A test for posting via email!

Just testing to see if this is working. I might as well add that finally, the Platypi have won the fantasy football league. After so many times as the bridesmaid its good to be the bride......well groom I guess. Who are the Paltypi you ask????? Why it's me!! Jim Who did i defeat in the final you ask???? Why it was Jo!!! Ok, enough gloating!

CA and travel booked!

Here we go folks and fun seekers!!!! Keep all arms and legs inside the ride at all times!

We have our consulate appointment on Jan 12. This date pretty much dictates our trip as we back it out from there. So, we leave on Dec31 for Beijing. We land on the 1st. We tour the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, and the Forbidden City. All very cool. We then travel to Taiyuan City in the Shanxi province on the 3rd. We have not decided whether we want to take the train or fly. The next morning, Jan4th, we will get up, attempt to have breakfast and then go meet our daughter for the first time!! She will then come with us for a bonding period, about 24 hours. Assuming all is good, we will go back and meet with the officials on the 5th and complete the adoption and application for her passport. We then will do some touring of her home province for the next few days and shop and just start trying to develop a bond. On the 8th we will fly to Guangzhou. This is where all of the immigration related things will happen as well as a medical checkup, TB test, consulate appointment, etc. It is also where all adopting families will be as well. Her visa should be ready on the 14th. We will then take a late night flight to Beijing and stay at a hotel near the airport. Our flight home is on the 15th and we connect to Jetblue at JFK and then should be arriving Burlington just after 6pm. That's it in a nut shell. We are over the moon and pretty darn freaked out. Thanks to all for the support shown us thru this process.

Jim

TA TA TA!

We have our travel approval! We are really excited and more than a bit freaked out. So we are hoping to get our consulate appointment on the 12th and that puts us departing on Dec 31st. We should know by tomorrow.

Jim

Back on Track

There is not much to report right now. However we did get some tentative travel plans. Our coordinator thinks our TA is due any day now and if it comes in the next week we should be good to travel on Dec 31 to Beijing. Then we go to Taiyuan in the Shanxi Province on the 3rd, wake up the next morning and go get our girl! It's commonly called Gotcha day or Forever Family day, etc. We haven't really talked about what we'll call it. It is the day after that she becomes our daughter officially. We hang out for 4 or 5 days and then head to Guangzhou for a week. In Guangzhou we do a medical exam and TB test and all the immigration work. Plus we just hang out and start bonding with our little one. We will head home on the 15th. Once we get off the plane and to the immigration officer hand him/her the documents and they say "OK" or "You can go" or "Welcome to America", whatever, it's at that moment she becomes a US citizen. Then we take our last little flight to Burlington and we'll be together as a family for the first time. As far as work on the home goes, we are behind but at least back on the tracks again moving forward. Theater carpet comes in on Friday and then a cabinet or two to build in there and that room will nearly be finished. We hope to do some tiling prior to and immediately after Christmas and from there we will be getting very close. There is still tons to do, but we feel like we are getting there now.

Later,
Jim

....followed by six of the worst!

So many of you know that I awoke the Friday morning feeling fine, but within 5 minutes I began to feel a pain in my lower right abdomen. This ramped up very, very quickly. Ten minutes later we were herding the boys to the car with me doubled over in pain. Thankfully the ER is only about 10 minutes away, though it seemed like an hour. We got to the ER and while Jo was at registration two nurses came to me in the hall and took me away before we got any further. They got me hooked up to an IV and drew blood and all that. I was actually throwing up just from the pain. So long story shorter, they suspected a kidney stone and sent me to get a CAT scan. Sure enough, kidney stone. Only about 3-4mm but when you send something sharp as glass down an internal organ, size becomes less an issue. So we were able to get the pain down to within reason. Well various flare ups and two more ER visits and i finally made it to Wednesday when I can visit the Urologist. So we do that and get an X-ray to find out where the stone is. Turns out it was almost at the end. So we decide not to go to the operating room and suck it up. I took some pain killers at night and went to bed around 11:30. As usual I woke up about 4:45 when the pain meds wore off. This morning though the pain wasn't quite as bad and so I decided to hold off and not do another pill. I was awake thru when everyone else wakes up but nodded off at about 6:10 for about ten minutes. When i woke up, I was pain free!!!! Happy! So I said to Jo "Need help with the garbage?" She looked at me like, right, what are you gonna do! I said I all the sudden don't have pain and think that maybe the stone passed into the bladder. I was right. I'll save you the gruesome details but the stone popped out about an hour later. I am super happy to be done with that but I'm not 100% yet. I've still got a few smaller side issues, but I am so much happier. So, that's been my week. I've been so drugged I really don't know how the rest of my families has been. I guess I'll have to find out.

