Cinnamon Water Plant

My wonderful friend, Linda, had our lovely daughter's name translated.
Lu is her last name. Wei means cinnamon. Ping is a water plant, a beautiful plant with tiny leaves. I was told that this is a great name for a girl in China. Thank-you Linda!

Even More Pictures

Just because her mother can not resist...She is too cute.
This is a more recent photo. Plus, I want to keep the regular viewers interested. I'm pretty sure we are going to see this look again. We can hardly wait!

Auntie Sue Speaks

Welcome to the first of a regular column from Haley’s Crazy Aunt Sue! Well, let me begin by saying how excited I am about the imminent arrival of my brand new niece! Words cannot express how excited I am (for myself, and of course) for Barb and Andy (aka Arb and Bandy). I expect all of those who read this column will be familiar with “Crazy Aunt Sue”, a title bestowed on me by the soon to be parents – I happily accept my role! Of course, these inexperienced parents likely should NOT have given me the password to this site – I am very difficult to silence. Ah well, I’m sure there are many things they will learn!

Alle wissen wie viel Ich mochte zu reden – (in alle sprachen). Alle auch wissen das es macht mir nichts aus das ich kann nicht sehr gut schreiben oder das Ich nicht das richte grammatisch habe! Ihr muss leider alles lesen!

Isn’t she a cutie?!? As the technology advisor to the “event” I can assure everyone that all measures will be taken to ensure that pictures will be uploaded to this blog during the 12 days in China. Be sure to visit the blog during the great pilgrimage. There will be MANY more pictures, and I personally, cannot wait.

Well, FYI we are having a baby shower on Nov 6th (sorry Jen, life’s too busy for surprises). Anyone interested in the details, feel free to contact me. If you don’t how to reach me just contact my Mom. Ahh, which brings me to my last point, for those internet newbies (read: my side of the family); this is of course a public internet website – which means that any “internet crazies” can read it. So whatever you may wish to communicate on this site should be devoid of personal details (no last names or geographical references). If there is any confusion on this matter please contact either myself or Arb and Bandy directly – we can explain.

Love to All – Crazy Aunt Sue! 10/25/05

Haley's First Home

This was Haley's first home. Haley stayed at this orphanage for one day before she was placed in foster care.

In the Beginning

Well this is really the beginning of many things. We are going to be new parents to a little girl. She is a miracle to us and we are filled with dreams and hopes for her future. There is so much you want to write down and yet maybe the pictures will speak for themselves. We received our referral on Thursday October 13 after what seemed like months of torture. As most people know, we were expecting to go with the travel group before us. Not for any real reason, other than that was the way things had worked out last year for the the whole process. We were then placed with the next travel group and had to wait another month. Then it seemed like everyone heard except us....just waiting and then finally. We heard by phone, then by a quick flurry of emails, phone calls, faxes and couriers. By the time the courier brought us our package, it had been days. We signed everything as quickly as possible and sent everything off. We are now back to waiting. But not for long. We are off on November 25 to return on December 8. Gary and Joyce will be coming with us. We are so very excited to have them along with us for this unbelievably beautiful event.
So how do I fill my waiting time? With shopping of course! I can't help it. Just think how cute she will look in pink! Well I hope you all get a chance to see this site and keep track of our process. We are thinking that we will take our computer with us and download pictures and document our travels for you. What becomes of it after that? Who knows, but hopefully this will make it easier for everyone to see and be a part of our journey as much as they wish. Thanks everyone.

More Haley Pic's

These are our pictures of little Haley. She is in foster care at this very moment. These pictures were taken at the end of July. She weighed 6kg and looks absolutely perfect to her new mom and dad.

Haley

What a cutie. I think we are going to need a car

The Journey Began Months Ago

In March of 2004 we began our journey by completing the necessary provincial paperwork to get the ball rolling. This was the beginning of numerous rounds of paperwork and government forms. The Alberta government spent a couple of months with our paperwork to ensure that we were eligible for adoption and to make sure that we were not wanted by the authorities. Then, in June and July of 2004 we had a homestudy performed by a very nice social worker who specializes in these sorts of things. After that we waited and finally received the homestudy report back from the social worker in September 2004. A quick turn around and the documents were off to the Alberta government. The government reviewed the documents (apparently in great detail since it took two months) and we received the "official" stamped documents back in November 2004. We quickly forwarded these documents to Family Outreach International (these are the folks that we are using as our consultants to help with the whole process). FOI translated the documents into Mandarin and forwarded the documents back to the Alberta government by Christmas 2004. The Alberta government then reviewed the documents (again apparently very thoroughly) and finally sent our documents off to the Chinese authorities in early February. Our paperwork sat in Beijing for a while over the Chinese New Year and was finally given a Log In Date (LID) of March 3, 2005. Coincidentally this is the exact day that our young Haley was found abandonded at the entrance to the Bureau of Civil Affairs in Nanchang. From this point on it was simply a matter of waiting ... as patiently as we were able. Then, finally, on September 13, 2005 we heard the news that we had been waiting for ... a beautiful healthy baby girl named Wei Ping Lu was soon to be ours.

Welcome to Haley's Blog

Hello Everyone,

I am giving this whole communication in the 21st century thing..... a run. This seems totally amazing and well if this works as well as I think it will, I will soon be able to email everyone what is happening, in these exciting times. I may have to add some crazy German spelling just to include everyone....no laughing at my spelling please! Over the next two months we will share with anyone interested our incredible excitement as we take our Chinese journey to Haley.

Hallo Deutschland,

Ich hoffe das ihr das auch mit sehen.