World's most boring travel blog...

Honestly it is like watching a clock. We really won't be booking until the fall and in the meantime we just keep living. School is out for the summer and you can either bookmark us and come back or check out our other blogs.....past and present. They are under the LINKS area to your right. For me I will continue to do my homework and arrange the best trip (trips) ever.

Nothing new...

Naturally this blog will be quiet until we begin to make travel arrangements. I am thinking October or November. I still go to kayak and expedia et cetera and price our flights out but it is kind of silly because we don't know what fuel surcharges will be like in the future. I still am thinking we will go to Hope and I still think spring break. Since we are also thinking of trying to go to England next year we may switch travel times. Maybe UK in early summer and China later. Don't know. Part of me would love to go back to Starfish for at least a couple of days but not sure how helpful we were or would be if we went again and without Brittany........it wouldn't be much of a holiday for my girls. China is definitely our number one priority. I took Isabel so now I must take the younger girls.

Air fares...

Had I been smart and had I the money I should have booked our flights a few weeks back.

Sadly, I did not and now since fuel has sky rocketed I will have to pay the surcharges. It is becoming clear that I will have to book by about September or so to get any deals. Whether the cash will be available is another story.

I am also investigating other airlines. Last time we used Air China and I had no complaints coming or going. The individual TV's were good and kept us entertained.  We had books and magazines and munchies. The girls can bring their Nintendos. What else could we need? Actually once on the planes I didn't find the flights all that long. It is the layovers and waiting that is tedious.

It would be a dream to fly first or business class but that is way beyond our plan of a budget trip so it will remain a dream!

I am excited already and it is still months away. The planning is part of the adventure for me.

I hope this time we can be more helpful than last time but we will do what we can.

Update...

I am learning a lot on this journey to a journey. Hope is looking more and more like the place we will be heading for. While reading all about the terrible tragedy of Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman and his family, and the loss of their little girl, I came across his connection to Joyce and Robyn Hill. He and his wife and their organization are building a home in Henan province. It maybe the a place that could use us. I will keep you posted.

( http://shaohannahshope.org) 

Found another one...

Have discovered another foster home in China run by Westerners. It is called Home of Hope and is in GongYi village in Henan Province and a second Home in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province not far from where Grace was born. It has a very nice website and no doubt I will be exploring that over the next few days. I have been in email contact with the Director and he seemed receptive. Stay tuned!!! I am learning alot.

Check out my cool ticker...

Blogging is so much fun I don't understand why everyone doesn't do it!!!

See our cute little plane ready to just take off?

I have just under 10 months to pull this one off and I have every reason to belief that we can do it!!

I know of folks who have traveled or are planning to travel back and I would love to hear about the planning or the actual trips. Obviously these will happen more and more as the children get older and the agencies will scramble for customers now that the adoption trips are sadly dwindling.

Actually have something to say...

My little emailing fingers have been talking to Joyce at the Hope Foster Home outside of Beijing.

Now Hope is a foster home we have actually visited way back in 2001 on Grace's adoption trip. I had met over the internet a Canadian ex pat teaching in China and when I traveled to get Grace we hooked up so her daughter could play with mine since they were close in age. Kirsty was very warm and welcoming and we were at her apartment a couple of times. She took us to Hope which was an organization her school supported with donations and such. I am so sorry I lost touch with Kirsty. 

 Joyce was out of country at that time but I did talk to her husband and he outlined what they planned to do and how. Back then they were in a different location and had just 16 babies. I was impressed at how well organized and well run the place was. Now 7 years later they have 155 babies and 4 sites and palliative nurseries .......exactly how they had planned it. I am still impressed.

 Also through the internet I was contacted by a woman in Ontario who found our blog on our spring trip and she and her daughter had been at Hope the previous fall. So we got to chatting and I looked at their web site again and pondered.....and thought and did some math. I think we might go to Hope next spring break.

I am not sure what we would do but surely we could be of service in some meaningful way. Joyce has said no problem and was fine with bringing the girls. 

Thanks be to God!