Later for now,
Jim

Two of the best days we've had in a while

LOA BABY!!!!!!

Yesterday we received news that our LOA was here in the US. We will have tomorrow and sign it and then send it right back out. LOA is Letter of Acceptance and is essentially the official referral paperwork. So this is big stuff. Next step will be TA and then travel. So best guess based on historical time frames, we will travel about the first two weeks in January. That is of course completely open to change.

As for today, Thanksgiving day, we received several more up to date photos of our little girl. They are fantastic!!!! I'll include a few here. We also then heard from someone who was just visiting the orphanage who said she went to visit her at her foster home and has some more photos that she will get to us ASAP.

Throwing one more thing onto this is that Zack ran his first 5K race this morning. We really and truly couldn't be more proud of him. It was amazing to watch him complete this race!!! His teacher has done some great work getting him ready for this and really helping him learn how to run in an effective manner. Thanks Joe!!!

Oh, one more far less significant item.......Jo and I are sitting in our new theater room watching football on 120" screen in our new theater recliners under our nearly completed fiber optic star field ceiling as I type this. :)

So it's been a pretty good day. OK, onto the pictures......Oh, one last thing before I get to those.....HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!

Through Review!

Got an email this morning stating we were through review. So onto the matching room. Our understanding is that the matching room is very quick so we hope to be getting LOA very soon.

Still holding out hope to at least begin our travel prior to years end.

Updates on the house:
We get everything done we could up to and including hanging the drywall. The guys are here this week to finish the drywall and hope to be finished this weekend. CB is driving out here starting this morning bringing Ally's bedroom stuff that we were given from our Mississippi friends!!! Go Carpets! So CB will be here tomorrow and we'll do a few small jobs before the drywallers finish. The theater stuff came in this past week. The fiber optic star field is due in the next day or two, and the theater chairs are on order also. So things are moving forward and it is starting to come together.

I'll try and get pictures soon.

That's it for now, I gotta order some wallpaper border and some more rugs!!!

JB

Not much new lately. We have had some updates about our progress but nothing that really tells when we are going to go. Our China coordinator has kept us as informed as she can. The latest we have is that we are in the "review" room. We got in there on Oct 20th and were still there as of this past Monday. We don't know why we are there as we went thru review prior to switching to a special needs child. I can only assume that since we switched agencies that the person that reviews files for our new agency wanted to go thru our stuff. So after review we will be headed to the matching room where our LOA is written. Once that is written it is sent to our agnecy and then to us. We sign it and it goes I beleive to the American Consolate in Guangzhou and then back to the adoption office in China. They then issue us Travel Approval - TA. During that time we apply for visas. Once we get TA and our visas have been issued, we can travel. we do have to have an appointment in place though at the consolate. So there is still a process to be gone thru yet but we are getting there. We expressed disapointment to our coordinator that we were still in review and probalby not traveling before end of the year. She said she still has good reason to think we will atleast leave prior to end of year. So it's hard to know what to think right now.

A few things that have happened in recent time is that we have made contact with two people that had previously sent LOI to adopt Ally and then rescinded it. One was due to proximity to medical facilities in the event they needed to address Ally's special need. The other withdrew because of an employement situation. So that is very wierd to come accross people that almost adopted our daughter. Obviously we had some concern that maybe they found out something that we didn't know about. However we have quite a large amount of information about ally now and all things point to a pretty normal life with a little extra care taken concerning her need. Certainly we are prepared for more and that could still be the reality, but all info we have to now says things are quite good considering what she's gone thru.

