NO TA YET!!

We just heard from the agency that no TA's (Travel Approvals) came today and they will not be coming until after Chinese New Year. That means we will not be leaving for China on March 8th. We know God has already planned our dates ,but the wait is so hard especially since we have had her little picture out in the living room since Nov.13th and know she is not home with us. Praying TA's come soon.

Getting our visas

We went and got our visas today. It's a cool stamp they put in the back of your passport. We had some issues as we couldn't prove we lived in Germany and they turned us away. We walked out of the building after waiting in line for an hour and Mike remembered we had German drivers licenses and we ran back in right before they closed got our pictures taken waited back in line for the only gal who spoke English and we came back today 3 days later to pick up our visas. We really are going to China!!!

The Fed EX man arrives with Grace's paperwork and photos

We have been waiting today for the Fed Ex man. After 2 failed attempts to deliver our package they managed to arrive. Even though the man didn't speak English he was more than willing for me to take his picture with the boys!!

We get our seeking letter!!!!! Jan 31, 2006

Mike had a trip to England for business for a few days and I couldn't help wanting to come along so we left the boys at their cousins and Nanny and Poppa and flew the hour flight to England. We are staying at the Holiday Inn checking the computer to see if there is any news on our seeking letter, nothing so I read my e-mails and as I'm checking up pops an e-mail saying we have left 2 messages at your home and CHI has received our SEEKING LETTER!!!! YAHHOO!
We are soooo excited we started calling everyone in the States to tell them. We would have called people in Germany, but it's about 1am. Now we wait for TA!!! We will call the boys in the morning to tell them.

Happy Birthday GRACE!!!!!

Grace turned 1 today!!!! It is bitter sweet. We got an icecream cake and went to Rob and Margarets (Mike's brothers) to celebrate. We are praying for Grace and asking God to be with her,to keep her safe,to heal her heart and for her to know she is loved. We can't wait until the day we can hold her and bring her home . It is hard knowing we have already missed the first year of her life. We are trusting in God's perfect timing and praise Him that before the begining of time God had chosen Grace to be our daughter.

We Found Our Daughter!!! NOV 13th 2006

Mike got home from work before 4pm our time in Germany. I have been crazy all day trying to keep busy till 5pm when the waiting children form is posted. We each had a lap top and sat down next to each other. At 5pm we were both glued to the computer screens NO FORM!!! refresh,refresh,refresh. All of a sudden the form popped up on my computer I was shaking trying to fill out the form as quickly as possible it kept coming back server busy on both computers finally at 5:20 our request went through for #412. We went in to have dinner and we thought it is in Gods hands, if this little baby is meant to be ours it will happen. I was truly thinking we would not be first to review her file. I brought the computer to the table and kept checking e-mails. About 20 minutes later we had a message from CHI which read Great News you are 1st in line to review #412. Thats when I lost it and the boys got out the video camera. We knew we had found our daughter!!! We left dinner on the table and headed out to Mikes work to receive the fax with all her medical and background information. Our neighbor is a heart specialist so he was at our house at 10pm reviewing her medical information. We called CHI at 12am our time and told them we had found our daughter Grace Noelle!!! Of course I couldn't sleep so I started calling everyone.

Visiting Rome Oct

We flew to Rome and when we arrived all the trains and buses were on strike. There was a huge line of people waiting for cabs. Mike got out in the middle of the street and worked a deal with 2 cabbys to take us and all our luggage to our apartment. Since the trolleys were also not running the cabby decided it would be alot quicker to take the trolley route with his cab. It was fast and also really crazy. We did make it to the apartment. We stayed right by the Vatican and only a few blocks from the subway which we were told would be running the next day. Most restaurants in Italy open around 7pm for dinner. We were always hungry around 5pm so we were told of a great Chinese restaurant down the street from our apartment. We walked down the block and they were closed so Mike knocked on the door. The owner, a sweet little lady, opened the restaurant for us to eat. So we ended up eating there 4 of the 6 nights we were in Rome.. We ended up talking to her and telling her we were adopting from China. Then she started giving the boys gifts and she gave me a small gold tea pot ornament. They were very sweet. There was so much to see in Rome and it's amazing how old everything is. We rode the subway everywhere and took the boys to an opera. We could of stayed another week.

