isn't that funny?!

Victory!!!

Look at that gorgeous smile!

She's being serious for the camera!

She's a fun loving girl!