The other thing that happened is that we joined a group on Yahoo that is comprised of other parents adopting from her orphanage in Taiyuan City. In making contact there and announcing we were adopting Yi Xi (Ally), we were contacted discretely by someone who had pictures of Yi Xi. 164!!!!!!! All the way back to her abandonment day thru late summer 2008. You can not imagine how important that history is. It will be of immense importance for Ally to have that to look back on and also of great value for her doctors to understand her pre-surgical condition.

Things are going well with the house renovations other than a delay in the drywall being finished. The theater electronics are due today, and the fiber optics for the star field ceiling will be ordered today or tomorrow. We are looking forward to getting the house back to normal but right now that feels a long way off.

That's it for now, catch you later,
Jim

Cub Scout Popcorn

Once again it is popcorn time. And once again I have given you little warning.

If you would like to order some popcorn from one of my three little scouts please let us know. Orders are due tomorrow evenning so please email me if you would like some. Thanks!

Oh yeah, click on the picture, it will enlarge.

A bummer of a story with a happy ending…..kinda

So last Sunday the 4th, Jo and I were getting to bed a bit later than usual for a Sunday night. I don’t exactly remember the reason, nor is it important. It was about 11:45 at night, Jo was still awake and I was just coming upstairs after working all day on the house and then playing a little Wii at night. I took my dirty shirt off when all the sudden we both hear an animal fighting or something outside. Now keep in mind that our neighbor had recently told us that there was a marauding mean feral cat roaming around and they tend to kill other cats and small animals. So we hadn’t been letting our cats out lately. Unfortunately a door got left open that day and two of ours got out. We got one back in but the other one tends to stay out very late. Before going upstairs I had cracked the 3-season door to give our cat a nice place to come in and sleep. So, back to the story. I was pretty concerned that it might be our cat. So I ran downstairs, shirtless and out the front door. At this point the noise was still going on and I knew immediately it wasn’t a cat but rather a dog. Then almost the same time my neighbor is running down her driveway yelling the name of one of her Yorkies. I yelled to her to see what was wrong. She said something took one of her dogs. We could still hear it yelping. She and her husband ran across the street to where they thought the noise was and I quickly ran into the house and grabbed a sweatshirt and flashlight. I was still nervous about the cat but feeling really bad about the Yorky. So I ran back out to try and help. At this point though we have shifted directions to look and are headed up the drive toward the house at the end of the road which is surrounded by 55 acres of woods. Neither of us have very good flash lights with us so we only looked for about ten minutes. It became very apparent as we continue to hear something yelping but quite honestly it sounded like it was louder than the dog could make and a different pitch. So we jogged back to the houses. At this point the neighbor wife wants to get a car and try and drive thru the woods. They don’t have a great vehicle for that and so I was thinking about taking the mini cooper because it was small enough to be on the trails. I also was still fearful for our cat. So on the way back the neighbors are debating about what to do and to me it sounds almost like the husband has written the dog off and of course the wife is like ‘no way’. At this point we separate and they go back to their house and I am starting to call our cat. On a whim I look under the camper and there is our cat. She was looking a bit nervous and not very willing to come out. So I coax her out and she bolts to the door. So now I’m at least relieved our cat is safe, but we can still hear something yelping in the woods. So I go inside and get a better flashlight and talk to Jo about what is happening. I head back out somewhat nervously because well, it’s dark, it’s chilly, and now there is a light fog descending on the woods and of course it’s about ten after midnight. I’m thinking if I were a predator you know like a vampire or werewolf or something equally evil these woods, at this time, with this fog would be perfect!!! Kinda like when you are watching a movie and the dumb character knows that bad things are happening in the woods