Flying over the pond!! Aug 2006

We have been having a great time at Opa and Omas. We have been on the beach almost everyday. The boys spend most of their time riding the waves on their boogie boards. Our favorite meals to eat are pizza and hoagies. We come to visit every summer and are making such wonderful memories. We flew back with our friends that were here visiting from Texas and spent 10 days in NJ and then a few more days looking at land in Texas. We plan to move back there when we leave Germany. It is always such fun to visit the States. Everything is open all night and you can just go in one store and get everything you want. The conveniences of the U.S. Life in Germany is much slower paced everything closes down by 5pm and you have to go to several small stores to get what you want. Our refridgerator is the size I had in my college dorm room so I spend a lot of time back and forth to the grocery store. In the winter we use the back porch as a big fridge we really look like hicks.

June 2006

June 6 - a week in Normandy on the anniversary of D-Day. WOW. Talk about a great history lesson. The boys all got to hear first hand from many of the veterans tell first hand accounts of jumping in or driving towards the beach in their landing crafts.

We were happily surprised to see so many French flying the American flags as they remember that day that they and their families lived through. Our boys liked the "take the beach" time they had every day to charge up the sand and dodge the machine gunners nests. The top of Point du Hoc still has quite a few bomb craters that are perfect to regroup your troops in, then on to the next bunker!

The last puppy sold the day before we left for the trip! All went to good homes!

May 2006 - LID May 19!!!

All of our paperwork is officially done! Our dossier left for China, and our DTC is May 5. We got the call from CHI that our log in date (LID) is May 19! Let the official waiting begin... I think it all seems so much more real to us knowing that everything we need to do on this end is complete. While we are anxious to go meet Grace and bring her home, we know we serve a great and awesome God that has already planned all of these dates.

April 2006

Scooter and Dixie decided to help contribute to the adoption financial fund - they got together and have added four bundles of joy to our number which we will sell up the river next month. We love our dogs, talk about self-less!

Eamon turned 7 and manages to eat corn-on-the-cob and a big plate of ribs every Tuesday night at Chilis without any front teeth! Very impressive. Everyone came over to our house on the 8th and he and Tami had a joint birthday party.

We planned the KMC Christian Homeschool conference which took place the middle of April. Mark Hamby came in from the States as the keynote speaker.

I think the biggest, most significant event of the month (and their lives) was the baptism of Hadyn and Eamon. On Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006. We have been learning about the Covenant, who is in the Covenant, how do you get in it, who it's for and what it means. And what the mark of it is -- baptism. For I, the Lord your God, ... [will show] mercy to thousands of generations, to those who love me and keep my commandments. Deuteronomy 5: 8-11

March 2006

We are now the official Chinese baby-stalkers in Germany. It all started when we heard our neighbor was about to travel for their second Chinese adoption. We were fascinated... "Sweetie, come quick! They're coming out of the house and getting in the car with their little girl." We also told a woman at Chili's that we had seen her on the internet with her little (also adopted from China) daughter at Disneyland. She absolutley denied it was her and assured us that she had no pictures of her daughter on the web. It turns out, it was the lady across the table from here that was in the adoption process for the first time that had this family on their blog! How crazy is that?

God is so good. The lady with the child calmed down and actually was able to help us out a great deal when we had questions about filing paperwork from overseas!

Feb 2006

We left for the States on Feb 10th and wen't to New Jersey, Alabama and Texas to visit just about everyone we're related to. Our first stop, of course, was to get a BIG COKE with lots of ICE from the Johnny Joes. That's right, there is no ice in Europe.

