Complicated Travel Plans

I am leaving in a few minutes to go to the airport to pick up Frannie's paper airline ticket. Northwest, for some reason, makes me do it this way and it has to be in her Chinese name -- so exciting. Her ticket is only $99 for sitting in our laps. I'm not sure what Delta will charge us (10% of a regular fare?) but we will deal with that when we get the call on Tuesday. Let's just hope that Frannie doesn't have to pay 10% of what a first class seat would be or else Frannie will be riding in coach. Just kidding!

We can't officially make any plans until Tuesday when we are given the go-ahead from Hope, our adoption agency. I have tried this week to make as many tentative plans as I possibly can without confirming/paying, but MAN it is hard without knowing for sure. As of now, we have a tentative reservation with Delta departing Atlanta on the 22nd that will get us to Tokyo on the 23rd where we will spend one night, then on to Beijing the next day (the 24th) where we will spend about 20 hours sleeping, touring. That is where our Delta frequent flier ticket ends and a travel agent from Texas has made tentative reservations for us to fly from Beijing to Xi'an for Sunday morning (Air China?). Hope for Children then takes care of our travel plans for our hotel stay, guide, etc. and flight later in the week from Xi'an down to Guangzhou. We will spend about 4 or 5 days (I'm not sure?) in Guanghzhou and, please Dear Lord, we will have our consulate appointment on September 4, pick up our final papers on the day/evening of the 5th, when she will be officially ours! The Guanghzou to Tokyo part of the travel has been bought and paid for (because they were running out of seats and we got "reasonable" rates from Northwest Airlines, leaving 8:00 am on the 6th and arriving in Tokyo with 1.75 hours to transfer to our Delta frequent flier connection -- God willing that leg is on time). I just love how we leave Tokyo on the 6th at 3:30pm and arrive in Atlanta on the same day at 3:10 pm! We will be travelling back in time!

If you have tried to call me and I either don't call you back or sound like I'm running a marathon while we are chatting for 1.53 minutes, you may have a small glimpse now of just a small segment of the complicated nature of this last week -- not only calling airlines every day to make sure flights are still available or e-mailing the travel agent or taking care of school business, purchasing items for the suitcase, getting a booster Hepetitis A shot, getting e-mails from other "Waiting Moms" who have their children in Frannie's orphanage who want me to take photos of their kids (I have gotten requests from 4 Moms and one Dad) through the Yahoo group I joined that is affiliated with this orphanage, etc. etc. I plan to call my Mom and Dad to say goodbye before we leave for China, but other than them, I don't think I will have the strength to call every person I know and love to give you/them the details about what is happening. Please understand my frazzled state -- you probably wouldn't want to chat with me anyway given these circumstances!

This morning I attended our quarterly Magnificat Breakfast and helped with the kitchen staff. I had run into Karen Hanley this last week at church and she asked me to assist -- not only do I miss these women (the Columbiettes) horribly since I am no longer participating, but I have not attended a talk since I have been a manager at St. Vincent de Paul -- the Magnificat talks have historically been held on the 2nd Saturday of a particular month and that always fell on my SVDP weekends. It was a wonderful talk with fabulous music and prayer -- thanks to all the women who prayed for Kevin, Frannie and myself and our pending trip and parenthood. The prayers are needed more than anything.

The second I hear about our travel plans, I will post a message. We may not hear until Tuesday afternoon and by then I will have to immediately run to Dunwoody to grab the travel packet, have something or other notarized (Lucy, what do I have to get notarized?) and call all these airlines, the travel agent, etc. and say GO! Dad, I promise to call you Tuesday evening.

Kevin's last day of work before this is tomorrow (a Braves day game) so he will have some time to get his things together -- he has to have a Hep A shot and a tetanus too and probably get some more cash from our bank, etc. I will work on Monday, wrapping up some paperwork and seeing my last student before I leave -- Mariellen threatened me if I didn't come on Monday to say goodbye to her and my student D -- she has been so very supportive of this whole thing -- I was pulling up to her house the day we got the Waiting List (May 1) and showed up on her doorstep bawling my eyes out -- I just couldn't help it. I needed to keep teaching my kids that day, but I was so emotional about "picking" a child from the list that I just cried and cried. She gave me a big hug and said "Go, go, go! Do what you need to do!" And although I will stop by with Frannie while I am on maternity leave, I have to give her a hug before we leave.