Travel Itinerary

Today we received our official itinerary for our in-China travel. It basically gives a detailed schedule of where we will be, and the things we will be doing on a daily basis. It looks like there's some exciting things for us to see and do, as well as a good amount of down time... just waiting for appointments. In a nutshell, it breaks down like this: We fly out of Chicago on Wednesday, October 21st - landing in Beijing on Thursday, October 22nd. We spend Friday and Saturday touring Beijing (I can't wait for that!). Sunday morning, we fly from Beijing to Fuzhou, the capital of the Fujian province. THAT SAME AFTERNOON, WE WILL BE RECEIVING RAINA! So, October 25th is what is affectionately referred to as "Gotcha Day". Monday the 26th, we have some official adoption appointments. Tuesday is a "free" day for us. Wednesday and Thursday we will be doing some more touring of the Fujian province. Friday the 30th, we will receive our final adoption documents from Raina's province and late that same evening we will take a flight from Fuzhou to Guangzhou. This is where the famous White Swan hotel is, and this is where we will spend the remainder of our time in China, doing all sorts of official adoption things. The schedule takes on a busier form here in Guangzhou. We will have medical appointments, visa appointments, and US consolate appointments every day beginning Saturday, 10/31 thru Thursday, 11/5. We then take our final in-country flight from Guangzhou to Hong Kong sometime after 11pm Thursday night (undoubtedly the toughest flight due to how late it is). We will spend our final night/early Friday morning (11/6) in a beautiful Hong Kong hotel before we prepare for our final 13+hour flight home to Chicago, a mere 11 hours later.
Without question, this will be the MOST demanding travel of our entire lives, with a 2 year old in tow. Pray for Raina, and pray for our endurance. We need to stay healthy... this is very important.