Jet lag isn't so bad; it's kind of fun waking up as a family at 4:30 in the morning at Landy's house. Of course Nathanael woke up all by himself, my boys had nothing to do with it.

70 mph is really slow on these nice, huge, straight roads!

Back to Germany on the 26th! Cold soaking happens when the heater has been broken for more than a couple weeks. You guessed it, 43 degrees inside! Another reason you should always live near a brother or someone you really like hanging out with. Manfred, our German landlord, fixed the heater and the house warmed up after three long days of homeschooling in one bedroom with the door shut and the space heater on full blast!

Jan 2006

The second Annual McQuade Ski Trip to Austria was a huge success. The boys all were in ski school while I followed Jenn over every bumb on the mountain. I'll let you guess who our neice and nephew called slinky on skis. Great snow the first night after getting there! Super vacation. We kept thinking we'll need a room for 7 next year.

I know we've been saying "the paperwork is almost done" for quite some time, but we think the paperwork is REALLY almost done.

Dec 2005

We had a wonderful Christmas in Germany. We went to several Christmas markets and also caroled with our church and neighbors. We also did lots of sledding this year. We are finishing up the adoption paperwork and waiting on our clearances from Texas to come back. It seems like everything takes 12 times longer than everyone else doing this in the states! Try to explain a customs form to the secretary at the Chinese consulate in Houston over the phone! There goes another Express Mail packet, this time with a signed customs form. It's good to know that God's timing is perfect in everything and that He has known the day we'll meet Grace since before time began.

Malaga Spain for Thanksgiving!!!

We just got back from a fabulous trip to Spain. We spent a week in a great timeshare on the beach. It was too cold to swim, but the boys got in the water anyway. We collected great shells and I got attacked by a giant squid actually it wasn't giant but it grabbed onto my finger and tried to suck it into it's mouth thats when I started screaming and the boys came to my rescue.
We went to Gibraltar and saw the coolest monkeys they were jumping all over us I think I did some screaming there also.

Nov 10, 2005

Still busy with the never-ending paperwork. We picked an agency out of St Louis, Missouri - Children's Hope International. We went to the US Consulate in Frankfurt to file our I600A so we will be able to bring our little girl home from China. Our homestudy is almost completed! We have decided to call our little girl Grace. The boys are excited about having a new little sister. It seems like such a long way off until the paperwork is finished. We continue to pray that little Grace is safe and healthy, even if she isn't born yet.

Dear Sweet Daughter

As a girl I had a common dream, to be a mom someday,
My baby would have eyes of blue and hair the hue of hay.

But now my dreams have been transformed, new visions fill my head,
Now the tresses that I long to stroke are raven black instead.

And in my dreams those eyes are not so big or blue or round,
Now in my dreams they're almond shaped and colored cocoa brown.

And in my dreams my arms can stretch across enormous seas,
they reach half-way around the world and hold you close to me.

As you grow in your mother's womb, carefully knit together,
you're also growing in my heart, where you will stay forever.

And in my dreams the moment that your mother says good-bye,
I'll be right there to comfort you and hold you as you cry.

Our features may not look alike, we're different as can be,
but still I know the Father has created you for me.

And though I've not yet seen your face, or held your tiny hands,
And though we're half a world apart in very different lands,
I'll be right there to get you just as soon as God allows
But til he says the time is right, I give you this my vow.

We'll pray for your protection every day on bended knee
for God to hold you in his arms until you're here with me.

Oct 24, 2005

We continue to do paperwork!!!
We took the boys to Disneyland Paris and visited Versailles to learn more about those crazy King Louis' of France!

Sept 22, 2005

We begin our homestudy paperwork with our social worker in PA. And when we say paperwork, we mean paperwork!
We did our background checks and fingerprinting today. We are so excited to know God has this special baby to be in our family. As we begin this journey of love, we trust in His guidance and grace and perfect timing in all things.