It's official! We leave for China soon

This week I received what is probably one of the best Valentine's and birthday presents I could have received: We got our Travel Approval!! Our agency notified us today that they received our Travel Approval from China today and they expect us to travel the first week of March. They have tentatively told us to expect to leave on March 4! We are SO excited we can barely contain ourselves. We'll be travelling with a group of about ten other families.

Our agency is confirming with the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou, China, our appointment date to get Julia sworn in as a U.S. citizen and then we'll be able to book our airfare!! In the meantime we are going to be swamped getting things ready for her at home and getting packed. As soon as we get our final itinerary we'll post it for you, but I'm pretty sure we'll be flying into Beijing.

We were also fortunate this week to get an update on Julia. As of February 5 she is 13 months old and weighs 20 pounds!! I wish we had updated photos but we'll see her in just over two weeks!!

Other things going on:
Anna is doing great. She is still doing a lot of independent standing in the pool and we are thrilled. She has come so far and I'm so proud of her.

My stepdaughter, Kaitlyn, just bought a car!! She worked a long time to be able to get her car, a red Kia (UGA colors!!) and we're thrilled for her. It's so hard to go to college and work at the same time.

Our dog is still a pain in the you-know-what. He's got this thing now where after we leave for the day he'll take the loaf of bread or whatever happens to be on the table and eat it all. It's been cold/rainy so we don't leave him outside all of the time. Any ideas on how to break him of this would be appreciated.

My parents have figured out how to get revenge on my sister: give her son (Robbie, 1) M&M's!! He's wired for hours after he has chocolate. It's so cute though!!!