but goes in anyway and your watching going “what an idiot!!” But I ventured out anyway. I tell Jo if I’m not back in 20 call someone with weapons. I head out the door and hear the neighbor banging around one of his trucks and can’t figure out what he’s doing but think maybe he’s throwing his bow in his truck. So I head up the gravel drive….alone…..but thankfully it was only about 2 minutes later that I find out what the neighbor was banging around. He was getting his four wheeler out and the husband and wife were flying up the street. Keep in mind this is like 12:15am and I can only guess what the other neighbors were thinking with all the noise. So I was already in the woods and I think they were kind of surprised to see me out there. They went further into the woods which takes them right past the owner of these woods house. After they went by I was looking toward the house and sure enough the lights go on and 2 minutes later he comes flying out of his garage on his four wheeler. He drives up to me and then recognizes me and says “Do you know who they are?”, clearly thinking he has trespassers. I gave him a quick synopsis of the events and told him where I think the noise is coming from. So he heads out to look as well. So about 5 minutes or so later of walking in really spooky woods the noise stops. Also the dog owners head down the street to look more around their house. Keep in mind that we still are not convinced that the noise is their dog because it doesn’t sound right. Also, every time you think you are getting closer it stops not to mention it’s echoing all over. So you move to a different area and it starts again. Well, like I said, five or so minutes later it pretty much stopped. So I went back to our house to see if I could pick up a blood trail as I think whatever it was ran thru the back yard. As I was looking the noise started again. This time the woods owner had his 4 wheeler off and as soon as he heard the noise he took off on the 4 wheeler. He stopped, did something, I didn’t know what cause I was about 100 yards away thru the spooky woods and then he came flying out of the woods on the 4 wheeler. I went up onto the driveway and he saw me and yelled “I got ‘em!! I got ‘em!!” So now we can’t find the dogs owners but ran over to their house anyway. Luckily they were just on the other side looking in bushes, because apparently the dog is so small it gets stuck in bushes. So the wife grabbed the dog and ran inside. At this point the husband, the woods owner and I are all standing outside looking at each other in amazement when it dawns on us that the woods owner has no top on. He had wrapped the dog in his coat and is standing there without a shirt on at almost 12:30am 40 some degrees but all hopped up on adrenaline!! Pretty funny scene in hindsight. Well, 30 seconds later the wife is back outside yelling that the dog is in bad shape and has to get to the vet NOW!! So I bade goodbye and hoped for the best. As the days went by several people were visiting and I feared the worst. So Friday morning I was having breakfast and looked out the window to see the neighbor letting her remaining Yorky out and then to my surprise, gently set down the other one. HOLY CRAP!!!! I had totally written the dog off. I ran out the door and then jogged over. She was so happy to see me and I was so happy to see the dog alive. She thanked me profusely and I was like “All I did was look….” She said that the woods owner said that the dog was almost exactly where I told him to look. Regardless, it was great to see him alive. So when I came over he gave me a very feeble bark. So that prompted her to tell me his injuries. She said that the vet made it very clear that the dog was alive only because he wanted to live. The vet could not believe it. He had two puncture holes in his throat, thus the feeble bark. Two punctures in his lungs also causing the feeble bark. Two punctures into the spine causing nerve damage to it’s right rear leg. They may need to amputate that leg, however he was using it a bit when I saw him. This was all so unbelievable to me. It’s still not clear what it was that took the dog, but when she went out to get her dogs off the run that evening she saw something in the yard she mistook for a deer at first. She later knew it was too small for a deer so the thinking is that it is a coyote. So we are giving thought as to how to hunt it down or maybe trap and release. Both the neighbors and us have safety concerns and while our kids should be safe our pets are not and we are wanting it gone. Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

