New Photos have been added.

I have added some additional photos to the "photos from China" section.

More to come in the next few days as we get back on a normal schedule.
Larry

We are home!

We landed in Jacksonville and should be home within the hour.

We will be adding photos and updating with reports about the trip soon.

technical problems

Larry Katz cannot get the internet at his location. When he is able he will update his blog about the girls. Stay tuned.   his POP Ron

The girls

New Photos

I just added some photos to the photos from China section on the side. I am having some issues getting them directly to the blog.

Larry

Family Day: Dateline Nanchang December 12, 2010

We boarded our flight from Hong Kong to Nanchang around 11:30 am on the 12th and during our hour flight our stewardesses had not only done a brief beverage service, but had also served a hot meal.  We were greeted at the airport by CC and Evelyn our agency reps.  More on them later, but for now let me just say they are the best!

It was raining and we had a quick walk to our bus using hotel umbrellas.  During the ride to the hotel were were given our itinerary and were told that we would be receiving the babies at 5:00 pm.  My heart started to race - the big day was finally here. Our daughters who until now were abstractions made up of brief reports and a few photos were about to become real flesh and blood children.  

When we got to the hotel we checked in - our room is very nice with a big bathroom and a little area with a counter and fridge.  Larry took some video of the room before we destroyed it.  We will post some later.  As soon as we were unloaded we went down for our briefing.  Evelyn and CC were very good at conveying a lot of information quickly.  We were about half way through we the back door opened and someone holding a little girl in red peeked in.  I was certain it was one of the girls.  My ability to absorb any more of what was said was shot.  So I took notes and hoped they would make sense later.  

We were told to go up to our rooms and then come back down.  When we came out of the room a beautiful little girl in a red Chinese outfit was walking with her nanny - I just knew it was one of the girls.  We raced up stairs and then back down.  When we walked into the room I was so close to bursting into tears.  There were our daughters they looked like little Chinese Christmas elves with their little jeweled hats and Chinese silks.  We both took a daughter into our arms and the love that I had for those little abstract photo children grew even bigger.  I never knew how much love I could have - my love for Larry takes up so much room that I know my heart must have tripled in size to hold all three.  My family is now complete.

Susanne

We have the girls!!

I can not believe the feelings. The love I have for two people I have just met is indescribable. I will let Susanne blog about seeing them for the first time. I simply want to introduce you to Rose and Roni Katz.

I am holding Rose.

Baba
爸爸

We are in Hong Kong!

Or as it should be titled The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of travel to China.

It started out bad, we had to get up at 3:30am to get ready for our 6:00am flight out of Jacksonville. I was up at 2 worrying about not getting up at 3:30. The good is we were through security in less than 10 minutes with no full body searches. We only had one small hiccup in security when they decided to test my backpack for bomb making residue (they did not find any),they said it had something to do with the excessive amount of electronics that were in my backpack. So what is the definition of excessive?

We took off and went to Chicago. We then had a 5 hour wait in Chicago for the flight to Hong Kong.

The flight to Hong Kong was good and bad. The good was it went very smoothly after a 45 minute wait on the tarmac. We actualy made up 30 minutes of the time and only landed 15 minutes late. The staff were very atentative to us we got two hot meals which were good on the airplane scale of foodness. They came by every hour or so with some water although is was only about 2 ounces, just enough to get your mouth wet. The ugly was after 5 hours on the plane we both felt like we had lived our entire lives on that plane and we still had over 10 hours to go before we landed.

Hong Kong:
Our arrival at Hong Kong was uneventful, immigration took less than 10 minutes because as the line got long the staff opened up more windows and moved us through (Disney should pay attention to this). We came out of the customs area looking for our guide, we found Cecelia almost immediately and she had us stand and wait for the other family from CCAI that was on our flight. We left the airport by bus for the hotel which was about 30 minutes away. While we were driving to the hotel she told us about Hong Kong. She told us that if we wanted to go out and walk about the city that we could and that it was a very safe city. She said this at least 3 different times on the way to the hotel. The third time she mentioned this she did add the caviat to watch out for pickpockets (safe?). Cecilia checked us into the hotel without incident. The one small glitch was when we tried to leave the room to get dinner we were not able to use the safe as it would not lock. I contacted the front desk who sent a young lady to show me (the person with excessive electronics) how to use the safe. She then sent for engineering to fix it, engineering then sent for a new safe to put in our room. We had a late dinner.

The room is good, although the mattress feels like we are sleeping on a box spring instead of a mattress. My back actually feels good this morning. I may have to get one of these for the house.

