One Month From Today

Exactly one month from today, we will be boarding a plane for China. Thus will begin the final leg of an exhausting, yet life-fulfilling journey. We have begun to get aquainted with our travel-mates. 4 families from Bethany will be traveling together... One from the Detroit area, one from the St. Louis area, one from nearby northwest Indiana, and us from the Chicago area. We will be meeting together here in Chicago and flying out of O'Hare non-stop to Beijing. The details are falling into place, and the excitement is building now. It's difficult to describe, but I keep getting this picture in my head. There was a day when I gave my life to Jesus Christ, and on that day He called me his child... an orphan no longer. Oh, how we long to say those words to our sweet Raina.

SWI of Putian City

To Melissa, (the one who commented that she is also adopting from the SWI of Putian City) - our Raina is indeed from the same orphanage. If you view my profile, you can click the link to send me an email.

We've Got A DATE!

Yeah, you read it right. Wednesday, October 21st, 2009... we will be flying from Chicago to Beijing, China. The date is set - and we are excited to go! For those of you who have been with us since the beginning of our journey, you know how much this means. To actually have a date somehow makes it so REAL. Just 5 more weeks... and we're outta here. Beautiful Raina, mama & baba are coming...

Test Post For China (w/ Spector Logo)

This is a test posting to see if I can email my posts into Blogger in China, because the site may be blocked. jcuratolo.waitingforraina@blogger.com

Update!!!

We sent a care package to Raina's orphanage last week. We used a service run by a wonderful girl in China named Ann (redthreadchina.com). She put together a little photo album of our family (with pics that I emailed to her) for Raina to have. We also sent a little doll/blanket, and a cute duffle bag for her belongings to bring home when we pick her up. We also asked Ann to try and get any updated information from the orphanage about our little girl. Well, today we received a great email with updated measurements such as: height (33 inches), weight (27.5 lbs), feet size, head & chest size, and how many teeth she has (16 little chompers). Not only are we thrilled with her growth progress, we were also told "She can walk by herself now, she can crawl steps, she can catch water and drink it by herself too!" And... NEW PICTURES! Just as we suspected, since the climate she lives in is similar to Florida, they keep her head buzzed - but we think she is the most adorable thing anyway. Now, we just want to GO, and it shouldn't be too much longer before we know when that will be. Stay glued...

Happy Birthday!

Today is Raina's birthday. She is 2 years old today. I'm not sure if the orphanage will recognize her birthday... (they might not even know it). But today, we will sing Happy Birthday to this beautiful little girl, we will light some candles and we will eat a few cupcakes in celebration of this little milestone in her life. She won't have any idea that on the other side of the earth, a family she doesn't know yet will be thinking of her on this day. (Well... we think of her every day anyway.) And I can promise you, her next birthday... well let's just say- we're sure she'll remember that one.

Raina's Bedroom

Thought I'd post a pic of the progress we've made in Raina's room. We just have a few things left to hang on the walls, but other than that... It's finally done. Gotta always hand it to Laura - her color choices never fail. We think our little girl's gonna like it. This sure is a far cry from the Blue & Yellow of the "Michigan" room... We're proud of it.