EMAIL AND PICTURES!!!!

Love this one below!
We got an email from the orphanage nanny just now! She is known to absolutely love all the children there at "Z" and wants the very best for them. In her email this is what it said (remember that is was typed in Chinese and translated so the translation isn't the greatest but you can get the idea):

Thank you very much love to zhong yong, Thank you, you can adopt him, he has your parents, we feel very honored, and we do not know the how to thank you for.He is a very sunny, and intelligent little boy, he is now getting along very well, rest assured.
Mom and Dad, he is often ahead of schedule in front of me and I'll tell him you are trying to apply to adopt the relevant procedures, thank you.
Miss zhong

More Pictures!

These are from a friend on the Yahoo Chat Group, Vicki. She is adopting the girl who is in the yellow Hello Kitty shirt (Allie). It's her birthday so Vicki had a birthday cake sent to her. Brayden is right next to her on her left. Can't wait to get to bring him home!!

More Surprise Pictures!

I-800A Approval!!!

God continues to orchestrate this whole adoption for us, time and time again and today was no exception! I just posted how we are waiting for Homeland Security/Immigration to issue an approval for us to adopt and how it usually takes 60 to 75 days for approval...well, today at day 30 we received our approval! Day 30!!! What?!?! Definitely was NOT expecting that in the mail! That cuts a month off our wait already! I can't believe it. Next step, sending this to be authenticated by the Chinese Consulate and then our paperwork can go to CHINA! Wooo Hooo!

New pictures, finger prints, and the wait...

We received a new picture of Brayden on Friday, thanks to another family who were there visiting "Z" (Brayden's orphanage) last week. This is what she wrote in her note to me:

"Zhong Yong is so handsome :) and seems very eager to have a family. I say that because he seemed happy to have his picture taken..very bright eyed! Other boys around his age were huddling around Ms. Zhong when we were taking Zhong Yong's picture asking, "Have you found a family for us yet?" So heart breaking. But I am so happy that Zhong Yong has found his family!!!!! :)" So nice to hear that he seems happy and is doing well but I can't help but picture that image of the other boys hoping to hear they have a family too. Oh how I wish things were different. I wish families were on a waiting list waiting for a child to become "available" instead of children on waiting lists wishing, hoping, praying that they get word that they too have a family finally! I wish more families would step out on that sometimes scary branch and adopt a child. This is the ultimate "not being picked for the team" and no child should have to get passed over again and again hoping for someone to take him/her home. Please pray for these children.

These pictures do however make the wait for travel a little bit easier (even though we haven't waited even near what some families wait, by any means, it is still hard knowing you have a child a half a world away). We are currently just waiting for USCIS (Homeland Security/Immigration) to give us our approval so we can send our paperwork to China. We are only at day 28 of what is usually a 60 day (or longer) wait, so we still have a ways to go. We did however, go today to the always exciting Immigration Office to take our finger prints. That experience is just as exciting as the Social Security Office...maybe more exciting. Glad that part is done and behind us.

As we wait we still continue to fundraise. Honestly, I am so tired of fundraising (and I'm sure our friends are tired of hearing about our fundraising efforts) but we still need thousands of dollars to be able to travel to China and bring Brayden home. We received a large grant from JSC Foundation which is a HUGE blessing but after doing our taxes we found out we will not be receiving the large refund we received last year, so thank God we received that grant. We are still waiting to hear on another grant from Show Hope so hopefully that comes through. My dear, sweet friends are holding a boutique for us on February 25th and the proceeds will go towards our adoption. Then hopefully the last thing we will have is our Both Hands Fundraiser which is coming up on March 10th. This is one that I am super excited about because it is not only raising money for our adoption but also helping a widow at the same time! You can find out more about this fundraiser by clicking here. Feel free to share this site with others as well!

I have no doubt that God will continue to provide for this adoption, He has a way of doing things like that!

Please continue to keep us and this adoption in your prayers.

New Pictures!

I just love being part of the Yahoo Chat Group for those adopting from Zhongshan (the orphanage Brayden is at)! I get to follow other family's journey to adopt their children at the same orphanage, find families who are adopting Brayden's friends, see pictures, and make new friends. One lady, Gretchen, is there right now bringing home their daugher Makinley. Today she visited Z (as we call it) and took pictures of all the children waiting for their families to come and bring them home. Because she was able to fit the visit into her schedule, we were able to get a couple new pictures of Brayden. He has the hood on his head and looks very happy. In the second picture, the boy he has his arm around, I met his mom on the chat group. She lives in Washington but has also lived in Tulare when she was younger! How crazy! She has 2 biological children and has adopted a girl from China in 2008 (the same year we adopted Kennedi). Anyway, it looks like the boys have a great friendship and since we don't live too far from each other, the boys can stay in contact with one another!

We Have a Home Study and a Name!

We finally received word today that our home study is officially complete! With all the holidays and people being "out of the office", it really held things up a bit. Unfortunately this caused us to not meet the December 31st deadline for the Show Hope grant. I was really hoping to meet this deadline because Show Hope has a long process and wait time before you hear anything back from them. We can however still apply and their next deadline is February 28th; then it takes 90 days after the deadline date to hear anything back. That will put us at the end of May before hearing anything from them. With the other organization we are applying to however, JSC Foundation, there is no deadline date and you hear back within 3 weeks. We will mail our application tomorrow. I have heard quite a few people have received good size grants from this organization so you can be praying for this over the next 3 weeks if you think about us.

Now on to the second half of this post title...we have finally settled on a name. Some of you may think we are crazy with the whole name specifics. Honestly we did not plan the whole 7 letter name thing when we named Katelyn and Bradley, it just turned out that way. So when we added Kennedi to the family, we figured we needed to keep the tradition going, and we can't stop with her. We had many suggestions of 7 letter B names for Zhong Yong but we kept going back to Brayden every time. Plus it sounds best with Yong. So his name will be Brayden Yong Salvador. Hope he likes it.

So with our homestudy done, the next step is to have everything certified by the state and then authenticated. We also apply to homeland security for the right to adopt internationally. This is all government stuff and so the timeframe for this part of the process is always up in the air and sometimes frustrating. Best estimate would be mid-March and then all this paperwork heads to China for their official approval. As long as we keep moving forward...it's all good. :)