We are going on a half day tour of Hong Kong today and tomorrow we fly to Nanchang and get our girls.

I will try and post some pictures later today.

Larry

Waiting to board

We have successfully made it to Chicago and are waiting for them to let us board the plane to Hong Kong.

Larry

On Our Way

So the first leg of the trip is done. We have a 3:45 am wake up call. I don't know that I'll be able to sleep tonight.

In four days we will finally see our daughters face to face and will be able to hold them and tell them how much we love them. The past few weeks have gone so fast and yet each hour seems to take forever.

Next week in China!!!

I can not believe that it is almost time for Susanne and I to fly to China to get our girls.  It was 5 years ago on Thanksgiving weekend when we filled out the application form and started our paperchase for our child.  Little did we know that we would be waiting 5 years, but we also did not know that we were going to be gifted with two beautiful little girls who we will be meeting in 13 days. 

Their room has been almost done for four years lacking just a crib or a bed.  Now it has two adorable toddler beds in it just waiting for little ones to sleep in them. 

Soon Susanne's and my life will change forever, I wish it was today!

Larry
Baba
爸爸

I have had a few people ask me where Rose and Roni are, so please see the maps below.

The girls are currently in Jiangxi Provence.  In the above map locate Hong Kong in the lower right and then go up to Guangdong provence and then Jiangxi.

In the map above just above the A in Jiangxi is a city called Xinyu.  This is where Rose and Roni have spent there entire lives.  We will  flying into the capital of the Provence Nanchang (up and to the right of Xinyu) on December 12th and getting the girls the same day.

New PHOTOS Hot off the press

Roni

Roni

Rose

Rose

Consulate Appointment

Well late yesterday we received word that we had an appointment at the US consulate in Guangzhou. It is for December 21st. We still need to work with the US goverment to make sure the correct paperwork is at the consulate when we get there, but that seems to be smoothing out right now.  So based on the consulate appointment here is the timeline.

We will leave either December 8th or 9th.  We need to be in Hong Kong on the 10th.
We will fly to Nanchang on Sunday, December 12^th and we will receive our children on the 12^th. 

We will take the oath on the afternoon of December 21st.
We will receive our children’s visas on the afternoon of December 23rd.
We will fly home either the 24th or 25th of December.

Larry

We have received our TA

We have received our TA (Travel Agreement) from China.  As far as they are concerned we can come and get the girls.  Today we also recieved our Visa's back from the Chinese consulate.  All we need now is an appointment from the US consulate in China.  Of course at this point we still do not know if the embassy ever received the completed I171 from the US government.  Hopefully we will know soon.

Larry
Soon to be Baba (爸爸)

USCIS Fun

So now everything is done and we are waiting for our TA and an appointment from the US Embassy, Right? Wrong.  The NVC (National Visa Center) has not received our I-171 from the NBC (National Benifits Center).  What does this mean?  The NVC can not send the information to the Embassy until they get the updated information from the NBC.  The Embassy in Guangzhou will not schedule an appointment for us without the document and we can not go get our girls until we have an appointment.  It is maddening to think that after 5 years of waiting we have to go through something like this.

I have a call in to our officer at the NBC, she took care of us when we needed the I-171 finished, so I hope that she will come through for us now.

Larry

Unexpected Miracles

Whenever Larry goes away for business he comes back with a gift for me.  Since we have gotten closer to the referral the gifts have been smaller in dollar value, but often times very sentimental.  The last trip he took he gave me two beaded bracelets called lucky karma beads.  The first was rose quartz and the card said love.  The second was agate beads and the card said unexpected miracles.  I have worn both bracelets since he gave them to me.

Flash forward to our referral – we were expecting one child, but we have had a name for a second daughter almost from the start just in case.  That big old red thread was working and the miracle that is Rose was realized and along with her came the unexpected miracle - Roni.  I feel so blessed that Larry and I are being given the honor of raising these two girls. 

Susanne

Rose New Pictures

Roni New Pictures

Surprise!

Much to our surprise today we found that not only did we receive our match for our adoption from China, we received TWINS.
Susanne and I are absolutely overjoyed.
So without further ado let me introduce our two girls.
Veronica JoAnn Fei Katz and Susanna Rose Fei Katz

Veronica who we will call Roni

Roni is 25 months old her Chinese name is Yu Da Fei she is currently at the Xinyu SWI in Jiangxi Province.

Susanna who we will call Rose

Rose is 25 months old her Chinese name is Yu Xiao Fei she is currently at the Xinyu SWI in Jiangxi Province.