Down to the Wire

In less than 24 hours the planning and preparation will all be over.  The journey will begin; there is no turning back now.

We are grateful to have good friends and contacts who have adopted older children.  They have given us reassurance that all will be fine. They have given us pointers and reassurance, laughed at our concerns and given us reassurance, empathized with us and given us reassurance. We are confident, ready to go based on the reassurance of our friends and family. 

Chelsea is the perfect age for us to adopt her and it is the perfect time.  We tried to get her last year around the holidays but that did not work; we tried to be there in February for her birthday, but that did not work.  Now we leave in March it turns out to be the perfect time. One week is during spring break, so the kids will miss very little school.  Most importantly international soccer is on a two week break and the sounders FC are not playing this weekend and have an international friendly on the 24^th.  It is as if God himself is guiding us.

Everyone is good to go.  I have finally convinced Chase that yes he is my son but he is not THE sun and the world does not rotate around him.  For the safety of the passengers and crew we have placed a minimum of 4 people and at least one aisle between Sophie and Chase.  You are welcome Delta Airline.

Chelsea is getting ready as well.  Hopefully she is learning English at a faster rate than we are learning Chinese.  She apparently has learned the art of negotiation.  We have been informed that she only wants to be adopted if we bring her a bike.  Not buy a bike Bring her a bike to China. In effect she is requesting a dowry. This caused much consternation in the Avery household.  We have 7 bikes in the garage, Michael knows because he turns into a sailor every time he trips over them walking through the garage.  “Why do we have 7 bikes there are only 5 of us!?”  Well apparently Chelsea will now have one of them and if need be I will have to negotiate a second bike that I will hold in reserve to sweeten the pot. “No dear we did not bring you a bike; you see we could not decide which one to bring, you actually have two in Bonney Lake!”

Myriam took pictures of the bike we will offer her.  We also took pictures of the kids on the trampoline.  However, now that I think about it Chelsea has probably never seen a trampoline, to her it looks like a soft sided cage that the kids are trying as hard as they can to vault over the side.  I can hear here now "this is the american version of timeout?"Better start the therapy jar early.  9 years in China and then catapulted into the American excess.  We have a lot of catching up to do.