It Changes Again

Last night we had a very nice Skype with SongSong (aka Ned, aka Zane).  He was nervous (so were we) and the translator kept making him sit up straight in his chair :).  He has obviously been in contact with Dusty (aka Seth, aka Zhang Yun) since he already knows that we live closest to the amigo who is already state-side. He wondered about how we were going to handle school when he comes here, if he was going to be the oldest of our kids (he's not, Oscar is), where we like to go on vacation (he wants to go to the ocean, he said he's never been). I told him my sister lives near the ocean.  We learned he likes to eat potatoes, apples and ice cream.  He likes cats better than dogs (out of luck there, we have 2 dogs, 0 cats).  His favorite subject in school is Chinese, math not-so-much.  He likes to play basketball and plays on a team at school.  Sounds like he likes table tennis too, it was hard to hear sometimes - the connection wasn't great.  He wears glasses - which we didn't know before.  And like Stacey Sanders (Dusty/Seth's mom - see blog link to the right) said, he was all smiles the whole time we talked to him.  There were many long pauses while we tried to think of things to ask each other but all in all it was just good to see him animated rather than only in still pictures.

New development in the paperwork this morning.  We have our NVC letter, but no word on Article 5 - still (no Article 5 = no travel approval for several days).  I'm at a cunundrum as to what to do next.  Do we change our departure date and leave on July 19th instead of July 12th?  Or should we just go on the 12th anyway and just change our departure date (i.e. spend more time in China)?  I contacted the company that arranged our air travel and asked about what it would take to change it now.  We'll see what they say.  I also contacted our hotel in Chengdu, but I already know we can change those dates without penalty. I just wanted them to know there could be a change.

Just continuing to ride the roller-coaster that is international adoption...


**********UPDATE**********
Cunundrum solved.  We went ahead and rebooked everything a week out (now leaving on July 19th).  It seemed the only logical thing to do when we really thought about it.  Praying we receive Article 5 next week!