It has been a really crazy week around here trying to get everything ready to leave, but I'm pretty sure we're going whether we're ready or not!
Poor Kai is getting Very, Very Excited, and we are too busy to really give him the attention he needs. Tomorrow everything changes and the adventure really begins. I am looking forward to getting in the car and driving away. I'm tired of planning and getting ready. I want to be going and doing.

We had our weekly Sunday dinner with Cam and his girlfriend Brittni. We have had no time to cook this week so we were going to take them out, but then we didn't have time for that either, so we ordered Chinese take-out and sent all four of the kids (Cam, Brittni, Ben and Kai) to go pick it up. It gave us a few minutes to clean and pack without Kai. It's weird leaving the two big boys behind this time. We worry about them, but know they'll be fine.

Tonight for bedtime I read a Monkey King story to Kai. It's a big artsy book his Aunt Erin gave to him. It skims through the basics of the plot, including Monkey's defiance of Buddha. Kai always listens very intensely to it. In the end, Guan Yin helps Monkey solve a problem, and the moral is about learning to accept help from others. After I read the story to him I told him that maybe we would see the Monkey King when we were in China. Then he told me he didn't want to see the Monkey King. I reminded him of how Big Bird saw the Monkey King in China, and he told me he wanted to see Big Bird. I told him we could watch the DVD on the trip. After I tucked him in and turned off the light, I was sitting on the floor by his bed singing our standard lullabies, and he said to me, "Baba?"
"Yes Kai," I answered.
"I want to see Buddha."
"We'll see Buddha in China." I assured him.

I finished our lullabies.
And now I have to finish packing.
Next update will be from China!

Bob, A.K.A. Yang Baoshan, was our guide in Baoding and Shijiazhuang in 2005 when we adopted Kai. We really felt a connection with him, and have had a few email exchanges over the last two years. When we decided to return to Baoding on this trip we were really hoping that we would be able to have him for our guide again. The last time we corresponded with him regarding the possibility was in March, after that we didn't have any firm idea as to when we would travel until July 18. So we were worried he might not be available during our time there, but tonight we got an email from him letting us know that he will be our guide for that part of our journey!

As Tina and I were excitedly discussing this she made the observation that this is just one more thing that makes the experience of this trip feel much more transparent to us in advance; we already know our guide for this leg of our trip. It goes along with all these photos and video images we've received of Shen, which gives us so much clearer an image of who he is. I think we still have lots of surprises in store for us, both in terms of who Shen really is, as well as what lies ahead on this trip, but it is comforting and reassuring to know that Bob will be there for us when we get off the plane in Beijing!

Another family from the Xi'an CWI Yahoo group ended up traveling much sooner than they expected, so we didn't even know they were there, but they got these great pictures for us! We have only four days before we travel now!!!

We are now exactly one week from travel!
We have our tickets and our travel itinerary. With these in place it makes it very difficult to try to think of Shen's adoption and the accompanying trip to China in an abstract way. Tina is doing pretty much everything. I am starting to feel like a deer in the headlights. Ben has managed to flee, he went to the coast with a friend's family for four days.

We discovered one of our large suitcases has a broken zipper, so Tina bought a replacement last night. She ended up getting a bundle deal that had an overhead sized case and some some carry-on bags as well. The new luggage about pushed Kai over the edge. He proceeded to pack Stinky-Mouse into one of the smaller cases and wheel him around the house while repeating "This my suitcase. Go to China. Get Little Brother." At bedtime he had to have the suitcase in his room and he showed me more things he was taking to China for little brother. Kai is very clearly aware of our plans now and it's funny to see him working through it all, as four-year-olds are so external in the way they process things. (I'm processing here on the internet)

So, here is the first draft of our itinerary.

• Aug. 01st: Arrive in Beijing (Guide to meet family at airport. travel to BaoDing by van)
• Aug. 02nd: Visit BaoDing SWI.
• Aug. 03rd: Visit office of Governor-General of HeBei province. Old Lotus Pond. Lunch.
• Aug. 04th: BaoDing-Beijing Airport. Fly to Xi'an - Xi’an guide meet family at airport.
• Aug. 05th: Visit Xi’an SWI.
• Aug. 06th: Meet child at Civil Affairs. Sign agreement.
• Aug. 07th: The family will go to Civil Affairs for registration, notary and apply passport.
• Aug. 08th: One day tour to Terra-Cotta Figures.
• Aug. 09th: Enjoy shadow play.
• Aug. 10th: Take passport. - Fly to Guangzhou.
• Aug. 11th: Medical. Take photo for child. Visit Chen Clan.
• Aug. 12th: Half day tour to Six Banyan Temple.
• Aug. 13th: 10:30 visa appointment. Pearl River Cruise.
• Aug. 14th: Take visa in the afternoon.
• Aug. 15th: Leave Guangzhou 9:30 AM

We are asking they move our visit to the Xi'an SWI to after we receive Shen. We don't want to meet him and not take him with us. We are pretty confident this change will be worked out. Other than that, the itinerary looks pretty good to us. We are excited about getting to see some more of Baoding, and that they have scheduled a visit to Kai's SWI for us. We have a list of additional things we want to try and see if it works out, but really I'd be fine with being locked in a windowless room the whole trip as long as we get Shen!

Hold your breath.
Make a wish.
Count to three.

Come with me,
And you'll be
In a world of
Pure imagination.
Take a look
And you'll see
Into your imagination.

We'll begin
With a spin
Traveling in
The world of my creation.
What we'll see
Will defy
Explanation.

If you want to view paradise,
Simply look around and view it.
Anything you want to, do it.
Wanta change the world?
There's nothing
To it.

There is no
Life I know,
To compare with
Pure imagination.
Living there,
You'll be free
If you truly
wish to be.

My favorite line from this song is "Wanta change the world? There's nothing to it."
Sometimes it is hard for me to believe this. Then we book plane tickets to China.

Our agency told us today that we have received Travel Approval from China! Now we are waiting for a U.S. consulate appointment date so we can book our travel arrangements. We are hoping for a consulate appointment of 8/13 or 8/20, and then we're on our way!!!

We are feeling pretty confident that we are getting close to traveling. In the meantime, we were very excited to receive a DVD from the last family we know to have been at Shen's CWI. I've edited out a short version with just the shots of Shen. I set it to a song Tina and I both like that I initially chose for its length, but the lyrics seem quite fitting. Shen is the one in the denim shirt and the pink pants.

Okay, this is kind of a technical entry, but if you are reading Shen's blog through an RSS aggregator like Bloglines you will want to update your subscription.
The software I use to publish this site has a bug in the current version that is forcing it to upload the entire site with each new entry I make. Consequently the upload time for blog entries was getting quite long. I was concerned about how this might work while we are in China. Since I will only be making updates to Shen's blog while we are traveling I decided to split that page out into it's own site. It looks the same, and has links in and out of the Stinky Mouse blog in the same way, but the URL address has changed. It used to be:
http://homepage.mac.com/socheltree/mouse/page9/page9.html (this is now a redirect page)
but now it's:
http://homepage.mac.com/socheltree/shen/

I have also moved all the pictures in the entries to PhotoBucket. This way they aren't contained in the blog file that's uploaded each time, only the referencing HTML code (hey, I warned you this was a technical post). This has changed the size of Shen's blog on the server from 4.5 MB to only 463 KB. That is a LOT smaller! This way when I'm writing new entries in China the uploads won't be too crazy.
Sorry for this technical interruption. Hopefully we'll have some exciting news to report soon!