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