No further adoption update, still waiting on LOA. If not received by end of October then hope fades quickly to travel before Christmas and almost for sure to be home by Christmas.

Current Status Update

There really is no news. So I'll just talk about where we are at and what China is up to. Once again we are awaiting LOA which we will sign and then send back. It goes, I think, to the US Consulate and then back to the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) which then issues a TA, travel approval. Once we have TA, our agency will set up a consulate apt. in Guangzhou. That determines our dates of travel. You basically back out your trip from there because your apt. is at the end of your stay. So Once we have TA you could conceivably travel a couple days from then or it could be weeks. It has a lot to do with when the consulate can get you in. Our window for getting her home before Christmas is shrinking quickly though, and that does not make us happy.

One of the delays we are dealing with is that as of today China is on a week long holiday, October 1 through the 8th. So as of about 5am this morning they are probably heading home and wont return for a week. So if our LOA didn't get sent this past couple of days, we certainly wont get it until now mid to late October at best. I think to travel by Christmas you pretty much have to have your LOA by end of October and then hope your TA comes before the end of November.

Another delay that has supposedly recently taken place is that several officials from CCAA were visiting the U.S. and Canada and only recently got back to be able to sign-off on LOA's and TA"s, etc. I can't help but think that since I have such bad luck picking what lines to get in say for border crossings, grocery lines, etc. that this is all my fault for getting in line for LOA. Now that I'm in it, it will be the slowest line.

Thats it for today,
JBandFam

Our Birthday Girl - September 23, 2006

Care Package

We sent our first care package today. It's about a week later than intended but better late than never. Ally's birthday is tomorrow (really though it started a few hours ago because it is tomorrow in China but we'll celebrate her birthday on our 23rd). I'm sure I'll post something but not sure what yet. In the care package today was a letter to Ally, a letter to Ally's foaster family, a photo album of us, a disposable camera, some chocolate snacks, a dress and PJs, and a pink Vermont Teddy Bear in a dress. We hope she gets it first of all and that she gets it soon. Secondly we hope she can begin getting her heart, mind, and soul around us. Big changes coming for this little lady and for us too.

No word on anything out of China, and just wanted to reiterate that this would be pretty early for us to have heard anything. The wait is hard but knowing we that we will complete this journey helps a lot.

Still full bore at the home renovations. Basement is nearly ready for mudding sanding. We have had a longer than expected time planning the basement 3/4 bath, but are now ready to get that finished to the point of mudding and sanding too. Once the mudding is done I'll trim out the areas that need it and also construct two built in units, one for storage and game cabinet and the other is the home entertainment cabinet in the theatre room. When completed, we'll have created a theatre, rec room, storage area, work room and 3/4 bath in the basement. The boiler/mechanical room already existed. We will have added somewhere around 710 sqft of finished space.

the next project is to convert the old rec room above the garage which was roughly 500 sq. into two bedrooms, a hallway, and linen closet. The hard part about that is insulating and drywalling the garage ceiling. Some framing and electrical also but that wont be too bad. Once completed Zack and Beej will move to those rooms and Beej's room will convert to a study/office space and then Ally will get Zacks old room right next to ours. We will redecorate from the jetfighters first though. :)

That's it for today,
Jim

The latest Info

We are awaiting word of our LOA - Letter of Acceptance. Think of this as the official referral of Ally sent from China to us. We then sign it and send it back. This is a major step and when that happens we could travel as quickly as 5 weeks from then but probably a little longer. LOA though may take as long as another 3 months but could also come any day.

Today though I got the latest info from our phenomenal coordinator at our new agency.

She received this late July but in all the hurry and hard work she did for us she had thought she sent it to us. So the info has been at the agency but just didn't quite get to us at that point. Truly no big deal because we would be very poor now had we known then.......:)

"Updated information on Dang Yi Xi (Ami)
Dated on July 20, 2009

Current height: 93cm, weight: 14kg, head size: 50cm, chest size: 51cm, length of feet: 15cm

Yi Xi has out-going and lively personalities. She is very sweet and likes to talk and please the others. She likes to sing, dance and listen to music. She has strong logic thinking ability and is very clear about relationships between people around her. She is very brave.

She recovered well from her surgery. She only needs to be careful not to bump her head. Her physical condition is generally good. She doesn’t have cold or fever easily.

Her physical development and intellectual development are good."


Love it!!!! Sounds like she is doing great. The assumption is that she does not know she has been matched with us, but they will have to tell her when they get our care package.

For us USA non-metric folks, that's 36 inches tall, 30lbs, 19 inch head, 19.7inch chest, and 6 inch foot. Not buying the head and chest being nearly the same. No biggie though. So the long and short of it is, as of two months ago she is a size 3T. Shoe size looks like toddler size 8 or top end of toddler small. So there you have it, she's no slouch! 3T before she's actually 3!

Well, I think I feel a purchase coming on so it is time for big bad dad to shop!!!

Jim

Ally

We are very pleased to announce the referral of our daughter

Aliena (Ally) YiXi Bennink.


She was born on Sept 23, 2006 in the Shanxi province.
We are currently waiting on LOA (Letter of Acceptance) from China. That could come at anytime and would not be unusual for it to take a few months either. From there is roughly 5 weeks to travel. We hope to travel before the end of the year. Here are some more pictures.

Thank you all for your support thru this wait. It’s almost over!

(Oh, for those of you who wondered it's Alley-Ay-Nah.)